Three days later, she was in a new apartment complete with new furniture. Life would have been pretty much perfect if it weren’t for the fact she was already failing.
She had absolutely no idea who Warren Duchamp was.
A spot of internet sleuthing had earned her nothing, and it wasn’t as if she could ask anyone where the nearest vampire hangout was. Her lip had been chewed so much that her skin was cracking, and she was starting to wonder when her employers would write her off as a failure.
Then she’d have a very different problem to worry about.
They’d made it clear that failure wasn’t an option. If these people were willing to pay one person to kill another, she was willing to bet they’d have no compunction about adding her name to the ‘to kill’ list if she messed up.
“Would it have hurt to drop a few hints about this guy?” She muttered, staring at the still-blank laptop screen before slamming it shut in disgust. “Stuff it. I’m making cake,” she said and started throwing various ingredients together.
She didn’t know it then, but it would be a long time before she felt like baking again.
Paris was not an ideal place for a unicorn shape-shifter to let loose.
It was a full moon night and January had picked the Vexin Nature Park - just outside of Paris - as the best place to shift. It was far from perfect. While there were a few forested areas, it was hardly what you’d call secluded and January knew she’d have to be on alert the whole time.
She laid her clothes down and gritted her teeth against the night’s chill. Here we go, she thought and summoned the energy for the shift, aided by the power of the full moon. Her bones had just started to crack when she caught a whiff of something.
Wolves! She thought with a stab of panic and halted the shift. It took a huge effort and she was sweating by the time she was fully human again. January wasted no time feeling surprised that she’d been able to exercise so much control and instead threw on her clothes.
She was just in time.
A big, nearly white wolf appeared through the bushes. January stared awkwardly at it. There was no way of communicating with another shifter, unless you were both in either animal or human form. She suspected that this wolf had been sent forwards by the pack to find out if she was a normal (albeit strange) human, out for a midnight stroll. It would be easy to mistake this particular wolf for a large dog.
The wolf sniffed the air and then disappeared back into the bushes. January chewed her lip. Things might be about to go south.
A naked man walked back through the bushes that the wolf had disappeared through. January kept her eyes above waist level only and wondered if he’d been the white wolf.
“Who are you?” He asked, speaking fast and fluent French.
January blinked and found that the words had returned to her head. “Just a shifter out for a full moon walk,” she said, tilting her head in what she hoped was a non-threatening way. “Am I in the wrong place?”
The wolf man in front of her barked with laughter. “This is just about the only place there is around here. You must be from the country, or you’d know. No one gets territory in a city, you just live and let live.”
He still didn’t smile or relax his posture. January strongly suspected that wasn’t the whole truth.
“Are you telling me you’re a lone wolf?” She asked, knowing full well that he wasn’t. She could smell others. They were close.
The wolf man finally broke and his lips moved upwards for a fraction of a second. “No territory, but there are still rules. My pack are the enforcers for Paris. Come and meet our leader.”
It wasn’t a request, January realised, but she followed him all the same. She had no reason to pick a fight with a Parisian pack during her first week in Paris. She was also willing to bet that this pack of ‘enforcers’ probably had their noses firmly stuck into everyone’s business – including the local vampires’.
January followed the still-anonymous man through the bushes and found herself in a giant circle of wolves. She had known there were others in the woods but hadn’t expected there to be this many. This must be the only pack in Paris, she thought, understanding how it had grown to such super-sized proportions. No one in their right mind would ever challenge their authority.
A tall, dark man in his early thirties emerged from the circle, in human form so that they could talk. January inclined her head, not low enough for submission. He raised an eyebrow and she wondered if she’d already messed up on her shifter etiquette. She wouldn’t have been surprised.
Her parents had hidden her away from her peers ever since she’d first changed. They’d told her that she would always be in danger. People would put her on display or try to kill her as a trophy. January hoped that they were wrong about that, but years of their insistence meant that she hadn’t shown her animal form to another of the two-natured beyond her family group. Tonight wasn’t going to be the night that changed.
“I’m George, the pack leader. You’re a horse.”
It wasn’t a question.
