Chapter 4
Bianca's POV
I reached the company entrance and stood across the street, tilting my head back to look at the Rayne Group headquarters.
It occupied an entire block in the East District, about twenty stories high, its glass curtain wall turning the gray-blue sky into a vertical river. At the top, "RAYNE CORP" blazed in gold. Nobody else stopped to look—only me, neck aching. It was too tall, tall enough to make you feel like you didn't belong there. Twenty floors of office space, and the higher you went, the thicker the werewolf scent became. This building was theirs from foundation to roof.
I crossed the street. The brass doors swung open and cold air wrapped in expensive fragrance hit me. The lobby soared like a cathedral, marble floors polished to a mirror shine. I felt like I'd crawled in from another world.
Behind the front desk, a werewolf woman checked my notice and handed me a badge: Bianca Clark — Secretary's Office Clerk. She pointed a direction without a word.
Administrative training was on the twelfth floor. The elevator was packed with werewolves. I pressed into the corner. A tall man glanced at my badge, mouth curling down, then exchanged a look with the person beside him—Dorian Voss — Risk Control Manager. Another she-wolf shifted away, as if afraid something on me might rub off on her clothes.
I'd barely sat down when two women ahead started whispering, every word aimed at me.
"The new hire is a human."
"Silver hair and green eyes, too. Humans pulling strings now?"
"Can't even use the break room above the eighth floor, and she's sitting here."
I gripped my pen until my knuckles went white.
"Bianca?" A brown-haired woman sat beside me. Sophia Reed — Administrative Specialist. "Don't be nervous. I'm human too. Been here two years." She lowered her voice. "Break room above the eighth floor—don't go. Elevators split east and west; the west ones are for humans. At lunch, just go to the far end of the first floor of the dinning room."
"What's wrong with it?"
"This is the rule. Human and werewolves dine in separate floors. "
I nodded, throat tight. Sophia walked me through the workflow and I wrote it all down.
Beside me, Kayla—Kayla Boone — Administrative Assistant—stared for a long moment, then said, just loud enough to carry: "She's going to the secretary's office?" The she-wolf beside her covered a smile, eyes sliding over me like I was furniture put in the wrong place.
I didn't look up. Sophia deflected it: "There are clerk desks too."
Training ended around noon. Sophia handed me a chocolate bar. "Top floor. Good luck." She waved and left. The corridor flooded with people rushing down for lunch.
I took the west elevator up. The corridor carried the mingled scents of several werewolf executives—layered, impossible to tell apart. I sat at the secretary's desk and asked the werewolf beside me—Iris Vaughn — Secretary's Office Clerk—"Will Mr. Rayne be on this floor today?"
"No, and the CEO has meetings outside the office today." She didn't look up, already packing to leave.
I exhaled. Good—he wasn't coming. I fished the gold card from my inner pocket, just pulled it free, when Iris stood with her bag, nodded briefly, and left. Around me, colleagues rose one after another. Within minutes, most of the floor had emptied.
I stood with the card in hand, planning to ask someone to pass it along after lunch. I'd just reached the middle of the corridor when the elevator behind me chimed.
The scent of black cedar slammed into the air—thick, heavy, drowning out every lingering trace in the corridor. I turned instinctively.
Nicholas Rayne stepped out of the elevator. A dark custom suit traced the line of his shoulders and tapered at the waist, as if he alone lowered the air pressure of the entire corridor. Dark brown hair swept back, a jaw cut in hard angles—and an expression so cold it carried no warmth at all.
His gaze landed on me standing in the middle of the corridor, the damned gold card still in my hand.
He stopped dead. Those amber-gold eyes nailed me in place, pupils dilating until the gold was almost frightening. My legs went weak, palms slick with sweat—I nearly dropped the card. The few remaining colleagues retreated toward the elevator, quick and quiet. The corridor went so silent I could hear the air conditioning humming. His shadow reached my feet before he did.
I'm done for.
He strode over, grabbed my wrist without a word. I stumbled after him. "You—" I barely got the word out before he twisted open the door to the CEO's office and yanked me inside.
He didn't let go. He dragged me to the desk until my lower back hit the edge—no retreat. He leaned down, both hands braced on the desk on either side of me, caging me in, his shadow falling over me completely. I leaned back, my spine pressing against the cold surface of the desk.
"You really are persistent." He said coldly.
I tried to pull my wrist back. His grip didn't budge. "Mr. Rayne, the key card from last night—"
"The key card from last night." His face was less than an arm's length from mine. "You kept it, and then you show up at my company." He tilted his head, his gaze scraping across my face. "Do you even believe the story you've made up for yourself?"
"I didn't make anything up." My voice was tight. "The hotel brought me to your room. I came today to return it—"
"To return it?" His arms drew in, and I could almost feel the heat of his shirt. "Why didn't you hand it to the front desk this morning? You carried it on you, sat on this floor, and waited for me to show up."
"I was going to give it to a colleague—"
"A colleague." One hand lifted from the desk to grip my chin, tilting my face up to his. His fingertips were calloused, his grip not hard, but I couldn't move. "You've even looked up my assistant's name. Alex Sterling." He leaned in, voice dropping to barely a whisper against my ear. "You've done your homework."
"I haven't looked up anyone." My chin trembled in his grip. "You don't know me. What gives you the right to say that?"
"I checked." He released my chin, both hands back on the desk, keeping me pinned. "The front desk did make a mistake that night. But a normal person who gets brought to the wrong room wakes up and runs—not stays." He tilted his head. "You stayed the whole night. And then you showed up at my company."
"You investigated me?" My throat was dry.
"Of course I did. You submitted your application six months ago. Convenient timing." He leaned down again, hands moving from the desk to my sides, blocking me between him and the furniture. "If you were me, what would you think?"
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
"I'm not—" My voice was thin as paper. "I really just came to return the card. I don't have any other motive."
"No other motive." He straightened, stepping back half a pace, though his shadow still covered me. Each word chiseled from ice: "Then hear me clearly. I don't think much of scheming women like you. You're not fit to be my mate."
He paused.
"This is the last time. Don't let me catch you pulling tricks to get near me again." He tilted his head, colder still. "Or that desk of yours will have someone else sitting at it tomorrow."
The blood drained from my face. My ears rang. I looked at him—two seconds—then ducked under his arm and grabbed the door handle. My hand shook so badly it took two tries to turn.
"Miss Clark. Watch your mouth and step."
I didn't turn around and pulled the door open quickly and walked out heavily .
The afternoon was worse than the morning. I sat at my desk and document got sent back twice . I gritted my teeth and redid it, fingers trembling slightly on the keyboard.
At five o'clock, the day finally ended. I shut down my computer and left the building in a daze, standing on the steps and staring at the busy street. Werewolves strode past, long-legged, loud-voiced, heads thrown back when they laughed, as if the whole sidewalk belonged to them.
Humans hugged the curb, heads down, shoulders drawn in, footsteps quick and light, as if afraid of taking up an extra inch. One sidewalk, two worlds, an invisible line between them that nobody crossed.
I dragged myself to the bus station and boarded the long-distance bus toward the human community on the edge of Moonshadow Bay. The ride took nearly an hour, cutting through the gleaming werewolf district, then the mixed zone, and finally into the crumbling suburbs where my family lived. The streets grew darker, the buildings shorter, the streetlights sparser with every mile.
The scenery outside the window decayed mile by mile, and my heart sank with it. The bus was mostly empty. I pressed my forehead against the cold glass and let the vibration numb my skull.
I just wanted to see my adoptive mother, Helen. She was the only comfort I had left in this world.
