Coldsnap: The Billionaire Alpha's Fated Pregnant Princess (GL)
Chapter 86 - [C] Tracking Trouble After Hours

Chapter 86: Chapter 86 - [C] Tracking Trouble After Hours

***[POV: Claire Thomsson]***

"No, Luca, I’m telling you these numbers don’t add up."

I tapped my stylus against the tablet screen, highlighting the discrepancy in the quarterly security expenditures. Luca leaned closer, his subtle woodsy scented, expensive cologne disrupting my thoughts as he peered at my screen.

"Look. Someone’s padding the budget for the northeastern perimeter sensors. I can literally access everything from my workstation if needed - and unless they are storing them five times as much as suggested to do with replacements then they are simply not being installed."

And probably sold to a third party. I didn’t bother saying, because I’d run out of... prim and proper activation time.

As Kyrie’s Beta, and as a son of one of the important board members... he always dressed impeccably. In suits and dress shirts that probably cost what my monthly rent would.

If I actually had to pay it and it wasn’t part of the package for working here. Perks are good... perks are...

He hummed while running a hand through that perfect hair. Blonde and perfectly slicked back even at this late hour.

I wanted to mess it up so badly. And then he would-

"Victoria’s project. I told Kyrie it was excessive."

I bit my tongue to keep from saying what I really thought about Victoria Whitecrest. *Professional Claire* doesn’t call any of their pack members... pretentious bitches with territorial complexes.

Out loud. At least not in the office. What I shout in my room is no one’s business.

Except his, if he wanted to come back and make me call-

"The Alpha asked me to prepare a complete analysis of things like this before the loss prevention meeting next week. So they don’t think there is a corporate problem when it is a pack one. But I need access to the full deployment plans to verify these allocations."

I shifted my attention back to work and not play. Swiping to the next document as I watched Luca’s eyebrows rise.

"Those are pack-only documents. You want my approval right now?"

I gave him my best [are you fucking kidding me] look that was more myself than Assistant me. Though I managed to keep my voice perfectly even as I parted my lips.

"Mr. Stroman, I’ve handled more sensitive pack information for three years. Ms. Voss has already authorized my access for this specific review. I could literally steal the files myself and she wouldn’t bat an eye."

He sighed, his broad shoulders slumping. He hated being called by his last name, but...

I fucking loved to see him pout - like a little dog that has just done something wrong. When I know damn well he is a titan of a werewolf who could tear my head off, but never will.

Though when it comes to tearing... I can almost feel a bit of phantom pain, even though it has been ages. Since he mounted me and went to town.

"I’ll bring them over in the morning. Don’t go out stealing physical documents by yourself, Claire. Just call me. Okay?"

He shakes his head, misunderstanding the wild smile on my face when he looks back at me. I know he thinks I’m kind of insane...

"Sure thing, Luca. I’ll give you... a call."

"Don’t stay too late. Even Kyrie’s taking an early night off."

Luca said while standing up straight and adjusting his red tie. I try not to think about being bound to my bed with it, fruitlessly, as my head tilts back.

The analog clock behind me says it’s almost 8. Most of the office had cleared out hours ago, but her Beta and I were often the last to leave.

Him because of pack responsibilities, me because... well, because my work was never really done. And because he was here to tease and lure.

When my neck rotates back down, I smile at him in mock innocence.

"Oh? She went home early... something important came up again?"

His eyes narrowed, just a little. Ah, it sends shivers to places... pouting is good, but angry is also good.

He was pretty angry that first night, after all. And that night was... good.

"You know I don’t gossip about the Alpha."

"Neither do I!"

I spun in my chair twice before slowing it down, unable to resist adding another line in a low, sultry voice.

"But... if you’d like to discuss theories over a drink in my apartment instead of going to yours, I make an excellent martini."

The flush that crept up his neck was worth the quick rejection I knew was coming. It showed he wasn’t uninterested in me now, just... still too cautious about the fact I’m a human.

