About the Author
As a teenager, Rebecca Royce would hide in her room to read her favorite romance novels when she was supposed to be doing her homework. She hopes, these days, that her parents think it was well worth it.
Rebecca is the mother of three adorable boys and is fortunate to be married to her best friend. They’ve just moved to Texas where Rebecca is discovering a new love for barbecue!
She's in love with science fiction, fantasy, and the paranormal and tries to use all of these elements in her writing. She's been told she's a little bloodthirsty so she hopes that when you read her work you'll enjoy the action packed ride that always ends in romance. Rebecca loves to write series because she loves to see characters develop over time and it always makes her happy to see her favorite characters make guest appearances in other books.
In Rebecca Royce's world anything is possible, anything can happen, and you should suspect that it will.
Also from this Author
Now Available:
The Capes:
Seductive Powers
Adrenaline Rush
Fallen Alpha:
Alpha Rising
Alpha’s Strength
The Outsiders:
Love Beyond Time
Love Beyond Sanity
Love Beyond Loyalty
Love Beyond Sight
Love Beyond Expectations
Westervelt Wolves:
Her Wolf
Summer’s Wolf
Wolf Reborn
Wolf’s Valentine
Wolf’s Magic
Alpha Wolf
Angel’s Wolf
Darkest Wolf
Lone Wolf
The Warrior:
Initiation
Driven
Subversive
Redemption
Justice
The Conditioned:
Eye Contact
Embraced
Other Works:
Behind The Scenes
Yes, Captain
Return to the Sea
One Night With A Wolf
Another Chance
Light Me Up
I’ll Be Mated For Christmas
The Edge stories: Unwanted Mate, Bar Mate, Mate by the Music, Out of Place Mate
Love In One Night
Hexed and Vexed
Crimson Lust
Demon Within
Forever
February Lover
Finding Her A-Muse-Ment
Dragon Joined
Did you enjoy this selection?
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From Bestselling Author Rebecca Royce’s The Capes Series
Seductive Powers
Chapter One
Wendy Warner knew why her coworkers stared. They did the same thing every time she wore the outfit. She thought by now they'd be used to seeing her this way, considering she dressed in the uniform the second and third Fridays of every month. That equated to twenty-four days a year. Maybe the first couple of times warranted the amount of attention her outfit drew, but not now. After all this time, garnering the looks and the gasps was just out of hand.
Wendy sighed and nodded to the receptionist, who didn't respond—she never did—and continued walking toward the elevators of Powers, Inc. Only support staff used the elevators because, well, Guardians didn't need them—they could fly.
She sipped her coffee, noticing she was, once again, alone in the elevator. Almost as if everyone in the building thought he or she would become 'nerds by association' simply being near her. Shrugging, she pushed the button for the top floor and decided to move on with her day.
It wasn't as if she was the only person in the world ever to wear a Space Adventures uniform. Over four million people watched the show every week. Sure, to be as devoted as she and the rest of the Space Adventures fan club were may be unusual, but Wendy enjoyed showing others how devoted she was to the show. She wasn't hurting anyone. Hell, she only wore the uniform to work because at the end of the day, she'd have to rush to the soup kitchen her group volunteered at twice a month.
Charity was one of the principles aspired to on Space Adventures, and to do things as a group, to remember the principles of the show and why they loved it so much, was good. People who worked for an organization employing Guardians should understand the idea. One would think.
Only no one had ever asked why she wore what she wore. Instead, they preferred to gawk. But Wendy was comfortable in her flashy red shirt tucked neatly into the matching pants, with the show's emblem displayed proudly on her shirtsleeves and right pants pocket, and the pretend communicator she affixed to the top right of her outfit.
The elevator dinged her arrival and she steeled her shoulders. Walking through the lobby made her skin tingle with awareness from all the stares, but her discomfort multiplied exponentially whenever she got to her floor.
The brightly lit area was sparsely populated. Only the top executive Guardians worked here—Ace Hudson, who, it seemed, was never in the office, and Wendy's boss, Draco Powers. He'd started the company a decade earlier upon graduating college and pronouncing to the world, "Yes, superpowers exist. Yes, people with them wanted to do good things; but no, my Guardians will not be working for free or without health benefits."
Part of her job as Draco's Handler was to make certain he got paid, got enough sleep, and didn't get overbooked. She also ensured cases and tasks beneath his skill level were farmed out to the underling Guardians. Wendy smiled. Draco would never call them underlings. No, he would probably say his 'associates'. He was good at being politically correct. Wendy, as a rule, was not. But that was why she did what she did and he did what he did.
Walking toward her desk, she held her head high, her stare straight. As Wendy passed through the rows of cubicles, she overheard Ace's secretary, Tania Monroe, take a deep breath. "Looks like it's that time of the month again."
Biting her lip, she dug deep, hoping to find the ability to keep her mouth shut stored somewhere in her personal reserves. After a moment, she concluded no such ability existed. She came to an abrupt stop. "You know, Tania, it's bad enough men talk about us using derogatory remarks; you would think as women we could find better ways to speak to one another."
