The Purest Heart v

~ It was just her luck being a pure heart.

Some endangered subset of humanity everyone was searching for. And willing to kill for. Penny didn’t feel particularly special that she was in high demand. Naturally overt to attention, she was none too pleased that two different species were locked on to her. The sensible thing would be to go to the police, seek protection, but how sensible was it to tell anyone what she knew. They would be laughing their heads off while they dragged her to the nearest psych ward. 

Penny rolled over onto her side looking at the picture of her parents, and her brother sitting on her nightstand. She missed them. More than anything in the world, she missed them. They had been her everything and after they—left, she had nothing. Penny had resigned herself to a quiet, nondescript, predictable life without danger, and or excitement. She had been fine with that. Penny ran a finger over their faces. If only the impossible had been there that night to save them. With memories of them uppermost in her mind, Penny fell asleep, silent tears running from her eyes.

***

Chewing her pencils was a bad habit. She did it when she worked and had no pencil that didn’t have her teeth marks. Unless, of course, they were in the unopened boxes. Penny was typing out some pages from a manuscript. Or more like trying to type. She was having trouble focusing on the new pile of work she had been greeted with when she came to work Monday morning. The other pile she had left there was gone, and she knew who to thank for that. As the elevator reached the floor of her office she had squared her shoulders ready for the sarcastic onslaught of Caitlin Crashaw, but it never came. Penny found that unsettling. Her routine was being railroaded.

No one mentioned her absence or asked if she was ok. Penny hadn’t noticed how alone she was, locked away in her office most of the time, coming in before everyone else, and leaving after everyone else had left— until now. Her life of solitude was a blessing, though. She was being hunted, which meant anyone she knew and was close to would have been potential leverage. Her choosing to be human, despite what Lochlan said, would hurt no one but her. Penny sighed, resting her elbows on her desk, and rubbing her eyes.

For her sanity’s sake, she wished she could forget everything that had happened. Penny had been happy, and satisfied with the simple life she lived. But now her life was turning into some fantasy novel. Maybe she had gotten a nasty bump on her head, and she was laid up in some hospital bed in a coma, dreaming. She dropped her head on her folded hands on the desk. She groaned, feeling the urge to kick something. It wasn’t a dream. It was the middle of another week, and her new reality was the same. A knock at the door had her head snapping up. Caitlin never knocked.

“Come in.”

Sonja, a coworker she had only ever exchanged pleasantries with, popped her head inside not coming fully into the room. “There is someone here to see you?” It was a question that was supposed to be a statement. 

“Oh.” Penny hurriedly tried to shuffle her desk into some semblance of order. It was impossible. She couldn’t remember scheduling any meetings for that morning.

The door opened wider, and Penny looked up to see Lochlan coming into her office. He closed the door behind him, his presence swallowing most of the space in the room. He stood there in a well-fitted, black leather jacket that hugged the muscles in his arms, with a white shirt underneath. His jeans sat snug on his hips. He tucked the temple of his dark aviator glasses into the top of his shirt. Lochlan smelt wild, and Penny felt an instant reaction to him. For a few seconds, she forgot how to speak.

“What are you doing here?”

“Why are you whispering?”

Penny cleared her throat. “What are you doing here?” She repeated the question in a normal tone, her hands fidgeting over the papers on her desk. She wasn’t sure why her brain associated him with a bad omen.

“Just checking to see how you were holding up.”

Work was the only sure area of her life, and Lochlan being there felt like a threat to it. He had felt like a threat to her since the day they met in that diner. Was it a coincidence that all her troubles had started after that? 

“Well,” she said exhaling, “as you can see, I’m doing fine. Holding up as well as one would expect after finding out that vampires, and werewolves,” she said gesturing to him, “are real, and they are out to get me.”  

“About that.”

“More good news?” she asked sarcastically. Bad omen indeed.

“Word has gotten around about your... existence.”

