Chapter one

FIVE YEARS AGO

There was something just right about the night.

It was windy, but not too windy. The soft swell of the breeze ruffled my pink curtains, making me giggle for some unknown reason. It was seven o’clock, but the sun hadn’t gone dark yet.

“Rewrite the Stars” from my favorite movie was blaring through my speakers at a volume that would have gotten me into trouble with my parents if they weren’t preparing for a date themselves.

I wasn’t just happy—I was ecstatic!

My phone rang, and I giggled a bit as I picked it up. “Beth!”

“Who’s been up in your room making you laugh if it’s not me?”

“What?” I shouted, though I heard her very well. I finally turned off the music, but it did nothing to sober me. “What are you saying, Beth?” I asked with another giggle.

“I’m asking why you’re giggling up there like—” There was a soft, indrawn breath. “Oh my gosh! Freya, is there a boy up there?”

“What—no!” I shouted, and then, “Beth, do you think I’m beautiful?”

“That’s it! You’re acting too strange for me to ignore. I’m coming up to your room now!”

Beth hung up, and in the next three minutes, she was climbing in through my window.

Beth was my next-door neighbor, and we’d been best friends practically since the day we were born. We both attended a very prestigious high school that we had no business attending, considering the fact that we were omegas. Everyone living on this side of town was an omega. I’d always considered it a kind of error that the then-Alpha of our pack ordered all omega families to live together. We were the weakest link in the chain. Didn’t this make it easier for anyone who wanted to invade the pack?

“Out with it, Freya! Tell me where he is,” Beth said as soon as she jumped into my room.

She started searching my room, throwing open my wardrobe, looking under the bed—and then, more ridiculously, inside drawers.

“Beth!”

She whipped around to look at me. “I just don’t know what’s come over you—and yes, to answer your question, you are beautiful.”

She dragged in a breath. “I guess no one has told you before, but Freya, you’re the most beautiful girl I know. You have a perfect heart-shaped face, the largest, softest brown eyes I’ve ever seen, and your inky-dark hair… It’s the kind of hair men write songs about. It’s just a pity we’re omegas, and so we’ll never find our fated mates. But I’m sure the man who ends up marrying you will cherish you forever—”

“Well, on that note,” I started, “I think I’ve found my fated mate. Alpha Zac in our school and I have a mate bond. He invited me to the party tonight to announce our bond to the whole school—well, the whole of the students at the party, that is.”

“The Blue Moon party?” Beth asked with envy but zero malice. “I’ve always wished I could attend. Practically everyone from our school goes. Those young Alphas, betas, and Alpha’s children—Freya, do you know we’re the only omegas in our school?”

I nodded, feeling momentarily bad for her. “The party’s starting in thirty minutes, though. I’m only waiting for Mom and Dad to leave before I start preparing—I’d hate to get busted.”

Beth nodded excitedly. “I already saw them leaving as I crossed over your wall. Come, let’s get you ready for the party of your life! And make sure to tell me all the details when you get back.”

About forty minutes later, I stood trembling slightly in front of Alpha Zac’s sprawling mansion, clutching a bunch of daffodils. Okay, I felt foolish about that, but they were my best flowers, and I thought I should bring Zac a gift.

The lights, the smoke, and the moonbane-laced drugs hit me the moment I stepped into the gates.

“Oh, what do we have here, pretty thing?” I heard a masculine voice say.

Turning around, I had only a moment to take in Damon’s appearance before he crushed me to himself in a one-handed beer hug and tried to kiss me, while his other hand clutched a plastic cup.

I wrestled away from him, my breathing uneven when I finally turned to face him. Damon was the first son of our neighboring pack’s Alpha, and even Beth and I had heard how he used to force himself on girls.

To stop him from trying anything, I blurted out, “I’m here on Zac’s invitation. He asked me to come!”

Damon let out a short bark of laughter. “Zac, eh? I thought as much.” Raising his voice, he shouted, “Zac! There’s a cute little thing here for you, and she brought you flowers.”

Laughter filled the entire private woods, and then the DJ bellowed into the mic. “Zac, you better step out. A pretty thing’s brought you flowers.”

The announcement was followed by more laughter, and then some stage light of sorts picked out Zac.

He was clutching a busty brunette, leaning back a bit to drink from a bottle. Squinting at the lights, he let go of the brunette and began to walk toward me in a slow kind of swagger, like a wolf stalking its prey.

