female companionship, and taking advantage of that fact was one of my primary leisure activities. To those unfamiliar with our nature, this may be shocking, but I assure you, in comparison to the way the human world conducts its courtship rituals ours are practically sedate.
We mate for life, and take the matter of finding a suitable companion very seriously. The physical consummation of the love of two werewolves for each other always takes place in wolf form, and results in a telepathic and empathic bond that only death can break. This does not mean, however, that a variety of sensual pleasures cannot be enjoyed in human form between consenting males and females in the meantime, and I have done my best to discover them all. After all, how is one to know when the right woman comes along if one isn’t willing to look with an open mind?
But that was then. These days I am far too busy to have much energy left over for recreation of any kind. And besides, as I am constantly reminded by everyone around me, I have a certain image to uphold.
Sometimes I’m not at all sure I was cut out for this life.
For over four hundred years, the pack has been ruled by the St. Clares, and without great complaint. Sebastian St. Clare, our present venerable ruler, is well liked, as far as I can ascertain, and certainly well respected. His son Michael was scheduled to succeed him, and we as a people looked forward to another hundred years or so under peaceful St. Clare rule.
Then Michael St. Clare fell in love with a human woman, and everything changed.
Oh, yes. It’s shameful but it’s true. And I, in my efforts to bring Michael back to his senses—he is my cousin, after all, not to mention that I was under orders from no less than Sebastian St. Clare himself—only made matters worse.
A centuries-old rule of succession was invoked requiring the two of us to do battle for the throne—a battle to the death. Every werewolf in the empire was there at the amphitheater at Castle St. Clare to witness it, cheering us on, and what was I to do? I never wanted to fight Michael St. Clare. Hell, he’s twice the werewolf I’ll ever be. I’m lucky he didn’t kill me.
But…and this is where I still have difficulty believing it…not only did Michael not kill me, he forfeited the battle, and the throne, to me. Sometimes I wonder how history will remember that moment; already I see it being rewritten by those who, to honor me, I suppose, forget that it was Michael who first bared his throat to me. They remember only that I refused to kill him when it was my right, and even brought him under my protection when the keys to the kingdom, so to speak, were mine.
So that is how I came to this position of great importance. Accidentally, unwillingly, and, some say, unfairly. As for what, exactly, my new position is…well, that’s still a matter of some debate, particularly in my own mind. Michael St. Clare, the natural heir, is alive and well and living as a human in Seattle. Sebastian St. Clare still rules us all firmly and fairly from Castle St. Clare Alaska. And I, the heir designé and newly named CEO of the St. Clare Corporation, spend a great deal of time flying from one city to the other, attending meetings, plowing through great tomes of corporate documents and scanning gigabytes of computer data…but doing, for the most part, nothing at all. I haven’t been in a research lab in months. Some new man has taken over my office at R & D. The things I knew and enjoyed are all behind me. What lies before me is anyone’s guess. Like the human Prince of Wales, I suppose, I am little more than a man in waiting.
As for what I was doing here, in the cramped little cubicle of the most junior account executive in our Montreal office…well, my head was still spinning. The phone call had come in the middle of the night less than forty-eight hours ago, putting me on the corporate jet for Alaska almost before my eyes were open.
My first clear memory of that flight was of Castle St. Clare, erupting in all its Gothic magnificence from a cloud of mist and ice fog like a well-planned miracle. I love that first view of it from the air, and whenever I think of home that’s how I see it. Carved into the side of an ancient mountain in one of the most rugged, isolated parts of Alaska, the castle has been a fortress for and a monument to our kind from time immemorial. The sight of it never fails to take my breath away.
By that time, we had transferred to the helicopter, for Castle St. Clare is accessible only by air in winter. The whole way, we fought wind sheers and temperatures that were minus twenty in calm winds, and no one but a werewolf pilot could have made that landing safely.
Even under the uncertain circumstances, I was glad to be home. I had been born here, spent much of my childhood here, and even after my education at Oxford and the assumption of my position within the corporation, I never missed a clan gathering or a birth celebration or even a board meeting if it meant a chance to come home. My roots were here, and even covered in ice, battered by killing winds in twenty-below temperatures, it called to me. Always before, I had answered that call with a light heart.
But these days when I returned home, I did so as the heir designate to the entire St. Clare empire, the man who would one day assume the cloak of responsibility for the financial, personal and moral well-being for every werewolf, dam and wolfling in the clan. There were many who were uneasy with that concept. Sometimes I myself was among them.
The helicopter pitched and dropped several times on its way to the freshly cleared landing pad atop the tallest roof of the building. The blades whipped the surrounding snow into a blizzard-like frenzy that pelted the bubble of the helicopter and reduced visibility through the clear panels to zero. I knew we were on the ground when the floor stopped pitching and the sound of the blades was reduced to a mere ear-shattering whine. The pilot grinned over his shoulder and gave me the thumbs-up. I pulled on my coat.
Within seconds of stepping out into the icy air, I was surrounded by a phalanx of guards. Some of them veered off to retrieve my luggage. One of them took my briefcase and shouted, “Welcome home, sir,” while the others formed a living circle around me, shielding me from the wind, escorting me toward the door a few dozen yards away. They walked quickly, heads down, mindless of the ice-slick stone beneath their feet. Surefootedness is another advantage werewolves have over humans.
The warmth of the building was a shocking, if welcome, contrast to the bitterness outside, as was the silence of the carpeted corridor after the roar of the wind and the screech of the chopper blades. Though I had only been exposed to the elements for a few moments, my skin was chapped and my coat was stiff with cold.
Had I been in wolf form, of course, I would not have suffered any of those discomforts. In our natural state, we are all perfectly adapted to this environment.
“Do I have time to freshen up?” I asked, pulling off my gloves.
“I’m afraid not,” the young man who had taken my briefcase replied, “He’s waiting. However,” he added, as though hopeful of making up for bad news, “there’s a bottle of very good Madeira waiting in your quarters, and we’re having salmon cakes for tea.”
“Well,” I murmured, more to cheer my companion than myself, “that’s something, I suppose.”
The elevator was waiting. Three of the highest-ranking bodyguards stepped in with me; the others took the service elevator with my luggage.
There was no reason to assume, of course, that any of this meant bad news. The abrupt summons, the short deadline, the air of urgency…Sebastian St. Clare was a man who was accustomed to having his orders obeyed and having them obeyed immediately.
In the past six months, I had received exactly this kind of summons no less than eight times, and each meeting, it seemed, had been more unpleasant than the last. I was beginning to suspect our esteemed leader was enjoying the power he held over me. One thing was certain: Sebastian St. Clare would never let me forget that I had come into my position by accident, not by right.
The elevator covered the twenty floors in as many seconds. I had reason to wish, as I almost always did these days, that the castle was not equipped with quite so much technical sophistication. It seemed to me that everything was moving too fast lately.
We stepped out into the corridor. Lushly carpeted in royal blue, paneled in gold-tipped mahogany, this part of the complex was, in fact, the heartbeat of the corporate