“I admit, I don’t know why Barnaby wanted her brought here. At least, not outside of the reasons that I can assume. Like many of us, her family is dead and gone. Her uncle was our own beloved Brian Nightingale, whose death we still do not have any details about and whom we miss every day. She has been targeted by the Enforcers and, with them somehow finding out that she is a Shifter, they would have been preparing to move in to take her. Barnaby has known Melanie a long time, and considers her to be like a daughter to him. What I do know is that her workplace was apparently stormed by Enforcers as Manu arrived on the scene earlier today, and had it not been for his quick thinking, they might not be sitting here with us tonight.” Selena raised her glass into the air, and the entire room moved quickly to emulate her actions. “Let us toast; praise the gods for allowing them to return to us safe and sound.”
“Ain't that right!” cried out some of the men, slapping the top of the tables with their palms.
“Welcome home!” called out some of the women, many of whom had their eyes fixed on Manu.
“Thank goodness you got here alright!” said an elderly woman to Melanie’s right, her wrinkled hand moving to gently take Melanie's hand in hers and squeezing it gently.
Selena smiled then, and it was the first time that Melanie saw warmth in her gaze. She wasn't sure what had changed in the past few hours since they had last seen one another, but Melanie wasn't about to complain. The warm gazes that met her as she looked around were a welcome change from the hate and fear-filled eyes of people over the years when even a mention was made of shifters. This was so different, and she felt that she could get used to this kind of treatment. The rest of the night passed in a bit of a blur. Melanie didn't have it in her to refuse the drinks that different people kept pushing upon her, but she knew that she was drinking quite a bit.
By the time the party came to an end, Melanie's had managed to get a good buzz going for herself. Manu had stayed with her the entire time, their conversation becoming far more flirtatious as the liquor helped Melanie feel bolder. It might have been forward of her, but she definitely wanted to let Manu know that she was available for him. When he led her to her door and was about to say goodnight, she took his hands gently in hers and rose up on the tips of her toes. Even with the added height, she found that she couldn't quite reach his lips.
“A little help,” she murmured, looking up at him with a bright red blush splashed across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.
He smiled softly at that, and for the briefest moment she feared that he was going to reject her. However, her fears were put to rest when his large hand suddenly rested on her cheek, cupping it softly as his lips moved down to press against hers. She could taste the liquor on his tongue and knew that he could probably taste it on hers as well, but none of that seemed to matter. The longer their kiss lasted, the more she felt heat seem to flow through the entirety of her body. The liquor and her inner wolf were egging her on, despite a small voice in the back of her mind telling her she should stop before it went too far.
“Hey, Manu, could you stay for a while?” the words were past her lips before she could stop them, her arms still hanging around his neck loosely. “I think I’d like your company.”
“I don’t think I should,” he admitted, his thumb tracing a small circle on her cheek. “We are both a bit tipsy—it wouldn’t be right of me to take advantage of you.”
“You aren’t taking advantage of me. I’ve kinda had the hots for you since we first met today, so I would be lying if a part of me isn’t interested in seeing if we could click.” she said, the liquor loosening her tongue far more than normal.
“Well, I don’t think you have to worry about us clicking,” Manu said, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips. “I don’t run into fellow wolf shifters often, after all.”
Time seemed to blur for Melanie. One moment they were standing outside her door, the next they were falling onto her bed together. His lips were pressed firmly against hers and his hands wasted no time in exploring her body, now that her dress had been removed. The feeling of his warm touch sent shivers of delight up her spine. Her breath caught in her throat as she felt his lips slowly trail kisses along her bare flesh. The feeling of his tongue sliding along her flesh sent electric tingles coursing through her body. Her skin felt alive at his touch, and every spot that his hands or lips touched responding to him instantly. When he cupped her breasts, she let out a soft moan, feeling slightly self-conscious because one of her breasts being slightly larger than the other. Manu didn’t seem to mind, his thumbs rubbing lightly over her sensitive nipples in a way that made her squirm in place.
She almost purred when he slowly began to kiss his way down her body, trailing kisses across her breasts and stomach before crouching between her legs. The feeling of his warm breath on the moist lips of her womanhood caused Melanie to moan in delight. Her breath caught when she felt the first of many slow, insistent licks sliding across her folds. He had laid himself down in such a way that his lower body was within her reach. Her hand strayed down between his legs, slowly wrapping around the sizable girth of his member and stroking it slowly. The low growl of pleasure that he let out told her he didn’t mind her touch, and part of her grew a little bolder. He was close enough that she could pull herself to him, so his shaft was directly in front of her face. Opening her mouth wide, she leaned forward and took the first few inches of his length into her mouth. Her jaw stretched just from how thick he was and she was forced to breathe through her nose. His tongue began to delve inside of her, and she did her best to respond in kind, allowing her tongue to drag along the mushroom-shaped head of his throbbing hard-on. She let the tip of her tongue play along the slit of his aroused flesh, tasting the slight bitterness of his pre-seed washing across her taste buds.