He had no shirt on. The wide expanse of his chest was riddled with tattoos that somehow faded away around his cord-rippled belly. Somehow, he looked even taller than his six-foot-two frame, and his low-slung jeans reminded me of something Beth had said once—something I desperately wanted to forget.

I lost my breath as those intense green eyes of his pinned mine, singling me out from the crowd. It was as if no one else existed. It was just him, me, and the improvised floodlights.

“My, you’re a little jittery today,” he said as he got close to me, pulling me into himself in another one-armed hug. With his other hand, he flung away his half-empty bottle of pinot noir and took the flowers from me.

A brief expression crossed his face, then his eyes became hooded once again. “You brought me flowers.”

It was not a question, but I nodded, feeling shy as heat crept up my cheeks.

When I looked up at him again, there was such an intense emotion in his eyes. Afraid of what I saw in them, I shut my own eyes. And then he kissed me

His kiss was gentle, with a hint of cruelty that made my breath hitch—or maybe it was the erotic stroke of his tongue as it slipped into my mouth.

I moaned, pressing myself against him, trembling slightly as he gathered me in his arms, the flowers digging into my back.

Laughter and applause called me back to earth.

I was still in Zac’s private woods. The lights, the people, and the shouting—something along the lines of “finish what you started”—were all still there.

Zac’s grin was wicked as he bent to whisper in my ear. “Shall we oblige them?”

I shook my head, not fully understanding everything that was going on, but I knew I was out of my depth. I opened my mouth to tell him he was confusing me, but he had already started dragging me, gently but firmly, inside the building.

I got a brief impression of high ceilings, expensive furniture, and decorations, and then I was in a room—his room. It smelled exactly like Zac.

“D-don’t you think we should go back to the party? They’ll miss you,” I murmured in a shaky voice as he pulled me into his arms once again.

“Shhh,” he whispered against my ear. There was a sleepy quality to his baritone. “Just live in the moment.”

I tried to. I told myself that he was my mate, that it was normal for mates to have sex—even though this was my first time—and that this wasn’t at all rushed. Then he was kissing me again, and I couldn’t think at all.

When he finally lowered me onto his mattress, I couldn’t stop him even if I wanted to. Just like that, I lost complete control of my own body.

Zac was such an artful lover that he managed to take away all the awkwardness I felt. I even wondered if he realized this was my first time, my first kiss—my first everything.

When he buried his head in the curve of my throat and bit me, marking me, I cried out in such intense pleasure it felt like pain.

Even when it was all over, I could still feel tremors running through my entire body. I shivered slightly and tried to cuddle closer to him, but he pulled away from me.

“Damn!” he murmured, and for a brief moment, there was a troubled emotion in his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me you hadn’t done this before?”

I tried to breathe evenly. Was he angry with me?

“I’m in high school, Zac. What did you expect?”

He stared at me incredulously. “Sweetheart, every single student in this school has slept with each other—multiple times—and then with countless people outside the school. This is Woodroad High, for fuck’s sake!”

I shook my head, feeling hurt by the harshness in his voice. Maybe everyone had, except Beth and me. We were the only two omegas in the school, and something of outcasts.

He pulled further away from me and was about to get off the bed. For some reason, a sob caught in my throat.

“I don’t see the big deal here,” I said, trying to reassure him. I felt he needed some kind of reassurance—to come back to bed, to hold me, and whisper all the sweet nothings I’d heard mates whispered to each other after lovemaking.

“We are mates, and you’ve marked me. I really think it’s okay that we made love,” I continued, a frantic desperation in my voice.

He scoffed. “‘Made love’? Who still calls it that?” His voice was harsh as he pulled on his trousers with an ease and quickness that told me he’d done this a lot.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, Sweetheart, I lied. We’re not mates, and I’m sorry I marked you. It was done in the heat of the moment.”

“W-what… I don’t understand, Zac,” I whispered, clutching the bedsheets tight against my chest. Suddenly, what happened on this bed no longer felt beautiful, like a page taken out of a love story. It felt ugly and cheap, like a horribly acted adult film.

Tears filled my eyes, and I brushed them off quickly with my knuckles. Beth once said nothing irritated a guy like the tears of a girl he didn’t love.

“Zac, you told me I was your mate, that I couldn’t feel the mate bond because I was an omega, but that you felt it strong enough for the both of us. You’ve even marked me, for Pete’s sake!”

He stilled, and his expression went cold.

“Maybe this should teach you to stop being so damn trusting! It was all a bet, Sweetheart. A bet to see how far I could string an omega along.”