Page 1 of Feral
Prologue
Angelica
Ilookedoutatthe London skyline from my obscenely expensive penthouse apartment. It has a lovely view from the expansive windows in the living room. A delicious burn from the whiskey in my hand traveled down my throat and I sighed. If only everything were as simple as a glass of good liquor to sooth the nerves. But nothing about my job as Director of the Secret Archive was simple. Not cleaning up the messes left by the previous one. Not protecting my few remaining agents. Not safeguarding the dangerous artifacts so the world didn’t go up in a fiery ball.
The Secret Archive, the organization that had stood in the breach between the world and the dangerous artifacts for hundreds of years, was in shambles, not that most people knew that, of course.
No, only myself and the council truly knew how damn dire the situation was.
My predecessor, a power hungry psychopath by the name of Francesca, had corrupted the Archive’s original purpose by using artifacts as weapons, bargaining chips, and means of human experimentation.
She’d created an atmosphere of terror within the organization to the point where half our agents had splintered off to form a rogue group that was currently waging a war against us.
The other half that was left had either fled upon her death, or tried to stick around on the promise that I would be a different kind of leader. And of those half, many had decided to leave anyway once they realized just how much damage Francesca had done to their mental health.
Which left me, the new director, with a rather big problem.
We were severely under staffed and artifacts were being stolen left and right by the rogue group calling themselves the Protectors.
I snorted into my whiskey at the ridiculously self-righteous name.
“Protectors my ass,” I murmured.
“What about your ass?”
I jumped at Trey’s voice, fighting the blush that was threatening to rise to my cheeks.
The staggeringly handsome Korean man leaned against my doorway, arms crossed and a smirk on his face, showing off his dimples. Trey was my liaison with the council, who, understandably, didn’t trust me with the powers of the Director’s role yet. He was to observe and report back to the council, but he was supposed to be neutral.
Yeah, right.
“Do you ever knock?” I asked, setting the drink down on my glass coffee table.
“I love what you’ve done here,” he remarked. “When Francesca owned it, the place had a heavy feel to it.”
I hadn’t really wanted the apartment that went with the title, not at first. But when I found out that it once belonged to Francesca, I couldn’t resist coming in and seizing everything she’d owned.
The precious artwork she’d stolen had been donated to a museum, while every scrap of her other belongings, down to the last crystal champagne flute, had been sold at auction and the proceeds given to the families of her victims. Francesca would have absolutely hated that.
Poetic justice if you ask me.
The penthouse was huge, far bigger than I would ever need on my own. Still, I had redecorated it with special care in case any of my children came to visit.
My grown children. I’m old enough for grown children. Which means I definitely should not be allowing this man to flirt with me, or give in to the temptation to flirt back.
It didn’t matter that Trey was several hundred years old, and a Dragon. It didn’t matter that my husband had been dead for almost nine months. Or that I sometimes woke from dreams of Trey’s hands all over my body, his tail wrapped around my ankle while he…
No, none of that mattered.
Trey looked at least twenty years younger than me, and he was my colleague.
I was a widow and a grandmother, albeit relatively young for both. And I was here to do a very dangerous, very important job.
I was not here to take a lover.
No matter how much he smoldered at me from the across the room.
“What do you want, Trey?” I asked, pushing as much ice into my voice as possible.
