Page 3 of Merciless Vow
I knew the answer. So did Nell. Neither of us said a word.
Nell sat perfectly still, her hands resting lightly on the mahogany table. She watched as he tugged at the collar around his neck. She watched as sweat formed beads at his hairline. She waited until the precise second his lower lip gave a traitorous, microscopic quiver—the unmistakable sign of a man about to whimper.
Slowly, with a grace that was almost insulting, Nell leaned forward. The silk of her blouse whispered against the table as she reached out and, with a single finger, turned her leather binder toward him. She didn't look at him. She didn't smile. She just gave him the answers he was too weak to find on his own.
James scrambled for the binder like a drowning man for a life raft. His voice cracked as he read the figures straight off her page. "As... as you can see, the year-over-year growth is at twelve percent. A direct result of the strategic restructuring I implemented."
Nell’s smirk remained despite James taking her credit. The tilt of her lip was a razor-sharp reminder that while he wore the title of Senior Partner, she owned the room.
I fucking loved her.
She was the reason I was still working for this company. I could handle the theft of my work. I could handle the glass ceiling. I’d survived the Vane Pack; I could survive a mediocre human like James Sterling. A low growl swept across the room, and the men and women looked right and left.
"Melissa, you can't bring your poodle into the office without it being a licensed service animal."
"Mr. Teacup is at home today," Melissa said through pursed lips.
I pressed a hand to my belly before another sound could escape. The wolf was a physical weight in my gut, a restless, pacing heat that wanted to claw through my ribs. It wasn’t just adesire to get out; it was a demand. My muscles twitched with the suppressed memory of a run, the phantom ache of a shift I had denied for weeks. I shoved the beast back down into the dark, cold cellar of my mind.
It was a dangerous game I was playing. A wolf caged too long became a feral thing, its instincts curdling into a hair-trigger temper. But I didn’t have the luxury of a run. I had spent every waking hour for the last month as the ghost in Nell’s machine, grinding through the logistics of this deal.
We were closing today. Tonight, I promised my wolf. Tonight, I’d drive to the outskirts, strip off the silk and the shame of the human world, and let the air hit my fur.
The heavy mahogany door opened. A receptionist stepped into the room, looking as if she’d just seen a ghost. She bypassed James and came straight for me.
"Ms. O'Shea, there’s a call for you on the main line."
"Take a message, Sarah," I said, my voice flat. "I’m in a closing."
The girl swallowed hard, her eyes darting to Nell and then back to me. "I’m sorry, I tried, but he was… very insistent. He said it was a family emergency. He said it couldn't wait."
The silence in the room turned brittle. All eyes shifted to me. James looked annoyed at the interruption, but the rest of the partners were staring with that morbid human curiosity, waiting for me to bolt for the door in a panic.
I didn't bolt. I suppressed a sigh, my jaw tight. I forced myself to rise slowly, my movements deliberate and controlled, masking the fact that my heart was already beginning to hammer against my ribs.
I didn't want to deal with my family. I had spent the last ten years carving out a life that didn’t involve the Vane Den or the smell of stale beer and old blood. There was only one person inthat world I cared about, and Elias would have contacted me via the private server we set up. He knew my rules.
The fact that someone had called the firm—that they had gone to the trouble of hunting down my professional alias just to drag me back in—meant the human mask was about to be ripped off.
"Excuse me," I said to the room, my voice a hollowed-out version of its corporate self.
I didn't look at Nell as I walked out, though I felt her hazel eyes burning a hole in my back. I followed Sarah to the reception desk, my heels sounding like gavel strikes on the marble. I picked up the receiver, the plastic cold against my ear.
"This is Addie O'Shea," I said. Whoever was calling me, I knew I'd piss them off by using my mother's maiden name. But the hell I was going by Vane and making myself an easy target.
"Adolpha."
The sound of my father's voice was a bucket of ice water over my head. He sounded bigger than I remembered. The growl in his voice made my gaze dart around the reception area. But I knew he wasn't here. He stayed out of the crowded city, preferring to live further upstate where he could roam.
In an instant, the sterile, peppermint-scented air of the Sterling office was gone, replaced by the memory of the den; of raw meat, wet fur, and the suffocating pressure of an Alpha’s presence. I was six years old again, backed into a corner of the kitchen while his big, brown wolf snarled over me.
I could still see the way the light caught the yellow in his eyes, the way the saliva dripped from his black-lipped jowls as he pinned me to the floor with a single, heavy paw. A lesson in submission delivered through the weight of his ribs and the low, vibrating threat in his chest that told me I was nothing but a pup who needed to learn her place.
He had felt like a mountain then, a force of nature that could snuff out my life with a snap of his jaw. Standing here in my tailored skirt, the phone felt like a heavy stone in my hand. He wasn't even in the room, but the mere resonance of his voice made my pulse hammer with the old, instinctive terror.
"Yes, sir?" Manners had been drilled down so deep into my soul that I offered up the honorific he didn't deserve.
"You need to come home."
