Free Living Extinct by Lorie O'Clare

werewolves in suits just past the double doors.
    “Rose?” Mattie turned around, her expression puzzled. “I don’t know how to do this.”
    “How to do what?” Rose gave Mattie half her attention.
    Outside the secretarial pool, the two werewolves strolled inside like they owned the place. Curiosity hit her.
    Mattie smelled her interest in the men outside and frowned. Rose gave her a defiant look. She was a happily mated bitch and didn’t give a rat’s ass if some other bitch misinterpreted what she smelled.
    “What do you need?” she asked stiffly.
    40
    Living Extinct
    “It’s someone in Washington.” Mattie held up her receiver, her hand covering the mouthpiece. “They want me to pull up a file and delete it. I don’t have clearance.”
    “Put them on hold and transfer it to me.” Rose glared at the younger woman for her lack of professionalism. “I’ll take the call.”
    Mattie didn’t like relinquishing such an important call. Frustration filled the air, blocking the scents of the werewolves in the outer office. No one had asked Rose to train someone to take her place so she wasn’t going to waste time giving explanations.
    “This is Rose Silverman,” she said politely into the phone. Her attention remained on the two werewolves standing on the other side of the doors to the secretarial pool.
    She would die to know what they were doing here. “How may I help you?”
    “I’ve got a code zero that I need to send through,” the young werewolf on the other end of the line said. He offered his identification number, which she typed in to the computer for validation.
    Rose brought up the appropriate screen. Mattie had moved behind her. Let the bitch watch if she wanted. It wouldn’t surprise Rose at all if Mattie fought to get her job before she even had her paws out the door.
    “Your identification number is verified,” she told him, then offered hers and listened while he typed it in.
    “You’re verified as well.” The mundane policy was simple, yet necessary so that no one could pretend to be with the agency and remove werewolves from the system.
    Rose clicked on the file. It popped up on the screen, and she read the numbers that the computer gave the file. “Code number is seven, seven, five, three, zero, four.”
    The werewolf on the other end of the line repeated the numbers back to her. Rose barely listened. Distracted when the two werewolves in suits entered the inner office, she grunted into the phone. Mattie moved around her quickly, all smiles as she quickly asked the werewolves if they’d like coffee. The other bitches in the office all quit working as well.
    Once upon a time, Rose would have growled at the bitches in the office for giving a lazy appearance. The last thing they wanted werewolves from Washington thinking was that they didn’t run a tight ship here. She no longer cared though. Her days here were over. Just two more weeks and what happened with the government would no longer be any concern of hers.
    Before long she’d be with her cubs all day, taking them to school, picking them up.
    No longer would they be bussed to after-school care, forced to be civil around humans.
    Rose and her mate, Bruce, believed in raising their den to be respectful of humans. After all, they were a lesser species, half of a whole. But neither of them had ever wanted their cubs to have to deal with humans on a daily basis. Soon she’d be raising her cubs the werewolf way, getting more active with the pack, joining the committees and tending to pack business.
    “Okay. Transmitting the file for deletion now.” The werewolf on the other end of the phone brought her back to reality.
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    Lorie O’Clare
    For now, she still worked here, still had a job to do. A code zero meant some poor werewolf had died on the job. Part of what she did was delete all knowledge that the agent had ever worked with WA—basically doing cleanup. Within minutes, it would be as if the werewolf never existed. Agents