January tried not to smile at the assumption. “My name is January,” she said and then wondered if she should have revealed that much.
Should she have a false identity? The book on vampire killing had merely been a practical guide. It wasn’t advice for budding bounty hunters. She bit her lip and wondered if her mysterious employers might have another ancient tome of top-tips that they could send her.
“January. Right.” The head werewolf didn’t look impressed, despite her decision to translate her name into French to make it easier for pronunciation purposes. “Law of the land here is to stay hidden and get along. No fights and no getting seen.” His eyes raked up and down her, disparagingly. “You fall into the harder to conceal category. If anyone sees a horse running loose, they report it. Could be worse though, at least you’re nothing dangerous, like the big cats.”
January had to concede that he was right with that judgement. She may currently be charged with the assassination of an unknown vampire, but so far, she’d never hurt a fly. The more she thought about it, the more she wondered what the anonymous people on the other end of the phone saw in her.
“I think I’ve got it,” she said to the wolf.
When no one said anymore, she walked back out of the clearing and went straight back to the apartment, vowing to buy a car the next day and drive to some place free from a horde of wolves. The fewer the people who knew of the existence of a unicorn in Paris, the better. Who knew what would happen after she’d dispatched the vampire? Her mouth set in a line. You can do this! This is the way to a new life - forever, she thought and knew it was true.
There was no way out now.
January walked out of her apartment early the next morning and collided with the man who’d been loitering outside her door. She was immediately overwhelmed with the scent of his second nature and jumped back a full step. Wolf! Her mind screamed, and she regarded him warily.
His mouth curved up into a smile and January suddenly realised he was extraordinarily good looking. He had movie-star, dark blonde hair, dark eyebrows and a pair of brown eyes so sincere you would never be able to doubt a word that came from his pretty, bowed mouth. January shook her head, wondering if the collision had jarred her brain.
“I’m James Cray,” he said, and January realised that he’d spoken perfect English without an accent.
Her eyebrows shot up and he smiled at her some more.
“I was in the pack last night and noticed you were British and clearly new in town. I thought I might…”
“Show me around?” January finished, unconvinced.
This seemed like the most transparent attempt to spy on someone ever.
James leant back against the brick wall and tilted his head at her. “Well, if you like, but I figured someone smart like you probably already knew the ins and outs - especially as you’ve clearly been to France before. I was thinking more along the lines of… going out for a drink,” he finished.
His eyes widened, imploring her to say yes.
She folded her arms, ignoring the way her stomach had flipped when he’d basically asked her out on a date. “Sure,” she said, shrugging a little as she failed to think of a way out of this one.
If he was spying, he’d find out pretty soon that there wasn’t much to her. She certainly wouldn’t be spilling any of her secrets to him. But then, perhaps he would spill some of his own…
“Hey, I think I came face to face with pretty much every shifter in Paris last night, but I was wondering where the others go? You know… the other supers. Back home, the leader of the local vampire population owns a pub,” she said and then bit her tongue, wondering if even saying that was too much of a giveaway about her past.
She didn’t want anyone to be able to do any digging.
James raised his eyebrows. “Why do you care about vampires?”
“So I can avoid running into them,” she replied, keeping her face completely blank of expression.
“I was so hoping you’d say that. They’re nasty, blood-sucking scum. I wish someone would burn them all.” He said it so casually, January had to think over his words a couple of times.
Well, okay… she thought.
“Did they do something to you?” She asked and then hesitated. “Sorry, that’s a pretty personal question.”
James waved a hand at her. “No, it’s fine. I’ll tell you all about it… when you come out for that drink with me later.” His smile sparkled and the playful mood returned.
She grinned and looked away. “See you at seven? You’d better pick the place now, so I can spend all day looking for it,” she said and again wondered if she was saying too much about herself.
She thought James’ eyebrow may have lifted a fraction when she’d inadvertently revealed she didn’t have a conventional day job, but she might have just imagined it.
“Café de Flore, Boulevard Saint-Germain. See you later, pony girl,” he said with a grin.
January made herself echo it back, secretly wanting to kick him in the teeth for that remark. Wolves were all the same.