Chapter Two - Hanging With My Bestie

Tori’s POV

Ellie screamed when I gave her the news.

“That’s wonderful, Tor,” she said. “I know the circumstances are just awful, but you’ve a foot in the door now.”

She hugged me and I wiped away a tear. I was doing that a lot recently, crying.

“Thanks for making dinner, Els. I love your special pasta. The meatballs are just divine.”

My friend and flatmate hailed from Waning Moon. We’d attended the same college and she’d vouched for me when I applied to join them. One day I was from Black Gold, then I was in mourning, and within a week Alpha Joseph had accepted me into the pack which specialised in ceramics. They were short of females.

Ellie was training to become a doctor, so we attended a mating ball once in the proverbial blue moon.

That suited me just fine.

“Tell me about the Alpha.”

“You mean Calvin?”

Her eyes widened.

“Do you get to call him that? Already?” She put her hands on her hips. “What did you do?”

Her frivolity was just what I needed.

“Nothing, Els.”

“Did you leave off your bra, or something?”

“Ellie!” We both burst out laughing. "I see what you did now, bribing me with a hot meal so I’d give you the deets.”

“Hope they’re juicy,” she sang.

I rolled some creamy tagliatelle around my fork.

“You are incorrigible,” I said.

“So? Tell me. Is your chief suspect as dark and dangerous as you expected?”

“Dangerous, maybe. But he’s fair-haired and blue eyed.”

“Did Bethany get to meet his wolf?”

I sighed.

“Will you let me eat in peace?”

“Nope.” She popped the ‘p’. “Not until you fess up.”

“I’m not looking to seduce him into dropping his guard, Els, you know me better than that. Alex ... "

I shuddered.

She grasped my arm and laid her head on my shoulder. Her coppery hair was truly amazing. People stared when we were out together because of the contrast with my own blue-black locks. We shared the same dark brown eyes, though hers were a lighter shade than mine.

“Sorry, hun,” she said. “He was despicable.”

She’d been the one to pick up the pieces. Not Fran. My sister hadn’t spoken to me since the funeral and I didn’t know where she was. Had she turned rogue, like our stepbrother?

I rallied a little. Ellie didn’t need this after another long day shadowing a senior colleague at the hospital.

“Anyway, you’ll find out soon enough what Alpha Calvin’s like,” I told her. “He said to bring you sometime and is offering us discounted drinks all night.”

“When?”

Her eyes were sparkling now. If I knew my flatmate she would soon be doing a happy dance.

“He didn’t specify. Whatever weekend you’re free.”

“I’ll let you settle in first,” she said. “How about Saturday the fifteenth? You’ll know everything there is to know by then. Fancy a glass of wine?”

We ended up watching a horror movie, laughing at the alleged werewolf’s transformation, and bingeing on ice cream. Neither of us ever over-indulged in alcohol which was perhaps just as well. Both of us needed a clear head for our daily routines, her more than me.

Not all shifters are capable of properly healing themselves and I should know.

Burns are especially traumatic and that was how the Alpha and Luna met their end at the hands of an unknown arsonist. I’d been out of town at the time, with Alex. He’d bought me a bracelet which I subsequently dumped. Goddess knows where Fran was.

The whole packhouse went up in flames and Black Gold was unable to function on its own so some of us elected to ‘merge’ ourselves with Waning Moon. They didn’t profit from our downfall but someone did. Mining continued and someone was cashing in; Alpha Joseph assured me it wasn’t him.

As far as I was concerned this new job was only temporary. One day I would return to Waning Moon and give something back, even if it meant biting the bullet and having pups. Ellie’s contribution went without saying. She would make a good mom, too, when the time was right for her.

Swimming was on the agenda for Saturday morning. It was a regular thing with us two.

“Hey,” I said, heaving myself out of the communal pool and joining her on one of the benches at the back. “Wanna go shopping?”

Her eyes lit up. She was a year younger but at twenty-four I felt like I’d already lived a lifetime.

“Girl, you need lingerie,” she said, pinching my hip.

“More like a diet,” I groaned.

Owing to Bethany’s condition I rarely went for a run. Ellie sometimes jogged before medical school. Very occasionally she would shift on her day off and I would be waiting for her in the woods next to her discarded clothes.

This was a place also inhabited by humans and we had to be careful not to be discovered.

She nudged me.

“I’m envious of your curves, Tor.”

“Look at that flat stomach,” I teased.

We fell about laughing. If it wasn’t for her, I’d have given up long ago. Instead I made something of my studies and now I was determined to find out who had virtually annihilated us and why, and make them pay. That included anyone who had profited from the demise of Black Gold.

Alpha Calvin was in the area that day, attending a livestock auction, according to the local paper. What if that wasn’t his sole purpose?

He was by no means my only suspect but, with a reputation for being cutthroat in business and more likely to take over a company than merge with it, he had all the credentials of a ruthless tycoon.

And I was going to be doing his books, well the ones relating to ‘Remus’ anyway.

He was bound to be crooked. Was he intending to use me as a front, maybe a patsy to take a fall?

I wouldn’t put it past an Alpha as rich as Calvin Phillips.

Yet, as I laid in bed that night, restless as ever, I realised something which astounded me: I didn’t want it to be him.