She turned the corner without looking back. Tania had been standing next to Kate, which meant the two would have a grand time at Wendy's expense as soon as she was out of earshot. Some of the hostility, Wendy knew, stemmed from jealousy. As a Handler, she got to leave the office and travel with the Guardians. Her job was integral to their operations. She was highly trained, highly sought after, and all but impossible to replace. Not to forget, they paid her a hell of a lot more than they paid those mere secretaries.
But the underlying reason for their attitudes? They just didn't like her. Though they weren't the type of people whose good opinion she should seek, their comments still hurt every time she recalled them.
She settled at her desk and took the deep breath she'd attempted to take earlier. If she wore the uniform to work—at this point, she did so out of principle as much as anything else—then she needed to accept the snide remarks that accompanied her decision.
In truth, she was more than prepared to do so. Unfortunately, the hurtful comments didn't cease when she dressed in her regular work clothes. No, if anything, the words stung even more. She could take off her pretend uniform, but she could never alter the things about herself everyone seemed to hate.
Her computer bleeped, and she looked up. Draco wanted her attention. The chat box appeared seconds later.
Come and see me.
Glancing at the clock, she couldn't help but smile. He was so damned efficient; he put even her to shame. Every morning, at precisely 7:21 a.m., Draco buzzed her computer to invite her into his private sanctuary.
Settling her purse in her bottom drawer, she pushed her chair backward. She turned and walked past Kate, Draco's secretary, who shot a glare in Wendy's direction. Wendy ign
ored her and proceeded toward Draco's door. If you wanted to see Draco, you had to buzz him on the computer system. Not doing so first meant an automatic ignore. She'd been asked to come in so she did.
"Good morning, Mr. Powers."
He spun around, his blue eyes regarding her with the steely magnificence it had taken almost a year of working for him to get used to. If he noticed, or even cared about her Space Adventures uniform, he'd never once indicated.
"Good Morning, Ms. Warner. How was your evening?"
She shrugged. "Fine, thank you. I made it a level further on Hero Land." She didn't
know why she told him about her online gaming. Every day she gave him a tidbit of information when he asked how she was. It just seemed imperative to say something, which was foolish because after their time working together, she knew he asked only out of habit. Keeping to a routine was one of the things Draco did well.
"Great. I assume you have today's schedule prepared."
She nodded. "Yes sir, I copied it to your desktop from home. There are no additions...well, not yet."
She never knew when the police or a government agency was going to have an emergency and she'd have to rework Draco's entire schedule. She didn't like to toot her own horn, but she handled crises better than any Handler on the payroll did, and if Draco's services were needed past 7 p.m., she made certain he always received overtime compensation.
"Excellent."
Draco rose from his seat and she stifled a gasp. He almost never stood at their first morning meeting.
"Sir?"
"Hmm?" He looked at her questioningly. "I told you not to call me sir two years ago."
She nodded. He had. Back then, she'd fancied herself half in love with him and had foolishly gone home and written down every word he'd spoken to her all day. Fortunately, she'd moved past her infatuation. Her best friend and fellow co-captain of their fan group, Kyle, had made fun of her mercilessly for her infatuation. What had he called Draco? Oh right, the Capitalist Guardian. She'd tried, and failed, not to laugh at his joke.
"Yes, it's just I'm surprised you stood up."
She bit the inside of her cheek. Sometimes she couldn't stop herself from speaking. There had to be some kind of therapy for her impulsiveness. Some kind of hypnotherapy...
"My back's a little sore." He stretched his arms over his head, giving her a view of his abs through his tucked in black dress shirt. They looked fierce and well defined. "I got banged around pretty badly yesterday, taking down that rocket."
"I'll call medical right away." "Wendy, I'm sure it's nothing—"
"Sir, I'm afraid I'm going to have to cite Handler's Code 815, and you should be familiar with it, considering you wrote the code. It states a Handler's first job is to make sure her Guardian's health is looked after. If you're injured, I'm calling for a medical evaluation, whether you like it or not."
She crossed to his desk, lifted the receiver from its cradle, and started to dial the medical extension. Draco's rough hand covered hers, forcing her to hang up the phone. He didn't hurt her; no, he'd barely touched her. It was more the fact that he'd made physical contact with her, at all. Outside of picking her up to fly her from one destination to another, he never got close enough to touch her hand.
"I appreciate your concern. I promise you I'm not one of those men who spend time avoiding doctors. If I need to go, I will tell you to call."
Did other men spend time avoiding doctors? She didn't know. Having been raised in an orphanage for girls, she had no experience being around men. None. She'd never even dated.
Except for Kyle, who was a man, but she never thought of him romantically. She had no idea what men did or did not do. Instead, she spent an incredible amount of time not thinking of Draco as a man.
