Chapter 1

ALTHEA

There’s no such thing as a secret.

Nothing stays truly hidden. It simply waits, mutates, and then comes back to bite you.

I had a secret, and for six years, I protected it, only for it to wind up unravelled by my enemy.

My heart is racing before he even begins to speak, and even after looking at the image on his phone, I’m hoping he’s clueless. “I know your secret, Kotyonok,” he says, his voice low and threatening like always.

I suck in a breath, my hands balling into fists.

I knew this day was coming. I fought hard to hide it. I’ve never had any friends at school, not that anyone wanted to be friends with the school charity case, but I did everything I could to protect this secret, yet somehow, the truth is out in the open. And the one who found out?

Kirill Volkov. Silverclaw's potential Alpha heir.

The very same boy who has made my life hell for the last six years. Before, he didn’t care about me, but then that stupid rumour about me liking him came out, and he made sure I knew he hated me.

It wasn’t even true. Okay, it was, but that was a long time ago. I was young, stupid, and my teenage hormones were at work. In the real world, there’s no way that I’m even allowed to look at him.

“Please…” I choke out. That’s all I can get out the first time, but I try again. I clear my throat and suck in a deep breath. “Kirill, please. I’m begging you. Don’t do this.”

He smirks, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

Much to my dismay, I know his moods. I know what he looks like when he’s angry, when he’s getting angry, and when he’s bored. Right now, he looks bored, like he didn’t just show me six back-to-back images of my whore of a mother fucking his twin brother. “Don’t do what? Tell the school that your mother is a cheap whore who has no problem fucking boys half her age?”

My nails dig into my palms, and I try not to flinch at his words. It’s all true, but it doesn’t get any easier hearing it.

“By tomorrow, everyone will have seen these pictures,” he tells me, walking away.

I follow him. “I’ll do anything. I’ll do your final projects. I’ll…”

“Thea!” Someone calls me, startling me. In the brief two to four seconds that I pause to look for who it is that might be calling me, Kirill makes it to his car, and I find the person calling me. My friend Theresa. “Girl, what are you doing with Mr Hotstuff?” She asks, running up to me.

“Not now, Teresa.” I gulp, trying to chase after Kirill, but he drives off. “Fuck.” I groan, dropping my face in my hands.

I need to talk to him, but he never really listens to a word I say.

I’ve asked him to stop bullying me a few times before, and he ignored me. I tried it in the sixth grade and in seventh, I reported him to the guidance counsellor, then his friends adorned my locker with creative slur art.

In eighth grade, he told the boy I liked that I was contagious with a runts disease, and everyone fell for it. He seemed to get angrier from there. He continued to call me Hellcat, Kotyonok (Kitten) because I don’t belong in the wolves’ world. Freak, scholarship trash, because…well, self-explanatory, and it went on.

It’s been six years of the same torture. I stopped raising my hand in joint classes. I don’t eat in the cafeteria. I sit in corners during school clubs. I did everything to avoid him, to wait for a new victim, but he always finds his way to me.

I keep walking down the road.

I don’t have any money on me. I barely had enough for the cab driver who drops me off at school, and I missed school because of it. Aria Lynette Monroe may be a whore, but she doesn’t make enough off it, not enough for me anyway. She’s swimming in debts, lawsuits, and a drug habit. Those all followed us from Moonviel. She claims she quit using for me, but she chose a different poison. Gambling.

By the time I make it to the pack house, the sun is going down. I heard he doesn’t like being home, so I'm surprised to find him near the packhouse.

“Kirill!” I call out, but he keeps going. “Kirill!” I repeat, louder this time as I jog up to him.

He turns. “Hellcat?” He frowns, taken aback for a moment, but the moment I’m in front of him, his face turns stone cold again. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Let’s talk,” I rasp, trying to catch my breath. “About my mother. Please.”

“Go home,” he snarls, turning his back on me.

He doesn’t seem to grasp the severity of the situation. To him, this is all fun and games. I run in front of him. “Kirill, please,” I repeat. “One chance.”

He pauses, staring me up and down with those fucking eyes everyone swears are godly. They’re not. They’re satanic.

I hate him. I hate the way everyone worships him, but most of all, I hate the way I still notice the little things about this Alpha brat. Like the way the moonlight catches his hair and brings out the glow in his eyes. “Get the fuck away from me before I tear that annoying little box voice out.”

I wince.

It’s not the worst thing he’s said to me, but he threatened me. He only does that when he is getting mad, and I’m often smart enough to heed the warning in his bored tone, but right now, I’m desperate. “Hear me out, just once. Kirill,” I choke out, grabbing his hand just as he walks away.

Something inside me shifts.

An unusual warmth spreads through me in what I can only describe as electric zaps, and the air gets caught in my throat. I gasp, trying to take a deep breath, but all I scent is him.

Kirill.

It’s intoxicating. It blinds all other scents around me, and when I look up at him, the amber in his eyes is glinting golden.

The fury in his gaze makes me pull my hand away, but he continues to stare at me like I’ve committed some sort of crime. I can still feel the low pulse of something I can’t name, but I know what it is.

We’ve been taught about it nearly every year in school, but still, I cling to the fact that our bodies produce electricity, so it’s a coincidence.

“Sorry.” I swallow, unsure what it is that I’m apologising for because whatever just happened, he seems to have felt it too, and for the first time in six years, I don’t know which one of us is more terrified.