PlotlumeFor three years, ever since the rumors tied me to Preston, heir to the werewolf conglomerate, Linda, head of the executive secretariat, treated me with a sick kind of tolerance.
Every time I handed in a project report, she pushed it back unread and announced in front of the whole floor that I would never have to do fieldwork again.
Even before the biggest international meetings, she would stop the other executives in the hall to remind them.
"However bad Nora's numbers are, leave her alone. If Preston asks, I'll explain it to him for you."
"She's delicate. She comes to the office to be pampered. Anyone who hands her work is crossing me!"
At headquarters I became invisible. My name was never on a promotion list or a bonus sheet.
Behind my back the whole company called me a gold digger who had slept her way in. Even the night cleaner felt free to slop dirty mop water across my desk.
I took all of it in silence.
Until my dormant pure-blood Alpha line awakened, I took over as Head of the North American Pack Consortium, and I gained a veto over every alliance marriage among the old bloodlines.
At the Luna Selection Gala, the socialite Lilith swept in, holding up the hem of her couture gown.
When I saw the name in the "mother" field of her family file, Linda, I laughed out loud.
I closed the gilt-edged file and lifted my chin.
"You're eliminated."
1
The Luna Selection Gala was still going. Preston had never sensed a fated mate, so by pack law the High Council would vet the candidates for his chosen Luna. Elder Bram of the High Council sat at the long mahogany table and fished the gilt-edged file I had just thrown away back out of the wastebasket.
"Madam Head, Lilith passed the pack etiquette examination with a perfect score, and she has closed several cross-continental deals. She comes from headquarters too. She is the best possible Luna for Preston."
I looked down at the copy of the file on the table. The mother field read Linda, and I tasted something sour at the back of my throat.
The banquet hall doors swung open. Lilith walked in, holding up her skirt, and Linda followed half a step behind her as family.
I sat behind a one-way glass screen. Linda couldn't see my face. She assumed I was just a clerk the Council had sent to take notes.
"Honored Elders, I have exactly one goal today: to become Preston's lawful fiancée and to take charge of the Consortium's newly created Asia-Pacific division."
Lilith stood in the middle of the hall and lifted her chin toward the head seat.
The most senior elder at the table turned toward me behind the screen.
"Madam Head, do you consent to Lilith going straight to the final list, and to handing her the Asia-Pacific seal of office?"
I switched on the voice changer, tore the copy of her file in half, and flung the pieces out past the screen.
"I do not consent. As of this moment Lilith is permanently eliminated and stripped of every right to compete!"
Scraps of paper landed on the toes of Lilith's heels.
Linda lunged a step forward and pointed at the screen.
"Who do you think you are! A note-taker hiding behind a screen playing ghost, and you dare tear up my daughter's file?"
"Elder Bram, is this how the High Council does business? My daughter is Preston's chosen fiancée!"
I took off the voice changer's headset and walked slowly out from behind the screen into the spotlight.
"Linda, I had no idea your reach at headquarters stretched all the way to the High Council's selection gala."
Linda saw my face, froze, and then snorted with laughter.
"Well, look who it is. Nora! How did you sneak in here? Couldn't make it at headquarters, so you came to the gala to pour drinks?"
Lilith looked my suit up and down and laughed behind her hand.
"Mom, is this the Nora you're always talking about, the one who sat in the secretariat eating for free? That suit is rented, isn't it? It doesn't even have a label."
"Nora, a friendly reminder: this is a high-society gathering of pure-blood wolves, not a place where an inferior omega like you can come fishing for a rich husband!"
Linda took two steps closer and reached out to grab my collar, exactly the way she used to shove me around the office.
"Nora, think how I spoiled you at the company! I never made you hand in a report, never made you do fieldwork, I treated you like royalty!"
"And this is how you repay me? Not a shred of gratitude, and now you sneak into my daughter's selection gala to steal the seal? Are you so desperate for a man that seeing my daughter about to marry Preston drove you mad with jealousy?"
I sidestepped Linda's hand and knocked her wrist away with the back of mine.
"Linda, open your eyes. I am the presiding judge of this gala!"
Lilith doubled over laughing. She pulled out her phone, snapped a picture of my face, and posted it straight to Instagram and to the company's internal Facebook group.
"Everybody look! Nora, the invisible girl from the secretariat, has lost her mind and is pretending to be the Head of the Consortium at the selection gala!"
"Nora, you don't seriously think that because you picked up Preston's cufflink three years ago and he glanced at you once, you get to be Cinderella?"
"Let me tell you something. Preston and I have been privately engaged for ages. Even if you crawled on the floor and licked my shoes, the Asia-Pacific division would never land in the hands of trash like you!"
Elder Bram slammed his hand on the table and rose, about to rebuke Lilith for her insolence, when the side door of the hall was kicked open.
Preston strode in wearing a bespoke suit, with four fully armed pack enforcement guards behind him.
Lilith dropped her swagger at once, rubbed her eyes, and threw herself into Preston's arms.
"Preston, you're finally here! This crazy woman Nora tore up my file and humiliated me and my mother by pretending to be the Head!"
Preston put an arm around Lilith's waist, looked up at me, and pulled from his jacket a temporary search warrant signed by the High Council's Chief Justice, which he threw down at my feet.
2
The warrant skidded across the top of my shoe. Preston lifted his chin and pointed at my nose.
"Nora, three years ago you picked up my obsidian cufflink in the company garage on purpose and brought it up to the top floor to play hard to get. I blocked you, and you still didn't give up. Now you've chased me all the way to the selection gala?"
"Let me make this clear. Even if every pure-blood she-wolf in the world dropped dead, I would never look twice at a lowborn thing like you!"
A memory from three years ago flashed through my head, and my stomach turned.
Three years ago, in my first week at headquarters, I found Preston's cufflink in the garage and took it up to the executive office. He took it, nodded his thanks, and as I turned to leave I ran straight into Linda standing in the shadows of the corridor.
Linda immediately called me into the open-plan secretariat, slammed a stack of files on my desk, and raised her voice to accuse me of social climbing and of spreading rumors on the company forum to chase the heir.
Red-faced, I explained that I had only returned lost property. Linda pulled up a screenshot from the anonymous internal forum. It was my lost-and-found post, and under it Preston had replied, "Mine. DM me." The thread below was full of people egging it on.
Linda jabbed a finger at my nose and screamed that the executive assistant had already warned her to keep her people in line, that my numbers were at the bottom of the department and I still dreamed of soiling a pure-blood heir.
Holding back tears, I insisted I had never tried to seduce Preston and told Linda not to make things up.