Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

E verything had happened so fast that Regie's mind hadn't caught on yet. She'd been making out with her fake fiancé, almost screwing him right on the refreshment table at a public event. That would have been one for the tabloids.

Wonder if Grandfather thought she'd smiled enough in those pictures?

A hysterical giggle rose in her throat, and she took a sip of the water bottle someone had given her. Or had it been on the table when she entered the room?

As the photographers snapped away, Bolt shielded her and guided her to a secluded area. And then, right when she thought they might do delicious, dirty things to each other again, a huge injured dog showed up. It growled and was about to attack them, but then Bolt disappeared, and there were two dogs .

Or had he just stepped aside?

For one bonkers moment, she'd thought he had turned into the silver animal that saved her from the gray dog.

They were very, very big dogs.

Were they wolves?

Had Bolt turned into a wolf?

The giggle bubbled up in her throat again, and she swallowed hard. There were cameras in the corners of the small room where she now sat. Until she knew who watched, she'd try to delay a breakdown. Instead, she continued in her mind to review the events that had brought her here.

Armed men and women dressed in tactical black clothing had swarmed the area. They'd worn black caps pulled so low they'd obscured their faces. She'd been distracted by them, but she'd kept an eye on the two fighting dogs—wolves?—and at one point, it looked like the injured animal had turned into a naked man. But that must have been an illusion of some sort.

Before she could take a good look, the armed personnel had scooped her up and into a black van with no windows. And then led her into a building, down a long hallway and deposited her in a room with three chairs and a table with no windows—just the cameras. The whole operation had taken no more than ten minutes .

Regie shifted in the metal chair. She thought they'd brought her here to do an incident report, but this setting looked very much like an interrogation setup. Should she call a lawyer? Except somehow, the purse with her cell phone had disappeared while she'd been transported.

She eyed the door on the opposite side of the table. It had an electronic lock, but had it been engaged? Before she could get up and test it, the door opened, and Arek Varg entered, followed by a woman Regie didn't recognize.

Varg wore the black technical outfit of the people who whisked her away from the Palace of Fine Arts area. The woman wore a plain white t-shirt, faded jeans, and black tennis shoes. Her shoulder-length hair had a hue somewhere between burgundy and deep plum, and she moved like an athlete. The two sat down across from Regie, and Varg put a folder on the table.

The woman held out her hand. "We haven't met. I'm Laney Marconi. I work for Heimdall Shield."

"Nice to meet you," Regie said automatically and shook her hand. A small jolt of some sort of awareness—the only way she could describe it—passed from Regie's hand to the woman. She tilted her head, her amber-golden eyes studying Regie's face for a beat before she released the handshake.

"She doesn't just work for Heimdall," Varg muttered. "She's my fiancée."

The woman—Laney—quirked an eyebrow. "When we're with clients, I prefer to represent my professional role."

Varg shrugged his shoulders. "This situation is so beyond professional. And you can be my fiancée and work for the company at the same time."

Laney sighed. "When we're with clients, I want to represent my role in the company. I want to be defined by my function, not by what role I have in your life."

Although Regie understood the woman's point, this sounded like an old argument between the two that could go on for a while. "What happened to Bolt? Is he okay?" she interrupted.

Two heads swiveled her way. Varg's azure gaze bore into hers for a moment, and then he pulled out a sheet of paper from the folder he'd brought. "Ms. Landsford, when you hired our company, you signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement."

Regie nodded. She had signed one, promising not to disclose any of Heimdall Shield's operating methods. Varg had, in turn, signed another one, agreeing to keep Lofn Wellness's corporate information to himself. "What does that have to do with how Bolt is? Did he get injured?" Her voice rose, and she clasped her hands in her lap to remind herself to stay calm.

Varg shifted in his chair and opened his mouth as if to answer, but Laney put her hand on his arm. "Bolt is fine. He's not injured. "

Regie's shoulders relaxed from the tension she didn't know she'd held on to. "I'd like my purse and phone returned to me." She used what Payel called her "CEO voice," and Regie liked to think of it as her non-emotional tone.

Laney smiled. "I see why Bolt picked your nickname."

Regie frowned. What did his stupid endearment have to do with anything?

Varg cleared his throat. "I regret what happened today and take full responsibility for the situation. But we should remain focused on the fact that nobody got injured. And again, you signed an NDA, Ms. Lansford."