She tried to tell herself that she wouldn’t be acting this way around him if she wasn’t drunk, but knew also she had no right to make this excuse. She had submitted herself to this willingly, and that meant she couldn’t get cold feet now. When he drew his tongue from her soaked honeypot and replaced it with that red-hot member of his, she didn’t even try to resist. She arched her back as he sheathed himself inside of her like a sword to a sheath, her hands clutching at his large shoulders as his first thrust managed to lift her partially off the bed. She covered her mouth with her hand to keep herself from screaming out in pleasure, the consistent sensation of his heavy round orbs smacking against her butt caused her to realize just how much she had needed something like this. She decided she was glad it was happening, and her eyes closed as she surrendered fully to him.
He seemed to sense her decision as well, and his grip on her hips tightened as his thrusts grew deeper. She could feel his hips hammering into hers, as if he was trying to force himself past her innermost barrier to where his seed would do the most damage. The thought was primal, raw, and incredibly hot for her. It came as no surprise when she found herself being pushed over the edge. Her eyes rolled back slightly in her head and she felt herself reach her release. The sheer thrill was enough to send tingles to every cell in her body—her inner muscles clenched down tightly on to his shaft and milked it for all it was worth. She felt tired now. Melanie’s eyes beginning to droop even as she was lifted up and set on Manu’s lap. Her last memory, before passing out, was the feeling of warmth flooding inside of her. I really hope today is a safe day.
Chapter Seven
The next few months seemed to fly by, Christmas and Valentine's Day managing to pass by in a blur until April sprang up on her, seemingly without warning. Melanie often wondered if it were all just some wonderful dream that she would be forced to wake up from any moment. When she had been asked about what it was that she wanted to do, she had been adamant about being involved in the more important matters. She didn't just want to live in fear for the rest of her life. She believed that there was a chance for shifters to work to start repairing their reputations, but they were going to need a lot of resources f
or the plan she had in mind. Selena had agreed with her request when she had suggested to her, but the older woman had been vague in her responses to Melanie's inquiries about what she could do up until now.
She spent those first few months being bounced around different jobs. Selena said it was so she could get familiar with the facility and the people who worked and lived there, which Melanie hadn't minded. The feeling of being able to hang out with a group of shifter women, some of whom liked to walk around partially transformed, felt almost surreal after spending her life hiding that part of her. Her one good friend, Kiki, had even inspired her to walk around with her ears and tail exposed. Kiki was a young, Korean brunette, who was a werepanther, so she liked to walk around looking like a nekomimi, or cat girl.
When she had been assigned to her new secretarial job, Melanie had felt an intense pang of melancholy as she thought back to her time working with Barnaby. She found she missed her old boss and mentor dearly, having still not seen him once, in the nearly half a year she had now been at headquarters. She had also taken the time to get to know Manu better, but they had yet to get physical again. He was a very busy man, as she had come to discover, so it was more and more rare that they managed to find time to be alone together. As she had made her way to the office on the first day of her new assignment, she wondered if her new boss would be anywhere near as kind as Barnaby had been. She stepped into the elevator and lifted the small packet of papers that she had been given to read for her first day, quickly skimming through it. She was so engrossed in her reading that she barely registered that the elevator had opened on to her floor, until a familiar voice spoke from beside her.
“I believe this is our floor, Melanie.”
Her head snapped to the side quickly, eyes widening as she met Barnaby's smiling face. The older man looked rough compared to when she had last seen him—there was a new scar that reached from the top of his right temple down to the bottom of his eye, comprised of three claw marks. Instead of the suits that she was so used to him wearing, today he was dressed in only a white dress shirt and khaki dress pants. She caught glimpses of bandages that seemed to be wrapped around his chest, but she politely chose not to ask him about them. She was too afraid that he would tell her he had gotten all those injuries the day they had last seen each other, and doing so would wrack her with so much guilt that she'd never be able to snap out of the funk it would provoke.
“Barnaby? Thank goodness you are safe,” she said, the packet of papers slipping from her grasp as she threw her arms around the older man. She felt as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. The worries she had been carrying around with her these last six months, seemed to vanish on the breeze. He looked a little worse for wear, but he was alive. That was all that mattered to her.
“Are you my new boss?”
“You never technically submitted your resignation, so you still work for me. I just wrote it off as unpaid holiday,” he said in a tone that made her question whether he was joking. The small wink he gave her shortly afterward, helped to clarify that it was just a joke. “To answer your question, however, you are very much working for me again.”
After quickly gathering up the papers she had dropped, Melanie followed Barnaby, as he led the way to their new workplace, humming softly to herself. She watched him slip the key to the front door from his shirt pocket and slid it into the lock. He gave it a gentle twist to the right until he heard a soft click, and he then pushed the door open and turned on the lights, illuminating the plain-looking office that lay before them. It reminded her of their old office; yet, at the same time, it felt distinctly different. As it should. It isn't like this is our old office, even if it is furnished similarly. We are in a completely different place and situation than we were on that day.
