Page 9 of Luna Wolf's Heat

“But … corporate espionage … Do you know what that means?” Canaan sure knew what it meant. Part of his job with Blood Moon Agency was investigating people suspected of just that. It wasn’t good, and he hated to think that someone was accusing Queen_Luna. He could feel it down to his bones that she would never do something so base.

It might be silly, but Canaan had a sense of the people he had quested with, and he was sure his Queenie was a good person.

Love how you think of her as yours, his wolf teased. Canaan ignored the beast. It was obviously not the time to get all horned up.

“Queenie?” he asked. “Have you drowned in your ice cream?”

“No. I’m here, but can we talk about something else? I haven’t let myself think about all of this, to be honest. I need just to burn off my anger before I figure out how to deal with this.”

“Queen_Luna, you could be in serious trouble.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“If the investigation finds you guilty, you could be arrested and even do jail time.”

“But …” He heard her breath catch. “I haven’t actually done anything wrong.”

“Well, sure. Gimme a second.”

He slid over to his other bay of computers, and as he tapped wildly over the keyboard, he could hear Queen_Luna calling out to him on his headphones. He didn’t want to have the conversation on an unsecured line. He didn’t think anyone was spying on her, but he wouldn’t take the chance. “Incoming,” he said.

“Huh?”

Through his headphones, he heard her phone ring. “Pick up the phone, Queen_Luna.”

“That’s you? Calling me? How?”

“Pick up the phone,” he repeated, nearly calling her Elizabeth. With only those few keystrokes, he had learned her name and that she bought a caramel latte every day between 10:04 and 10:08.

“Okay, let the record show that this is by far the creepiest thing that has ever happened to me,” she said at the beginning of the telephone call.

“I’m in IT. I can work my way around IP addresses and firewalls. You weren’t too hard to find. Disconnect your mic from the game.”

“You just used your hacker skills to call me, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t want you to go on in the game chat. You never know. Now, tell me everything from A to Z.”

She sighed heavily. “No offense, Blood Wolf, but I don’t know you.”

“I’m Canaan Wolverton. Look me up. I’m the IT security COO for Blood Moon Agency.”

“This could be a huge catfish situation,” she pointed out. “No offense, but I’m not really big into trusting men right now.”

He clicked his tongue. “Incoming.”

“Last time you said that, you found my cell phone number. What am I supposed to expect now? Are you going to send SWAT to my house?”

He chuckled. “No. Check your phone. I sent you the company link. You can see my staff picture.”

“And how does that help me? I don’t know what you look like. Besides, it took you two seconds to find my phone number. How do I know you haven’t planned this for weeks? This could be a fake account. A fake website."

He laughed again. “I’m glad you’re that smart. Seriously, look up any article about the Wolverton family. There are quite a few articles about my mother, Valerie, in the New York Times. She was also in a few magazines. My eighth-grade picture is in one of them because my mother likes to keep her children humble.”

Canaan sent her the links to every article that featured his picture. He even sent her invites on his social media profiles. It was a lot, but what else was he supposed to do? Not help her? That was insanity.

“You’re a bit intense, Canaan Wolverton.”

“I’ve been told that many times in my life. I swear that it comes in handy sometimes. I don’t mean to spook you, but I’m just trying to show you that I am who I say I am. That way, you’ll let me help you.”

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