Selina's POVNo one ever tells you that running the world means killing off your personal time. My coffee was already cold, and my inbox glared at me, 61 unread, as if that was my real job. The only thing more persistent than a Tuesday morning was Vera’s heels—click, click, click—like she wanted the whole building to know someone was about to get verbally flayed alive.She didn’t bother to knock. She never did. Vera shouldered the glass door open, dark hair a little too wild for her silk pantsuit, and planted herself in front of my desk. She dropped a file folder on my mousepad and stared at me. I could tell she was pissed: her lipstick was reapplied halfway up to her nostrils, and her earrings didn’t match.“Tell me you have prepared the proposal,” I said, voice flat enough to iron a shirt.Vera folded her arms and cocked her head. “Why would I waste my time on a Mrs. Blackwood wannabe?”That was new. I put my pen down and glanced at her, eyebrow raised. “Come again?”She slumped int
Vera's POVGrant’s “office” was the gym in our basement, which didn’t smell like sweat so much as testosterone and the kind of gym socks you could use to murder someone if you swung hard enough. I heard him before I saw him: the thud of the heavy bag and the almost subsonic rasp of his breathing. I padded barefoot down the concrete steps with a bottle of wine under my arm and a pizza box in my hand, balancing both like an Olympic gymnast, because that was the kind of multitasking you had to develop if you wanted to be mated to a werewolf with the social skills of an axe murderer.I pressed my shoulder into the doorway and let my eyes eat him up. He was shirtless, back slicked with sweat, muscles moving under his skin like animals fighting to escape. Even his scars were vascular. The gym lighting was harsh, no flattery, but on him it just made the shadows deeper and the teeth whiter. He looked like a myth, but one you’d find carved in obsidian and left at the scene of a mass grave.“He
Selina's POVLydia Skyes had the kind of face you wanted to slap, but only after you took a minute to be impressed by how painstakingly she’d curated the effect. Bone structure worthy of genetic engineering. Brows shaped like punctuation marks. And the lipstick—a suffocating fuchsia that made you wonder if she’d dipped her mouth in a vat of Barbie gore. She smiled at me, wide enough to threaten the seams of her cheeks. I was half-convinced she’d had her molars replaced with pearls or something more expensive.Her dog, a pocket-sized white gremlin with the posture of a hungover debutante, wore an actual Louis Vuitton slip dress, so meticulously fitted that the tag was visible, like a threat. Lydia held the dog as if she expected it to begin reciting investment tips, or maybe it already had. The animal’s black, tarry eyes scouted the room for someone more interesting than its owner and, finding none, settled on Vera. The feeling was not mutual.Vera, my assistant, greeted this performan
Selina's POVI don't know if I'm starting to hate mornings since I saw Lucas with a woman or what. It started with the ice in my veins, not the kind that signals a proper meltdown, but something subtler. I spent mornings with my head burrowed between the pillow and the wall, letting Jonathan’s steady breathing behind me provide the white noise for the thoughts I refused to touch. I convinced myself I was merely tired, not drowning in acid jealousy. Not that. I’d never had the taste for it. My mother once said the only thing worth envying was perfect skin and an unshakable mind. I had both, at least until I saw Lucas with her.She was nothing remarkable, which made it worse. Some caramel-skinned waif in gym wear, tossing her head back at the coffee cart while Lucas hunched, massive in a suit that didn’t belong to any season, trying to look small and approachable. She made him laugh—a rare, non-ironic version—and my gut twisted. The moment replayed itself on a feedback loop, bitter and
Lucas's POVMonday had the ugly habit of showing up three times a week. By the time I parked in front of Blackwood Enterprises, the taste of burnt espresso was already a memory, and my inbox’s death rattle echoed from the passenger seat. I left the car running, like maybe if I was quick I could finish the day and leave myself idling in the lot, untouched by meetings and small talk and whatever crisis the interns had manufactured overnight.I was through the sliding doors before the security guard had time to finish his “good morning, Mr. Blackwood.” The lobby was just as I’d left it: the walls were all sterile glass, the floor was marble, and the ceilings were so high that voices drifted up and died before they could reach you. An elevator opened just as my shoes left the rug. If I believed in luck, I’d have called it a sign. I didn’t.By the time I reached the 37th floor, my phone had vibrated eight times. I ignored each one. Let the fires burn. Maybe the building would smell better i
Selina’s POVHe looked like a ghost at the threshold—soaked in rain and regret, dripping water onto my floor like some tragic figure from a gothic romance. And I hated that my heart still stuttered when I saw him. Lucas, the man who ripped me in half and left the pieces behind like litter on a battlefield.I set my fork down slowly and deliberately, my eyes never leaving his.“Lucas,” I said, the word sharp and clean, like the edge of a blade.He didn't answer right away. He just stood there in his tailored suit, dark hair plastered to his forehead, a storm in his eyes, and a thousand unspoken apologies trembling on his tongue. My wolf rose at the sight of him, furious and feral and pathetically drawn to the scent of mate even now.Jonathan leaned back in his chair, one arm slung casually over the backrest like he belonged here, like he’d always belonged here. His gaze was fixed on Lucas, but the smile that curved his mouth was meant for me. Possessive. Daring. Mocking.“You’re wet,”