Thin light and quiet mechanical noises fill the building. Cody doesn’t see anyone until he passes the janitor on the third floor. He forces a smile and waves, which must not look too deranged because she waves back.
“Is Tobias in?” Cody asks.
“He was here when I clocked in.” She sighs, and her gaze speaks uncomplimentary volumes about Cody’s rumpled clothes and scruffy jaw. “You both need to stop sleeping at the office. It isn’t good for you.”
“Working on it,” Cody says cheerfully.
His smile falls away as he knocks on Tobias’s door. No need to announce himself—the hallway cameras will tell Tobias exactly who’s knocking.
The lock clicks. Cody enters the office and closes the door behind him.
Even without Cody’s werewolf senses, this office belongs unmistakably to Tobias Atwood. Gadgets and prototypes gleam from all the shelves. His professional credentials hang from one wall—next to three certificates for second place in the company foosball tournament. And Princess’s obedience school diploma.
Two framed photos sit on the desk. Cody can’t see them from this angle, but he knows one is Tobias’s wife, Aditi. The other is their snow-white Pomeranian, Princess.
Tobias himself sits behind his desk, cradling a steaming mug that smells like his usual black coffee. “I’d make a joke about the wolf dragging something in, but it’s too early for jokes. Sit thefuck down.”
Cody sits across the desk. The chair’s built for clients, who usually don’t have Cody’s bulk, and it makes him feel monstrous. Like a caged animal.
His phone and wristwatch sit on the desk, the watch’s wristband snapped.
An apology knocks against his teeth, but Cody bites it back. He needs to know what he’s apologizing for first. “Last thing I remember is escorting the client through the parking lot. I heard something in the bushes. What happened after that?”
Tobias pushes his laptop aside, giving Cody his full attention. He’s only twenty-eight, same as Cody, but usually he has a boyish smile he has to tone down so clients take him seriously. Today, he looks every year and then some. He owns a business he built from the ground up. He and Aditi are expecting their first kid.
And he doesn’t want his out-of-control werewolf friend to ruin everything.
“What happened is you got lucky,” Tobias says. “The guy in the bushes really was a corporate saboteur, not some innocent socialite throwing up her cocktails.”
Cody doesn’t relax. “Was anyone hurt?”
Tobias doesn’t remark on the cowardly passive voice. “Nobody’s hurt. You weren’t violent, and you got into the van easily when I arrived. You were just a fucking wolf when you shouldn’t have been.”
The night before the full moon. Cody’s never lost control this early.
“What about the client?” Cody asks.
“She already knew about werewolves, which makes the cover-up easier. Like I said, lucky.” Tobias’s stern expression dissolvesinto a smirk. “The client seemed to find the whole thing thrilling. She asked for your number.”
“Fucking hell,” Cody groans, slumping back. The chair creaks under him. That all sounds as good as it could have gone, but he doesn’t feel any better. Next time, he might not get lucky.
All the possible solutions feel like stopgaps. Locking himself in the holding cell earlier in the month. Finding a witch he can trust enough to sedate him without poisoning him. Nothing will change the fact that he’s a werewolf without a pack or mate, and eventually, it will drive him insane.
Cody once thought Atwood Security could be a new family. Protecting people makes him feel worthwhile. But it’s not enough. Tobias is a good friend. The only friend Cody trusted about the werewolf thing in college, and Cody’s only friend left after his pack kicked him out. But Tobias has his own family. Cody can’t keep relying on him.
“This can’t happen again,” Cody says. “Are you firing me, or do I need to quit?”
Tobias should be relieved Cody brought it up first. Instead, he rolls his eyes. “You fucking wish you could quit.” Tobias taps his laptop, and Cody’s phone lights up with an incoming email. “Your new job starts in three days.”
After the full moon. Cody should be stable again, but he doesn’t trust himself. Tobias shouldn’t trust him, either.
“That’s a bad idea. Send someone else.”
“I can’t send anyone else.” Tobias sends him another email. “This client is less human than our usual demographic.”
Cody straightens up reflexively. He’s seen a lot on the job, but this is new. Explains why Cody didn’t find a letter of termination in the Opposable ThumbsEmergency Box.
No, Tobias is too stubborn for that. There would be a probation period. A performance improvement plan, trying to management-best-practices the uncontrolled werewolf out of him. Only when everything failed would Tobias admit that his friendship with Cody was a sunk cost he needed to cut loose.