He was her boss, her superior, her favorite Guardian—he was all of those things, but to think of him as a man was a dangerous prospect. If he was a man then she had to acknowledge in addition to his blue eyes, he had the darkest black hair she'd ever seen—so black, sometimes it looked blue. If he was a man, then she had to sigh when she thought about how his sheer size dwarfed her and made her feel small and feminine, instead of too round and too tall. If he was a man, she had to notice the fine shape of his biceps, or the way his perfectly tailored, always black clothes clung in all the right places...hugging his rear end, begging her hands to reach out and squeeze. If he was a man, then she'd have to admit he was completely out of her league and she was sad and pathetic to make him the star of so many of her late night fantasies.
No, she couldn't work here and think of him as a man. He was a Guardian, he had superhuman abilities, and, by definition, not just a man. He was incredible, gifted, kind, fantastic, and so high above the realm of normal human females, he was safe for her to think about, occasionally. He was Draco Powers.
"When was the last time you saw your doctor?"
He smiled, the right half of his mouth tilting upward in an amused smirk. "I can't imagine you don't know the answer to your own question."
He was right. Of course, she did. It was her job to know. It had been eight years since he'd been looked at, before she'd become his Handler. His first Handler, who'd disappeared one day without ever giving notice or coming back to work, had insisted Draco go to the doctor when the Guardian collapsed in his chair.
"Promise me it won't take a near-death collapse to make you go again."
Had she just asked her boss to make her a promise? What in the hell was wrong with her? Her request was the kind of thing you said to a friend, to a confidant, not to your Guardian employer...
"I promise."
"You do?" He did?
"I was a lot younger then. I've learned my lesson." He raised his hand in mock salute. "I am not invincible. If I drink too much poison, I will die. I almost learned the hard way."
She swallowed. The secret behind why Draco had collapsed had been so well guarded she'd never known the cause. "Poison? You drank poison?"
"It saved a lot of people." He shrugged. "I've done it before, just never so much.
My stomach has never quite forgiven me. I still can't consume as much arsenic as I would like."
Her mind whirled. "What? Why on earth would you want to consume arsenic?" "Ha. Wendy, it's a joke."
"Oh." Her cheeks heated. "I'm sorry. I guess I don't have much of a sense of humor."
If he wasn't going to go to the doctor, she needed to get out of his office and regroup until she regained control of her emotions. "If you don't need anything else, I'll go work on tomorrow's schedule and do more research on the missing son case you have on your afternoon agenda. Something isn't sitting well for me with this one."
He nodded and an emotion she couldn't identify filled his eyes. Pushing away the thought that his mood had something to do with her, she waited for his response in a way she hoped came across as calm or serene.
"I trust your instincts, if you think something is not kosher, I believe you. We can cancel." He moved away, crossing to the window to stare outside.
In all their years together, she'd never seen him like this. He seemed almost pensive.
"Do you think it's the Organization?" he asked.
The Organization. The two words always made her shudder. If Guardians were real then so were their nemeses, and for lack of a better phrase, they were called the Organization. A group of people out to destroy the world Powers, Inc. worked daily to preserve. Two of Draco's associates had nearly been killed the week before and were recovering. All of the employees knew to be on guard until they uncovered the mastermind and his organization disbanded.
Slowly, she moved to stand next to him. "No, I don't think it's them. I just think something is...off."
He nodded, a few wisps of black hair falling over his eyes. Wendy stuck her hand in her uniform pocket to stop herself from pushing his fallen strands out of his vision.
Draco finally spoke. "And the legal matter?"
"I'll call downstairs and see if there's an update."
One of the newest associates had overstepped and interfered in a matter where they didn't have a contract. The person he'd pursued and brought to the police was now suing the company. Wendy wasn't overly concerned. This wasn't the first person to begin litigation either to get money or to stop them from doing their jobs. So far, Powers, Inc. had always won.
"Your first job is about three hours from here by air." She looked out the window. "The weather should be fine."
"Excellent. Then we'll leave two hours from now."
With one last nod, she walked to the door and stepped through it, shutting it behind her with a thud. She had to give Draco credit. When he'd commissioned the building, he'd used only the best materials. The thick oak door separating his office from everyone else made a point every time it closed. If anything ever screamed, 'stay out', the thud of his office door shutting did.
Approaching her desk, she found herself humming, though she'd been horribly nervous and embarrassed a moment earlier. Draco seemed satisfied with her job performance; she'd get to fly with him in just a matter of hours; he'd touched her; and it was likely she would progress another level on Hero Land tonight.
Life was good...until she reached her desk.
Gasping, she rushed forward as she realized the contents of her purse littered the floor. What the hell? Scrawled across her computer monitor in red lipstick were the words, SLUT and FREAK.
Whirling around, she glared at Kate, who typed at her computer, apparently working on the database Draco had asked her to finish the week before.
"Why would you do this?" Wendy hated the way her voice shook. She knew this was a little thing, nothing of consequence, a mean spirited prank, but still, she felt violated. They'd gone into her desk, touched her purse, and defaced her computer. This was her private space.
Kate raised an eyebrow. "Why did I do what?"
Alpha's Strength Page 23
