CHAPTER 33
BLANCHETTE
“My, Blanchette…what big eyes you have.”
The door clicked behind Erik and Fang with the quiet finality of a coffin lid. His words were the calm pinning of nails as they drove home, imprisoning me within.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. The terminal screen still glowed in front of me as evidence left out in the open. The last file name I’d hovered over waited there, like a bomb ready to detonate.
Fang stood half a step behind Erik, an obedient shadow in a tailored suit, his icy gaze fixed on me.
My hands were still on the keyboard. I forced myself to move, to lift them slowly. Carefully. Like any sudden motion might make the whole room explode.
Erik strolled in casually. He glanced at the terminal, then at my face, his mouth curling in pleased amusement. He looked every bit the hunter who’d set a trap and finally heard the snap.
“What are you doing in here, Blanchette?” he asked.
I knew he noticed my trembling hands. I made myself swallow, then slowly sat up straighter in the chair as if my posture could turn my fear into confidence. Hell, I’d take nonchalance too. “Looking at the bigger picture,” I said.
“Mm.” Erik’s gaze flicked to the terminal again. “I see.”
Behind him, Fang reached back and engaged something with a soft mechanical sound. A lock. A security seal.
My pulse spiked.
Don’t panic, I told myself. Don’t give him confirmation that you’re frightened. Even though he probably already knows it.
He reached past me, not touching me, and tapped a singular key.
The screen changed.
A small window opened in the corner: USER ACCESS LOG—ACTIVE SESSION TRACE.
My stomach dropped.
Lines of code scrolled. Timestamps, pathways, clearance layers I had no business accessing. The path Bernie had given me. The exact sequence. Would this come back to him? This was bad. Very bad.
Erik didn’t look at the screen. He watched me. “I do admire initiative,” he said lightly. “It’s such a rare quality in Graymore these days.”
The air felt thin. My pulse hammered so loud I thought he might hear it.
“But initiative without permission,” he went on, “is simply theft.”
His gaze finally drifted back to the monitor, then to the mirrored progress icon still quietly blinking in the corner of the interface.
“And theft,” he added softly, “is terminable.”
The word terminable didn’t land like corporate policy. It landed like a diagnosis. A death sentence. My heart beat felt like I was running a marathon.
Behind him, Fang still didn’t move.
“You can’t fire me for doing my job,” I shot back, feigning confidence I didn’t feel.
Erik smirked. “Oh, little Blanchette,” he said. “There are some forests you should never wander into. And this one happens to be mine.”
He leaned in, his face near my hair, my temple. A slow inhale.
He murmured, low, “Did you really believe you could move through my den without leaving tracks?”
The resounding silence felt suffocating.
“I never miss a scent.” The tone of his voice dropped into mild distaste. “And you’ve been reeking of a particular one these last couple weeks.”
The words settled over me like a predator’s shadow, suffocating, inescapable. For a split second, fear tried to take me under with it.
But something else rose instead.
My grandmother’s calm voice rose in my mind: Strength doesn’t have to be loud to be strong. She’d tell me that all the time growing up.
Then I thought of Jonathan’s face at the fountain. The hurt in his eyes, the way he’d stepped back like I was poison. If I don’t do this, then he will have been right about me.
My fear never quite went away, but I felt courage war with it.
I lifted my chin. “What do you want, Erik?”
He straightened slightly, pleased. “What I’ve always wanted…and you’re going to help me get it.”
The word felt like fingers tightening around my throat. There was a particular look in his eyes, ones that signaled possession, like I was territory to claim, and something inside me snapped clean in two.
I pushed back from the terminal and stood. “So what?” I demanded. “You get rid of me? Like you got rid of Bernie? I don’t care anymore. Do it.”
Erik’s expression didn’t flicker. “Make no mistake, Bernard did that to himself. He simply didn’t know it.”
My chest seized, but I didn’t let it show. I took a step toward him. I didn’t shrink or flinch. I was done doing that. Instead, I met the predator with my own teeth bared. “You underestimated me,” I said.
Erik’s brows lifted. “Have I?”
“Yes,” I hissed. “Because you think I’m still afraid of you.”
His smile sharpened. “Oh, you’re not?”
I looked him dead in the eyes. “No.”
Before I talked myself out of it, I acted. My hand closed around the ceramic mug beside the keyboard—someone’s tea gone cold—and I hurled it at the terminal as hard as I could muster.
It struck the screen with a sharp crack. Liquid sprayed across the keys. The monitor shrieked with static, the image glitching violently. The blinking transfer icon vanished into white noise.
Erik’s head snapped toward it.
In the same instant, I slammed my elbow backward into his ribs with everything I had.
He grunted—genuinely startled—and I bolted for the door.
Fang was faster. His hand caught my wrist like a steel trap, yanking me backward so hard my shoulder burned. I twisted and stomped my heel down on his foot with all my weight. A hiss tore from him.
I twisted, claws out, and raked my nails across his cheek.
Blood beaded, thick and dark red.
Fang’s eyes flashed, something wolfish flickering just beneath the surface. He grabbed me with both hands now, pinning my arms. Hard enough to leave bruises.
I struggled like an animal. Kicked. Thrashed. But I was no match for a Lycan’s strength.
“No!” I snarled. “Get off me!”
Erik watched, adjusting his cuff, breathing steady. “Prey is fun when it runs, but more fun when it fights.”
“Touch that land,” I spat, straining against Fang’s hold, “and I will ruin you.”
Bernie. The files, I thought desperately. Had the transfer gone through?
I looked at the damaged terminal. I could only hope so.
Erik studied me as if reading the calculation behind my eyes. His gaze narrowed. “What did you do, Blanche?” he asked. “What do you really want?”
I lifted my chin in defiance. “I never want to see you again. I want you to leave Jonathan alone. I want you behind bars, where you belong.”
For the first time, Erik’s expression truly changed. Something cold slid fully into his eyes. Anger, maybe, or a kind of admiration twisted into hunger.
He stepped closer.
Fang shifted behind me, and something rough slammed over my mouth and nose.
A cloth. The smell hit instantly. Sharp. Sweet. Chemical.
No, I thought, suddenly understanding.
I jerked violently, trying to twist my head away, but Fang locked his arm across my chest and held tight. I couldn’t get air. My lungs burned. My body fought. My vision blurred.
Erik leaned close enough that I could see my reflection in his eyes. “Sleep,” he murmured. “Dream of Juniper’s dark woods…that you’ll be there soon.”
Darkness crept in.
As the sedative dragged me under, I forced one last thought through the fog, bright as moonlight.
Jonathan will know…he’ll find me.