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  “Ah, Mr. Kenyon. Or may I call you Lowell? Well, I am here not to use your precious computer or take over your tatty desk. I am here to evaluate your usefulness to the company. And your turning up ten minutes late hasn’t exactly impressed me.”

  “If you look at my record, Miss Conall, you will see this is the first time I have been late since I started with the company four year ago, and I am going to make up the time this evening by staying on an extra ten minutes.”

  Lowell was not normally so combative, especially when senior staff was concerned, but something about this woman just rubbed him up the wrong way. She smelt wrong. In fact, he could smell a bitch. He assumed Miss Conall had a dog in heat at home. He didn’t realise the bitch was there in the room with him.

  “Oh, I know your record, Lowell. I know exactly who and what you are, and considering the circumstances, I’ll let you off this one time. I will be keeping a close eye on you, though. I suspect you and I are one and the same, Lowell. I look forward to getting to know you more.”

  She stood from his seat and sashayed towards him. Her skirt seemed quite short to Lowell, or maybe it was just that her legs were extremely long and lean. He watched her as she exited the room. As she walked past him, he picked up that bitch scent again—but so much stronger, the wolf that was left in him was attracted to it, and he found himself becoming erect in his trousers.

  He shook his head and sat down at his desk. He had a lot of work to do. He had to forget Miss Conall and her cryptic messages. He had to prove he was worthy of his position.

  Chapter Two

  Jenny had completed her first week at Demonet. She still knew no one and was not at all sure how long she would be sticking at the job. It was easy enough. Call centre work was not terribly challenging, but it was draining. People were hard work, especially customers who felt they had been wronged or slighted in some way.

  She needed to meet her rent, and the job paid well enough, and that was probably the only reason she’d made it to Friday at all. She hated doing a job that was beneath her, but that was what you ended up with when you shagged your boss and he turned out to be a total wanker. Jenny wasn’t bitter, as such, but she just felt stupid for falling for his bullshit in the first place. Her dismissal was probably part of the reason she’d not approached anyone at her new job, yet—she was afraid to open herself up to such pain and embarrassment again.

  Most days, she took in something to eat. But she’d woken up late and hadn’t had time to do anything, so for the first time in the week she would venture up to the canteen for what was jokingly referred to as her ‘lunch’. She was working slightly strange hours, and so her lunch didn’t come around until nearly teatime. She jumped up as soon as the clock on her computer screen clicked over to 3:00—she’d been watching it intently for the past half an hour—and raced from the room before anyone could stop her to run yet another silly errand.

  The canteen was very quiet. In fact, there was only one other person in the room, and he was seated in the very back corner. She picked herself up a sandwich and a drink and grabbed an apple and a little packet of biscuits. She paid the lady in pink checks who seemed as eager to finish her working day as was Jenny, and walked over towards the empty tables.

  Usually, she was happy to sit alone, but it seemed strange to eat by herself when there was only one other person in the whole room. It was surely only polite to ask if she could join the gentleman in the corner. It would seem very rude to ignore him.

  “Erm, do you mind if I sit with you?” she asked as she reached the end of his table.

  “No, not at all,” he replied. “Take a seat.”

  His words were friendly enough, but his demeanour seemed to show annoyance. But then she’d found most people carried around an air of irritability in this place, so maybe he was friendlier than she perceived him to be.

  “I’m Jenny. I’ve just started. I don’t think I’ve seen you around.”

  “No, I’m the server guy. Well, my name’s actually Lowell, but most people just call me ‘server guy’. I stay down in the basements, looking after the, well, servers, obviously.” He blushed and looked down on his usual Friday treat of beef burger and chips with chocolate digestives for dessert. He loved chocolate digestives. He was a little irked someone had broken his quiet, Friday routine, but she was a very pretty young lady, and he was a little intrigued by her.

  “Oh my goodness!” Jenny exclaimed. “It’s you. You are Lowell Kenyon, right?”

