Читать книгу Wolf In Waiting - Rebecca Flanders - Страница 6

Victoria

My name is Victoria St. Clare, and I am a werewolf. Now that we have that out of the way, let me be quick to point out that you would never know I’m a werewolf if you saw me on the street—or anywhere else for that matter. If you were a man, in fact, you’d probably ask me out; quite a few human men do.

They tell me I’m quite striking looking. I’m tall, five feet nine inches, and slender—one advantage to being a werewolf is that we never have to worry about our figures, what you see is what you get—with long black hair and gray eyes. My ivory complexion is due to the northern climes from which I hail, although I’ve always suspected a few weeks in St. Tropez would do wonders for my coloring, and I have the high cheekbones, patrician nose and full lips which are St. Clare-family characteristics. Many people—humans, that is—tell me I look like a ballet dancer, which I find enormously flattering. I think human ballerinas are some of the most beautiful creatures on earth, and I sometimes try to play up the resemblance by wearing tights and gauze skirts and pulling my hair back in a chignon.

But I don’t want you to think I’m vain. I am, of course—all werewolves are; we’re an exceptionally good-looking species and proud of it, but that’s not the only reason I told you all this. It’s important that you understand that many preconceptions you might have about werewolves are wrong.

For one thing, we don’t have hair all over our bodies or have long teeth and claws. For another, we don’t eat humans. Most of us, in fact, don’t even like the smell of humans—no offense intended, but our noses are exceptionally sensitive. We don’t go mad during the full moon. And you can’t become a werewolf by being bitten by one; you have to be fortunate enough to be born that way.

What is true about us will probably surprise you even more than what is false. For example, we’re listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Oh yes, several of our companies are Fortune 500. You see, the same cunning, skills and extraordinarily adaptive senses that enabled us to survive, indeed to thrive, for thousands of years in a wild and essentially hostile environment have evolved over time to make us kings in a very different kind of jungle: the world of human big business and corporate finance.

Our parent company, the St. Clare Corporation, is the umbrella under which we manufacture and merchandise everything from computer chips to perfumes. We are completely pack-owned and operated, although of course we employ quite a few humans and even sell stocks to them. We’re not averse to taking your money or using your skills when necessary, but make no mistake about it: The company belongs to werewolves; it is run by werewolves; it exists solely for the livelihood, ambition and perpetuation of werewolves.

We collect art; we go to the opera; we sun ourselves on the Côte d’Azur. We do business with you; we share cabs with you; we dine with you every day and you would never guess that we’re not one of you. Life is simpler that way, trust me.

As for me…I’m in advertising, a junior account executive in the marketing division of Clare de Lune, a very small cog in a very big wheel. Clare de Lune is a perfume company, and it is the foundation on which the St. Clare fortune was built. This shouldn’t surprise you. The werewolf sense of smell is approximately five hundred times greater than that of humans. What more appropriate business for us to be in than perfumery? You’ve probably worn some of our fragrances: Honesty, Ice, Ambition for Men? I know you’ve seen our television commercials. The one with the man getting out of bed and putting on his clothes in the morning—Wear Ambition or Nothing At All—was my idea, by the way, although no one will ever know it except you, me and the account exec who stole it.

I am twenty-six years old, and I’ve never had a date. This isn’t particularly surprising when you consider that I am a werewolf and most of my friends are humans. Werewolves don’t find me attractive for reasons I’d rather not go into right now, and I don’t find humans attractive for reasons that should be obvious. Actually, I do find humans entertaining, articulate and a great deal kinder than many of my own species, but to date one in the classic sense of the word—wherein one puts on sexy lingerie and enticing perfumes and puts clean sheets on the bed and engages in all kinds of other arcane rituals that humans, ever-hopeful, endure for the sake of finding a mate—well, the entire concept baffles me.

As for why I don’t attract members of my own species…well, allow me to get clinical for a moment. An essential part of our nature—some might even say the essential part of our nature—is the ability to change from human to wolf form and back again. The Change occurs at will, or can be triggered by strong emotion or sexual arousal. We mate only in the wolf form.

Most wolflings are born with the ability to change; all of them achieve it by the time they reach puberty. All except a few genetically disadvantaged anthromorphs, like me. I can’t change. In all other ways I am a perfect representation of our species, but for this one little defect I am considered a freak, a pathetic imitation of a real werewolf, an object of pity and scorn.

I learned to accept who I am and live with the antipathy—indeed, the rejection—of my own kind long ago. I’m not embarrassed to talk about it. I can’t erase my nature, and I see no point in trying. It is, however, sometimes a lonely existence.

So really, I can’t be faulted for finding Jason Robesieur’s dinner invitation flattering and for feeling, at this point in my life, just self-indulgent enough to accept. True, Jason is only a human, but he is very pleasant to look at, and among his kind considered a powerful and successful man. In fact, his company had given Clare de Lune reason to be alert over the past few years, and that was no small accomplishment.

Jason is a senior partner in the Gauge Group, one of the top Madison Avenue advertising agencies whose accounts include Sanibel Cosmetics, here in Montreal. I met him at a seminar in New York last year and was surprised and gratified that he knew some of my work. I found him pleasant and interesting to talk to, and since that time we have occasionally met for lunch when he was in town.