"I have patrol duty tonight. Good evening, Claire."

Clearing his throat and walking away with perfect posture, I allowed myself a small grin as my head tilted and watched his muscular form leave. Because I know what it looks like under those slacks.

Flustering Kyrie’s second-in-command never got old, especially since I knew perfectly well he found me attractive enough to screw more than once. But... couldn’t reconcile that with his confusion about what exactly I was to the pack - not when he was in his ’right head’.

"Mm. Not pack, just Claire. But the two of you love Claire anyways, because you’re both crazier than I am."

I murmured to myself, turning back to my screens. Twenty minutes later, I’d finished organizing tomorrow’s schedule and was about to shut down for the night.

When my phone vibrated with a message.

Boss: [Are you free to start tracking?]

The message was accompanied by more private security alerts. Kyrie must have held them back from me until 8 on the dot.

[Tracking signal activated: Subject KT-P3]

My fingers froze over the screen. KT-P3 was our Lodestar code for "Kyrie’s Tracker, Priority 3" – she’d deployed a goddamn marker today and just told me!

I quickly closed down my public work screens, smashed the camera recording stop, the button that latches the front office door like a full on panic room... and swapped the monitor and keyboard connections to my secure terminal.

As the private interface loaded, I kicked off my heels, unbuttoned the top of my blouse and pulled my stupid long hair into a hasty bun. No one was getting in here to see Professional Claire melting away.

Or the vicious grin that spread knowing I had hostiles to track!

"Where are you going, my little troublemaker?"

The map of Vossden materialized on my screen, three distinct dots pulsing in different locations. Two stationary, one moving rapidly along the western district.

"Shit. She marked three of them. Why did she keep all this fun quiet?!"

Each tracker emitted a unique signal that our systems could monitor within city limits due to all the monitoring stations we set up. They were virtually undetectable unless you knew exactly what you were looking for - and had equipment most people couldn’t access.

Microscopic little electronic devices that adhered to tissue through a specialized chemical bond and the Alpha, like the badass boss she is, kept on the tip of her damn nails!

"I also want cool billionaire gadget shit... Though I don’t want to have to stab someone with my fingers just to implant it."

That part is kind of... no, I mean it’s metal as hell, but I’d literally die in a close up fight... I should just be satisfied with the computers she let me build. Yeah.

Still... Lunarizon’s R&D department had created the nanoscale trackers two years ago and I’d only gotten to do this *for her* a few other times. Expensive things degraded after approximately 48 hours as the body’s natural process broke down the marker.

"Time to earn my obscene salary and justify the use of an even more obscene cost."

Pulling up city camera feeds that I absolutely do not have actual legal jurisdiction to use, but get away with... I set a program to start cross-referencing with the tracker positions in the last couple hours since they’ve been up.

She must have ran into them right after it started getting dark. Really, what was she doing that she waited until now?

"No, bad Claire. Work first, play later. Priorities! You can go track her mate and coincidentally spy on your boss later!"

The two stationary signals were easy to identify. One was in an apartment complex at the edge of Pack territory.

Likely one of the rogues I’d seen on the early footage, pulled into an alley suddenly in a half a video frame... by a white furred claw. She’s really good at keeping out of sight!

Anyway, the first has likely ’gone to ground’ there like the other one. In what looked like a temporary shelter in the warehouse district.

But it was the signal moving that interested me most. Subject 3 was currently heading west, fast. Too fast for someone on foot.

"Motorcycle or car? Surely he isn’t just wolfing it out of town..."

I got lucky at an intersection, catching a grainy image of a man on a motorcycle running a yellow light. His face was obscured by the helmet, but the build matched what I’d seen in the alley footage I’d pulled earlier.

Just around the time my boss rushed into it like a damn lion on a gazelle that had kicked its cub.

I’ll have to hack in and delete that... replace it with a generated clean chunk from other recent footage. My work is really never done with these people!

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