Something had happened that she'd missed. Regie leaned back in the chair, crossed her legs, and straightened the skirt of her blue silk dress. She quirked an eyebrow while she waited for Varg to explain what he thought she knew. The strategy had worked in many meetings before when men wanted to keep details from her. They were often uncomfortable with a woman's silence and construed it to mean she disapproved. It must be something mothers imprinted on their sons.

Varg, however, seemed familiar with the method or just comfortable with silence. His blue gaze met hers patiently.

Several beats of silence passed, and then Laney clasped her hands, leaning forward on the table. "Ms. Lansford, why don't you tell us what you remember from the…incident?"

Regie turned to Laney but kept watching Varg's reactions out of the corner of her eye. "Bolt had guided me to the wooded area behind the Palace of Fine Arts." She left out how she'd hoped for more kissing. "I saw a gray, injured…wolf." Arek shifted in his chair, and she knew she'd settled on the correct term for the animal. She continued with the description of how Bolt had protected her, but then somehow vanished before a silver wolf stopped the gray animal's attack.

Varg and Laney exchanged a look, but their postures remained relaxed. That had not been what they didn't want her noticing.

Regie threw caution to the wind just to see their reactions. "And then the injured wolf turned into a naked man with dark, wavy hair."

Both people across from her instantly straightened in their chairs, their eyes alert. Their expressions didn't convey disbelief, more like worry.

Regie went all in with, "And I think the silver wolf must have been Bolt." She'd never said anything so bonkers out loud before. But something clicked in her mind as she stated the words. The memory changed from Bolt vanishing into the shimmering air around him. She now saw the silver wolf taking his place in her mind's eye. The animal's eyes changed from Bolt's hazel to bottle green as it focused on the gray wolf .

"Sometimes adrenaline makes us see weird things as our brains struggle to catch up with a fearful situation." Varg focused on the folder on the table in front of him, fiddling with its tab.

"That's not what happened here," Regie said, and from the quick look the couple exchanged, again, she could tell she'd found the right track, and that felt super bonkers. And yet, she knew she saw what she saw with such certainty now. Also, that sentence made her brain hurt.

But Bolt had turned into a wolf.

A wolf had turned into a man.

She rubbed her forehead. That couldn't be possible, could it?

They all watched each other for a few moments. "It's not," Laney finally said.

Regie shook her head. Maybe she'd wake up any minute from this weird dream. "How did this…that happen? How did they change?"

Varg tapped the NDA he'd slipped out of the folder earlier. "Even without your signature, telling anyone about what you saw will be unwise. Nobody is going to believe you."

Laney scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, we all know about the very important NDA. I think Ms. Lansford is more interested in an explanation than fodder for the tabloids." She ignored her fiancé's indignant look. "Here's the deal. The men of Heimdall Shield can shift into wolves."

"Werewolves," Regina whispered.

Varg grimaced. "We prefer the term shifters." He sighed and then squared his shoulders as if he'd made up his mind about something. Leaning forward, he looked into Regina's eyes. "Judging from your company's name, you're already familiar with Norse mythology. My men and I are ulfhednar, Odin and Freya's elite wolf warriors."

Regina absorbed his words. She knew about the elite warriors who fought for the Norse deities. There were those who took the shape of wolves, and Berserkers, who took the shape of bears. The old stories described both types of warriors as fearless and undefeatable on the battlefield. "But just the men?" She looked at Laney.

The woman smiled at her. "Arek misspoke. There are women shifters as well."

"Fuck," Varg growled. "Don't tell N…don't tell her what I said," he implored.

"Nora is a wolf shifter," Regie concluded out loud. "Does Ulf know?" Why she didn't think the tall blond man was a shifter, she didn't know. But he was human…or something…different.

"He knows," Laney said.

"But you don't turn into an animal," Regie said.

"No, I'm more like you," the woman answered. "You felt it when we shook hands. That recognition of meeting someone else with abilities. We don't channel our powers the same way, but we're alike."

Varg's chair scraped against the floor as he stood. "She's a witch?" He looked from Laney to Regie and back again.

His fiancé nodded. "And that is why I don't think we have to keep mentioning the NDA when we ask Ms. Lansford to keep our secrets, because she has been hiding something of her own from the world."

Regie's heart skipped a beat and then pounded so loud she was certain the others could hear it.

She was so fucked.