  “Yeah, I’m Lowell Kenyon. Do I know you?”

  “No, not really, no. I was in the year below you at school. I used to watch you in the football tournaments and stuff.” Jenny flushed. She used to watch him all the time. She’d had a massive crush on him, and he hadn’t even noticed her, not once. “You look kind of different. I didn’t recognise you, at first.”

  “Yeah, I’m not the same guy I was back in school, not by a long shot.”

  “I guess I’m not the same, either. I’m taller, for a start.” She giggled nervously and was relieved to hear him chuckle, too. “How long have you worked here, then? I thought you were set to be a professional footballer or something?”

  “Well, that didn’t quite pan out,” Lowell said, the pain on his face quite evident. “I’ve worked here for about four years. It pays well, and I have my own floor. Granted it’s the basement, but I like it down there away from the pillocks upstairs.”

  He looked at her then shook his head. “Oh, I don’t include you in that, of course!”

  “No, you’re right. I’m one of the pillocks upstairs, all right. A real pillock.”

  “No way. I can tell already you’re cleverer than the average Demonet employee.”

  “You make me sound like Yogi Bear.”

  They laughed together, and Jenny felt her heart fluttering in her chest. Shit, she could really do without bumping into her school crush right now. She was supposed to be foreswearing all kinds of sex-driven craziness. But at that moment, she was completely smitten again and thrilled that the most popular boy in school was talking to her.

  “Well, you don’t look much like Yogi Bear, either. Oh God, it really is painfully obvious I don’t talk to people very often, isn’t it?”

  “You’re social skills are a little rusty,” Jenny replied, “but as with anything, practise makes perfect.”

  “True, but who’s mad enough to let me practise on them?”

  “Me,” she answered instinctively without really thinking. “It’s an ‘I’ve started so I’ll finish’ kind of thing, you know?” Jenny added, hoping it made her sound a little less stalkerish.

  “Oh, I see. I hope you’re not planning to go on Mastermind with Lowell Kenyon as your specialist subject. That would be one boring programme.”

  “Stop being so modest. But no, no plans to talk about you on live TV. Just a desire to get to know you a bit better. You seem lovely, and I always wanted to talk to you back in school, but I was a total dork and never plucked up the courage.”

  “Well, I wish you had. I bet we’d have gotten on really well, and maybe I’d have been a little smoother. I was cockier back then.”

  “Oh well, what’s past is past. We will just have to start from scratch, now.”

  “Sure, we can do that. I don’t often come up here, though. Just on Fridays for my treat.” He looked down at the half eaten meal before him.

  “I normally bring my own food in, too. Maybe I could come and visit you downstairs on my lunch.”

  “Yeah, sure. That’d be nice.” Lowell stood up. “I’ve got to get back. I’ve been pulled up once already today for being late. It’s been great meeting you though, Jenny. See you Monday?”

  “Yeah, see you Monday, Lowell. I’ll look forward to it.”

  She watched him as he put away his tray and left the room. He looked back just as he reached the door and smiled as their gazes met.

  Jenny was a goner, she knew it. The crush she’d all but forgotten had come back full force and harder.
She wanted him, but not just in the way she had as an innocent teenager who longed for a kiss and to hold his hand. No, now she wanted him to do far more than that to her.

  Damn, she was smitten, and as she wandered back to her desk, she wondered what she should wear on Monday and just how hard it might be to seduce Lowell Kenyon. She thought it might be challenging, but she decided it was worth having a go.

  * * * *

  Coming in to work the day after a rampage was never fun, but Dessie was determined to make the most of it. The night before, she had been tearing flesh apart with her teeth and claws, and she would do the same today—but metaphorically, as bosses frowned on all that blood and mess.