Dinner, of course, was an entirely different matter.

We were having lunch then, at an elegant little café that had become a favorite of ours. When he asked me to dinner, I hesitated so long that the moment became uncomfortable, and he laughed a little to cover the awkwardness.

“Say, I didn’t mean to cause a life crisis here. It’s just that I’m going to be in town for a few days and I thought…” He shrugged. “I’m not sure what I thought.”

I said quickly, “No, it’s just that…what I mean to say is, I don’t want you to think I’m…that is, I was just surprised.”

He gave me one of those very charming smiles. “No one’s ever asked you to dinner before?”

I knew better than to admit the truth. So I gave him one of my very coy, very secretive smiles.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I understand. It wouldn’t look good for you to be seen with me. After all, I represent—even if it is several times removed—your biggest competitor. And I’ve heard Clare de Lune is a real stickler about such liaisons.”

“The company is more like a family than an employer,” I agreed carefully.

That was an understatement. Loyalty to Clare de Lune—to the St. Clare Corporation—is practically a genetic trait. In this one way, perhaps more than any other, we have the advantage over human business. We stick together. We defend our own.

This of course made what happened later all the more difficult to understand. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I didn’t care what other werewolves thought of me, as I’d demonstrated on more than one occasion. But Jason didn’t know that, and I found I was glad that he had given me an excuse to decline his invitation. He was diverting enough for an occasional lunch, but what would I do with him for an entire evening? Suppose he wanted to get romantic. That would be bizarre. How could I ever explain that I simply wasn’t interested without hurting his feelings? No, better to simply avoid the problem in the first place.

Jason nodded. “The Japanese management technique. Well, there’s no denying it works. But Victoria…” And now his expression grew grave. “I’ve got to tell you, Clare de Lune might be your family, but they’re treating you like an ugly stepsister.”

I stiffened. “I really don’t see—”

“It’s true,” he insisted. “And if you don’t see, you’re the only one who doesn’t.”

I’d been about to say, “I really don’t see that it’s any of your business.” But, being human, he wouldn’t have understood that his pointing out to me that I was being badly treated was a worse insult than being badly treated in the first place.

I sighed. My instincts had been right from the start: relationships with humans were far more complex than they were worth.

“Victoria, listen,” Jason said earnestly. “I’m a senior partner with one of the most prestigious firms on Madison Avenue. I pay more in taxes every quarter than most people make in a year, and I didn’t get where I am today by ignoring the obvious. The fact is that you’re one of the most talented people Clare de Lune has. You’ve been working there for what, five years?”

“Six,” I corrected.

“And you haven’t had a single promotion. In all that time, you haven’t played a decision-making role in even one campaign. That’s not the way we handle our talent at the Gauge Group, I’ll tell you that, and you’ve got to know this is not the way a bright, ambitious young woman handles her career, either.”

I smiled and sipped my coffee, sorry our lunch was almost at an end. Jason might not have much potential as a social companion, but I did so enjoy these little debates. “And how does a bright, ambitious young woman handle her career?” I inquired.

“She comes to work for me,” Jason replied seriously.

For once, he left me speechless.

“I mean it, Victoria. I’ve spoken to Hammond Gauge about you, and he’s ready to bring you aboard. Of course you’d start out as a junior, but within a year you’d be managing your own accounts. And we’ll put that in writing. In the meantime, you’d be working under my direct supervision, and I personally promise you hands-on decision-making input in every account you work on.”

I put down my coffee cup slowly. “Why?” I asked.

He laughed. “I just offered you the chance of a lifetime, the best deal anybody’s got since Cinderella went to the ball, and that’s all you have to say? Why?”

“Well, thank you, of course,” I amended, “but if someone offered you the chance of a lifetime—and we haven’t agreed that’s what it is, yet—wouldn’t you be curious?”

“Not if I were you,” he replied frankly. “You’re good, you know that. You’re being wasted at Clare de Lune, you know that, too. You can bring an awful lot to us, and we know how to show our appreciation. What could be simpler?”

I caught the eye of a passing waitress across the room and signaled for the check. “You forget one thing,” I said. “I already have a job. And I’m very loyal to my employer.”

“You can’t be telling me you’re happy there.”

I hesitated. “I didn’t say that. But I am loyal.”

The waitress set the check between us. Jason reached for it, but I lifted a staying hand. “My turn. Besides—” I smiled at him sweetly “—we have an account here.”

His expression was dry. “Fringe benefit?”

“One of many,” I assured him.

We walked to the vestibule together and I waited with him for his car to be brought around. Jason helped me slip on my long, hooded silver fox coat. Yes, I wear fur. I get cold, okay? It’s fake fur, of course. It would be politically incorrect to wear anything else, even in Montreal, and even for a werewolf.

He drew the front of the coat closed beneath my chin, a charmingly affectionate gesture that made me smile. I wondered if he was in love with me, and then dismissed the notion immediately. But that would be interesting, and nothing interesting had happened to me in a long, long time.