“Barnaby, I'll go ahead and make some coffee. Once it is done, I want you to tell me what happened after I left with Manu that day,” she said. She made her way to the small break room, adjacent to the main room they had just entered, and turned on the coffee pot. She got the coffee brewing before making her way back out to where Barnaby was busy logging on to her computer.
“I took the liberty of backing up your files from your last day at the old office. I also called and alerted your clients that their files were going to take just a smidgen longer thanks to some staffing issues, but I am sure you can manage to get them finished quickly,” he said, his hand moving to rest gently on her shoulder. “I would think three weeks should be enough time; I already took the liberty of starting the work, so it should only require a few changes from you.”
She felt warmth flood through her at his touch—it was so wonderfully comforting and familiar, and most of all, it affirmed that she hadn't gotten him killed. Maybe now she would be able to stop the recurring nightmares she had been having about him. Once the coffee was done, she set a cup down in front of him at his desk, before taking a seat in the chair on the opposite side. Her own cup was set next to her left hand, a small tray of Graham crackers sitting between the two of them. It was a food that they had discovered they shared a liking for, from early on in their acquaintance, so Melanie had made it a habit to include them in the list of snacks she brought with her to work, regularly. Even if they were a little stale, they still tasted good, because Barnaby was there to share them with her.
“Well, shortly after the two of you left the office, a SWAT team came in through the window. There were at least six Enforcers, all of them in full body armor and fully armed. I had brought my pistol with me, from the office, when I sent you off with Manu, but I no sooner had I raised it to take a shot than one of the bastards shot it out of my hand. They asked me where you were, but I refused to answer. This angered their captain, who was the one who interrogated me. The next thing I knew he had kneed me in the stomach,” Barnaby said, his hand dropping down to his stomach as he winced. It was like the memory of the event alone was causing him pain.
“What did they do then?” Melanie asked, grabbing one of the Graham crackers and taking a small bite. “Did they take you away and interrogate you?”
“I'm afraid it was nothing quite as exciting as that,” he said, laughing softly, as he rose from where he had been sitting. He glanced out of his window at the sprawling underground city that stretched out beneath the window. “They searched the office to see if they could find any inkling of where you would be heading, and then asked if I had any ideas. I listed off a few random locations that you used to frequent, such as the Menacina Diner and Cooperton Park, and they went on their way. They didn't promise to replace the windows that they shattered when they came in, though, the scoundrels.”
Melanie smiled good-naturedly at his joke, all the while little alarm bells had begun to go off in her head. There were parts of his story that were definitely not adding up. If the Enforcers had shown up in full force looking for her, why would they have simply left, after being told information that might have easily been false. He also didn't mention how he got the scar on his face or the bandages on his chest, which clearly meant that he was hiding something.
“What about your scar?” she asked finally, biting her bottom lip as she saw his lip twitch.
“What about it?” he asked, raising his eyebrow. “I was cut by the shards of glass from the windows.”
“And you are still wearing the bandages from six months ago, from a few cuts from window glass? Please, Barnaby. I wasn't born yesterday, and that is one of the worst lines I've ever been fed. Why don't you tell me what really happened to you,” she said, her eyes narrowing with suspicion as she looked at him.
He was quiet for a moment. He slowly ran a hand across his face, his breath coming out in a shaky sigh. “They came to my house in the dead of night three weeks later. They took my wife and me out of our beds and beat me. They told me that they knew I was involved with the Society, and that if I did not give up the location of the headquarters that they would kill my wife right in front of me,” he said, his hands clenched beside him so tigh
tly that she could see the whites of his knuckles. She noticed that he was no longer maintaining eye contact as he spoke, as if he was suddenly ashamed to meet her gaze.
“Did you tell them where headquarters were, Barnaby?” Melanie asked softly, terror beginning to well up inside of her at the prospect of the Enforcers possibly storming the place. “Did you give away our secret location?”
“Of course not,” he said softly, his voice barely above a whisper now. “I would never. Brian and I had discussed what we would do, many times, if such a situation ever came up.”
“And, Julie? Is she alright?” Melanie asked. The tear that leaked down his cheek was the only answer she really needed. She rose slowly from her chair and walked over to him, wrapping her arm lightly around his waist and resting her other arm on his shoulder. “I'm so sorry, Barnaby. I cost your wife her life because you protected me.”
“My Julie and I knew the risks of what we were doing when we first decided to support the Society. Nothing makes us prouder than the thought of dying to ensure that the work we do is not in vain. No matter what others may say, I will never blame you for her death. Brian gave his life long ago to protect you, and Julie and I made a promise to him at his grave, that we would do whatever we could to protect you in his stead. I just wish that Julie hadn't been one of the sacrifices in this foolish President's civil war,” he said, his eyes shining bitterly with hatred. “I'll see to it that I have my revenge on him one day. I hope I find myself alone with him, just once—I wouldn't need longer than a few minutes to get my feelings across.”
As Melanie looked into Barnaby's eyes, she was surprised to see them briefly flick between gold and brown. She rubbed her eyes slowly, thinking that perhaps it had just been a trick of the light. There seemed something slightly different about his gaze to before, however. She could sense something was different about him, but he couldn't say exactly what it was.
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