  She had checked all of the information for Demonet and found their most loyal and hardworking employee, and that was why she had sat at Lowell Kenyon’s desk first thing Friday morning. It was easy to run out the weak and the useless, but the fun was to be had in making a secure worker insecure. It amazed her how many top-of-the-class employees would fall apart under just a little Desdemona pressure. It was one of her favourite things about the job.

  Lowell’s office in the bowels of the building was somehow comforting. Dessie’s sensitive nose picked up on a scent that indicated the presence of a wolf, but it could have been decades ago, the scent was so weak. It excited her all the same, her brain still mostly werewolf. It always took some time to truly get back to normal after a change, especially if she’d killed many the night before. And last night she had been very successful, indeed.

  It wasn’t until he’d cannoned into his office ten minutes late that she realised why the room smelt as it did. He was a werewolf. Every pore exuded the scent, and as he came in the room, it was flooded with instant werewolf Viagra.

  Dessie really enjoyed playing with him. She saw his hackles rise, but he seemed weak. She couldn’t sense a kill on him at all. Maybe he was a new wolf that she’d be able to break in.

  She left him reluctantly, but she had a job to do. Seducing a brand new werewolf would have to take its place. The one thing missing from her perfect life was a partner in crime. It was all right bonking victims before she ripped them to shreds, but what she really wanted was a werewolf to have real, violent, doggie style sex with. Someone who could share the exhilaration of the kill with her. Lowell would be perfect. He needed training, obviously, and she was the woman to do it.

  Dessie found it hard to keep her mind on work the whole day through. Visions of Lowell and her kept flashing on and off like an annoying alarm. It was strange because Lowell was not her type at all. He was too stocky, she liked lithe and lean herself, but the animal instinct had taken her over, and she wanted to mate with the man who was also a wolf, her equal.

  She made her way through crap employee after crap employee. At this point, she was not allowed to just fire them on the spot. After observing them for a few weeks’ time, she had to take her recommendations to the bosses. Most companies believed in giving their employee a warning signal first and, if they didn’t buck up, then they’d be let go. Dessie thought it’d save money and energy by just getting rid of them straightaway. They rarely improved in the time given.

  Her last interview of the day was with a new girl. She hated newbies the most. They were eager and smiley and approachable on top, but underneath they were incompetent and lazy.

  A knock on the door roused Dessie from another wolf-on-wolf daydream.

  “Come in,” she said tersely

  A tall, plump girl hesitantly popped her fuzzy red hair around the door. Slowly, the rest of her followed, and she walked over to stand in front of the intimidatingly big desk that Dessie had specifically specified to be put in her office.

  “You must be Jennifer Woodford.”

  “Yes, Miss Conall. You wanted to see me?”

  Dessie didn’t need her wolf senses to realise this one was nervous. She could see the worry lines etched on her young brow, and this Jennifer was biting her lower lip. However, it was her wolf instinct that detected Lowell’s scent on the girl. Jealousy raged in Dessie’s heart. Lowell was not to even look at someone other than her. She was determined to nip this in the bud.

  “Yes, please sit down, Jennifer.” Dessie liked to use a person’s first name. It established immediately who was senior in the situation. “I see you have only recently started with Demonet.”

  “Yes, this has been my first week,” the weak redhead butted in before Dessie could continue.

  Dessie hated that.

  “Well, yes, and as such, I am instructed to give you a little slack. But allowances for your new status only stretch so far, and your productivity is only just over fifty percent of the rest of your team.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Conall. I will do better.”

  “You better had. I will be keeping a very close eye on you. Your name is at the top of my list right now, Jennifer. You will be the first employee fired if you don’t get up to speed, soon.”

  “Yes, Miss. I will do my best.”

  “Make sure you do. You can leave, now, Jennifer. Close the door behind you.”

  Dessie would make that girl’s life a misery and, come the full moon, she knew exactly what she would be eating for a midnight treat. Something plump, juicy and red.