“I’m in town for the rest of the week if you change your mind,” he said.

“About the job?”

“Or about going out with me.”

I smiled. “Goodbye, Jason. I had a lovely lunch.” I pulled open the door and hurried out into the blustery day.

I stuffed my hands into my pockets and walked the block to the Metro entrance, my head held high and my shoulders back, enjoying the taste of the wind. I wondered what had gotten into Jason. Not, of course, that anything he’d said about my employment was untrue. I was badly used and underappreciated, and I certainly would have a far better future in almost any human company than with Clare de Lune. But Jason and I had been friends for almost a year, and he surely knew me well enough by now to realize I would never leave Clare de Lune.

Would I?

The truth was, it was a fascinating possibility. To live in the human world, as one of them…this was hardly the first time the fantasy had crossed my mind. Even as a child, when all the other wolflings would tease and torment me to tears, I vowed to get even with them. I would show them all. I would run away to live with humans, which was the worst, most denigrating threat I could think of. Today, I practically did live with humans, and it wasn’t so bad, particularly considering the fact that humans were, in general, a great deal nicer to me than my own kind had ever been.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more appeal the idea had. All my friends were humans. Jason was right: I had gone as far as I would ever go with Clare de Lune, which was nowhere. And I had so much more to offer. But if I worked for a human company…with my natural cunning and imagination, with my enhanced senses and with all I had learned about being the best in the business from the best in the business…why, within five years I could be running any human company that let me get a foot in the door.

And of course, such a thing was not entirely without precedent. Michael St. Clare, heir apparent to the entire St. Clare empire and future leader to us all, had only last year walked away from his family and his fortune to go and live with humans. He had even married one of them. As a group, we were still reeling with shock from that one. And I suppose that knowing how much distress Michael had caused everyone did take some of the appeal from the prospect of striking out on my own.

Still, it was a pleasant fantasy, and I smiled over it during the brief subway ride to the office. Unlike the subways in most major cities, the Montreal Metro is clean, safe and relatively enjoyable. The train took me back to the main business and shopping district, and I did not even have to go outside to reach my office. I followed the underground brick sidewalk past bright store windows filled with colorful displays, then hurried through the revolving door that leads to the elevators for Clare de Lune.

The offices that house the marketing division of Clare de Lune are like any other in the city, perhaps a little more expensive, a little more elegantly decorated. We use only the best, and the company has a great deal of money to spend. No one would ever know, upon entering, that it was an office managed by werewolves.

First of all, as I’ve mentioned, werewolves are not distinguishable from humans by appearance, except, of course, that they are a little more handsome, a little more beautiful and possess, I am told, a noticeably higher level of sex appeal than the average human. Second, in the Montreal office, we employ a much higher percentage of humans than anywhere else in the company. The fact of the matter is that, although werewolves are superior in many ways—again, no offense intended—when it comes to marketing our products to the human world, we are smart enough to rely heavily on humans.

The support staff and quite a large percentage of the junior account executives are human. All of the management and senior account executives are werewolves. But as I said, it looks like any other advertising office for any other company in any other city in the world.

Before I got off the elevator I heard voices, scraps of conversation that humans would have no idea I could overhear even if they had thought to conceal their voices from me. Did I mention the werewolf sense of hearing is also several hundred times more acute than humans’? And mine, without meaning to brag, is in the high range of normal even for a werewolf.

“Must be something big—”

“You can tell he’s important just by the way he walks.”

“Yeah, and that eighty-thousand-dollar limo doesn’t hurt any, either.”

“But why was he asking about her? Of all people—”

“Well, he’s waiting for her now and he didn’t look any too—”

“Trouble’s happening, you mark my word. Don’t you have any idea—”

“I’m just a secretary, I don’t—”

“You might be a secretary looking for a job before this day is over. You know what they say…”

By the time I was halfway down the hall, all the conversations—the interesting ones, anyway—had faded. The werewolves, who would have heard me coming from almost as far away as I could hear them, continued with business as usual, but I did not miss one or two furtive looks from them as I passed. The humans were far less adept at concealing their emotions. Their body language practically radiated danger. Something had happened to upset them, and I had a cold tight feeling in the pit of my stomach that it had something to do with me.

But there was no point in expecting anyone to enlighten me. The looks that followed me from desk to desk, from cubicle to cubicle as I passed made me wonder if I had food on my face, or something equally as embarrassing, and I even managed a quick sidelong glance at my reflection in a glass door—dark hair, fur coat, neat lipstick, no food. The wary looks followed me.

The human secretary who served me and three other people was conveniently not at her desk, so there was no hope there. Fighting trepidation, I rounded the corner into my own cubicle, expecting a “While You Were Out” message to solve the puzzle. I wondered if, in fact, I would like what it contained.

But there was no message on my desk. Instead, there was a tall, blond, gorgeous werewolf in an Italian suit sitting in my chair. His back was to me, and he was on the telephone. His voice was clipped and authoritative as he said, “Yes, all right. And I expect it right away. I’ll be at this extension for another ten minutes.”

He hung up the phone and swung around in the chair to face me, scowling. I caught my breath.

It was Noel Duprey.