Penny sat back in her chair. Her hunting party was starting to grow. As calm as she would like to be, she knew that she wasn’t. She also wasn’t ready to accept that her predicament was ultimately life-changing. It had certainly proven to be life-threatening. Her hands curled around the cushioned arm of her chair, squeezing while trying to keep her mind from spiralling. The whole situation was becoming more real by the minute.

“Tell me to be calm.”

“What?”

“Do that thing where you tell me to be calm, and I am. And I don’t freak out.”

Without a knock, the door swung open, and Caitlin came in holding a small pile of folders in her hand. She stopped in her tracks, her eyes moving from Penny to the man standing there.

“It’s you again.” The purr in Caitlin’s voice had Penny tightening her hold on the arm of the chair, not to keep from spiraling, but to keep from springing across the desk, and clawing the other woman’s eyes out. Penny looked down, caught aback by her visceral reaction. It was not like her to be— jealous.

Lochlan didn’t miss Penny’s reaction. It pleased him. “Penny and I are in the middle of something. Whatever you need her to do, do it yourself or get someone else to do it.” His tone brokered no argument.

In his peripheral vision, he could see Penny gawking at him. With a pout, Caitlin left, closing the door behind her.

Penny groaned, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. “What did you do?” 

Lochlan leaned back on the wall, hands in his front pockets, ankles crossed. “I don’t like that woman.”

“It’s not for you to like her. She is my boss.”

“I recall on the ride home you telling me how she makes your life a living hell.”

“An exaggeration now that I think about it. I’d take her over all of - this,” she said, gesturing wildly with her hands.

“You’re angry...”

“Intuitive are we Mr. McQueen?”

“At me,” he finished.

Penny exhaled deeply. “I am not angry at you.”

“Makes no sense to lie to me, Penny.”

Penny fixed him with a look before she answered. If he wanted the truth she would give it to him. “None of this happened until after I met you in that diner. Since then, my life has turned upside down. Everything that I have worked so hard for is coming apart. I’m coming apart. I have nightmares. I woke up in a cold sweat. I’m frightened, no, terrified all the time. I try to pretend that I’m not. I try to trick myself into thinking all is well, but it isn’t. My life is ruined. And it all started to fall apart when you came into it.”

Lochlan made sure to keep all expressions from his face. Her words had hit him deep. She blamed him for all this. For her being hunted. The present dangers she faced. For her having to give up her life as she knew it. He couldn’t say he hadn’t considered the possibility that he may have led them to her. When the thought came he had tried to rationalize that they would have found her eventually, but the fact is, it could have been him who gave her away. It was one thing when he thought about it, but it was another when she did.

She exhaled loudly. “Say it.”

“Say what?” he asked, still trying to come to terms with her accusations. Anger still edged her voice.

“You came here with more bad news didn’t you?”

Lochlan straightened. “There is one pack.”

“Werewolf or vampire?”

“Werewolf. As I told you already, werewolves don’t run informal packs. Vampires create massive colonies they call hives where they live together, but werewolves are more nomads.” Lochlan stepped closer to the desk. “The biggest pack of werewolves belongs to Sven.”

“Go on.” 

Lochlan could smell fear replacing her anger. 

“With word spreading that you exist he probably knows by now, and he will send his men for you. And they will take out anything, or anyone that gets in their way.”

“Meaning he’s the real threat.”

Lochlan nodded once.

“And he’s— bad,” Penny said.

He nodded again. “They call him the Shadow Wolf.”

“Well,” she said, straightening some papers on the desk. He could see that her hands were shaking. “I’m surprised you’re not clamoring to change me too.”

“I am not like them. You just refuse to see me any other way.”

“Lochlan—”

“Penny, it’s fine. You need someone to blame, someone to be angry with, and it’s me. I do believe they would have found you eventually, but maybe—maybe I did lead them to you now because I couldn’t stay away. I shouldn’t have come over to you in that diner, but I couldn’t help it. I felt... drawn to you. That is my weakness, and I am not ashamed of it. I’ll meet you outside after work.”

Lochlan walked out without another word, and Penny was left feeling like the biggest jerk in the world.