  * * * *

  Lowell always looked forward to his Friday meal in the canteen. It was simple and satisfying, and it helped him feel normal. Normal people went to the canteen for their lunch. All right, he timed it so there wouldn’t be many people around, but it still made him normal, he’d convinced himself of that.

  He had lived in isolation for about five years. He could not risk being around people at all. Once a month, he turned into a hungering, insane beast, and he couldn’t risk anyone being close enough to him to get hurt. He was beginning to enjoy being alone. Who needed social interaction, anyway? Other people only had annoying opinions and boring lives that they insist on telling you all about. He had thoroughly convinced himself he was best off alone with only his computer and the servers for company. They were pretty predictable and easy to deal with, to boot.

  At first, he was purely irritated that some woman was taking her lunch break so late. She breezed into the canteen with her shapely body and bouncy, red curls and filled the room with her sweet, apple blossom scent. It really put a guy off his rhythm.

  However, when she asked if she could sit beside him, he found her impossible to resist. She had been a pretty girl from a distance, but close to, she was beautiful. Her eyes were this deep, seductive emerald green, and they glinted like real jewels, and she smelt good enough to eat. Her red hair just called to his fingers, they wanted to stroke and grab and pull at it. Her skin was pure and milky, and she had the kind of curves men only dreamt about.

  The conversation did not flow as well as Lowell wanted it to. He was obviously a lot rustier than he’d imagined. He couldn’t believe Jenny had been at his school and knew who he was. He was sure if he’d seen such a beauty back then he’d have smoothly chatted her up—but then he remembered how he’d really been in school and realised if she hadn’t hung with his crowd, he wouldn’t have noticed her at all. He had been such a dickhead back then.

  Somehow, though, he managed to invite her on a kind of standing date, and she accepted. Lunch down in the dungeons was not the most romantic of places, but Lowell was determined to do his best to get to know that girl a little better.

  It wasn’t until he’d left the room and her scent began to fade that Lowell started to think straight. He was not allowed to get close to anyone, least of all a pretty girl. Had he never seen horror films? It was always the pretty girls that died the gruesome deaths.

  He couldn’t cancel their Monday date now. For a start, that would mean venturing up to the working levels, and the idea of that scared him half to death. No, he’d have to go through with it on Monday and let her down gently then. He couldn’t risk being smitten, not only for the protection of her life but for the protection of his job. He was on a cushy number here. He k
new it, and he also knew it would be almost impossible to get another job where he could spend such a long time on his own.

  He stayed late by half an hour and left to get his bus. It would look good to that strange Conall woman, but the only reason he’d stayed so long was because of the bus schedule. It wouldn’t hurt for her to think he was extra eager to make up the time, though. He was freaked out by that woman. It seemed thoroughly unfair to him that he should encounter two baffling females on the same day—and for that day to come directly after his ‘monthly problem’. Life really did like to kick a fella whilst he was down.

  At home, Lowell stripped off his work clothes and bundled them into the washing machine. He changed into his big, jogging bottoms and his comfy sweater then made himself a sandwich. He sat down and watched the news as he ate his supper.

  “There has been a spate of vicious killings,” the middle-aged, male newscaster droned. “Three bodies were discovered this morning, all of whom had suffered from what appears to be a sustained animal attack. The police are looking into the incidents and warn the public to be on their guard. Do not approach any lone animal. Instead, report it to them as soon as possible.”

  They cut to another reporter who strung together the details of the three victims. All seemed unconnected, and all had been ripped apart by some unknown beast. If Lowell hadn’t been securely attached to his chains this morning, he would have been convinced it had been he who had committed the murders. But as he had been tied up down in his cellar, there must be another werewolf on the loose again.

  He felt strange. Part of him longed to meet this kindred spirit—the pack mentality, no doubt—but the other part of him was horrified and hoped the werewolf would move on quickly. He did not want the police looking into old files and somehow connecting everything to him. They hadn’t gotten him yet for what had happened the first time he’d changed, but he couldn’t guarantee they never would.