CHAPTER 1

The heat under my skin was a slow burn, sharper than the scent of rain clinging to the Havencrest air. I should have been dead to the world after the moon-rite in Silverwood, but Jessa’s voice wouldn't stop echoing in my skull.

"Ever really scented a true Alpha, Mars?" Her laugh had been sharp, fueled by too much nectar. "You’re twenty-six. A prime Omega who’s never even shifted with a partner. Stop being a martyr. If you won't find a mate, at least find a thrill."

I lay across the furs of my bed at the Pacific Crest Resort, the room spinning in slow, nauseating circles. I was the pack outlier—the wolf who had never known a touch, a kiss, or a knot. Usually, my inner beast stayed on a short leash, but the fermented moonlight I’d downed earlier had snapped the collar.

My throat felt lined with silver dust. I sat up, shadows dancing against the walls. With trembling fingers, I grabbed my slate. The runes on the screen blurred into golden smudges as I scrolled.

Grant Walker.

The Alpha of Westline. My superior. A man who only knew me as the person filing his pack ledgers.

I typed with a boldness that didn't belong to me: Stop holding out. Send a scout to my quarters or send the scrolls. I’m in the VTN ROOM.

I added a flame sigil and hit send.

The silence that followed was heavy, pressing against my eardrums. I slumped back, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I expected a reprimand. A dead link. A cold realization of my own professional suicide.

Instead, the heavy oak door shuddered under a single, authoritative knock.

I stumbled up, thinking Jessa was playing a prank. But when the timber swung wide, the air was sucked out of the lungs.

Grant Walker stood there, a predatory silhouette against the torch-lit hall.

He’d just come from the ritual springs. Dark hair plastered to his forehead, droplets of water tracing the corded muscles of his chest. His ceremonial robe hung open, revealing the jagged, blackened ink of pack marks disappearing into the low-slung fabric at his hips. He smelled of cedar, ozone, and a dominant musk that turned my knees to water.

His eyes weren't their usual icy blue; they were glowing a molten, lupine gold.

"You summoned an Alpha, Mars?" His voice was a low vibration that settled deep in my bones.

"Mr. Walker? I... the message was..."

Before the lie could leave my lips, his hand—massive and scarred—cupped the back of my neck. He pulled me into his space, and the hallway vanished.

He tasted of dark honey and forbidden power. It wasn't a kiss; it was a claim.

A moment later, the rough furs of the bed were beneath me. His heavy frame pinned me down, my light tunic a pale ghost against his dark silhouette. Grant was intoxicated—not just by drink, but by the lunar cycle. There was no other reason the Alpha of Walker Ridge would be in a subordinate's room.

He wouldn’t remember this. He didn't even remember we’d run in the same juvenile pack ten years ago, or that I’d spent a year watching his back in the training pits. To him, I was a ghost in a suit.

A single night, my inner wolf howled in surrender. I reached up, tangling my fingers in his damp hair, and pulled the monster down to meet me.