Chapter 2: Kieran

I turn back to my drink, swirling the last of the whiskey in my glass and letting the burn settle deep in my stomach.

This is a mistake.

Every girl like her walks in here hoping, praying, begging for attention from a wolf. Fucking reckless.

I should send her away, make an example of her for wearing silver into my territory like a taunt, or remind every human in this room exactly what happens when you play games with predators.

But my wolf, Owen, won’t let me look away.

The word slams through my skull, primal and wrong. My wolf has never claimed anything. Not a territory beyond what duty demands, not a female beyond what my body needs. Claiming is for mated pairs, for wolves who’ve found their other half.

Humans can’t be mates. The science is clear and has been since Exposure. Humans don’t survive a claiming bite.

They never have.

So why the fuck is my wolf snarling that word?

I down my drink, and Maddox catches my eye, nodding toward the girl. Sienna. Even her name tastes dangerous on my tongue.

She takes a breath as our eyes meet, steadies herself, then stands tall, looking confident even though she’s in way over her head.

Maddox leads her through the club, past the dancers. Her lips are slightly parted, her fingers twitch at her sides. She holds still anyway.

Maddox stops a few feet away, clearly waiting for me to change my mind.

I nod to him, giving the silent order to leave us.

The bartender, Carlos, feels the shift instantly. The air thickens as wolves around us sense their Alpha’s attention focusing. Then she steps forward.

Black dress. Silver at her throat like a dare.

She doesn’t flinch under my stare. Every human who’s ever been within arm’s reach of me has learned to be wary. My father’s death taught me that humans are either afraid of wolves or trying to use them. Usually both.

But not her.

“What’s your name?” I ask finally, voice low, steady, laced with the kind of authority that makes lesser wolves drop to their knees.

She blinks once, lips parting like she wasn’t expecting me to actually speak.

Instead of answering like a normal fucking person, she tilts her head and says, “Funny. I thought you already knew.”

My patience thins.

I lean forward slightly, dropping my voice to something lower, something more dangerous. “I don’t enjoy repeating myself.”

Her smirk wavers. “Sienna,” she answers smoothly, but not as effortlessly as before. “Sienna Hart.”

Hart.

I keep my expression neutral, but my wolf snarls.

My father worked with her, trusted her, and it got him killed.

Before the Architects destroyed everything.

This Luna Chaser is Lilian Hart’s daughter.

And she has no fucking idea about the target she’s carrying on her back.

“I see you’ve been trying to get my attention, Sienna,” I say, keeping it casual even as my mind races. “Here you go. So what are you going to do with it?”

Her breath catches slightly, but she holds her ground. Then, with absolute, unflinching arrogance: “That depends, Alpha.”

She lets the word hang in the air, deliberately slow and teasing.

“Are you planning to waste my time, or are you going to show me why I should have been chasing you instead?”

There’s a slow, dark heat growing in me. Not just attraction, something deeper, more dangerous. The instinct to protect. To claim. To keep her away from whatever killed her mother and is now hunting my pack.

I pull her closer before I can think better of it. She gasps as I bring her between my legs, my fingers coiling around her wrist and pressing her hand against my chest. I can hear her heart racing.

I see the moment she realizes I can.

She still thinks she’s in control. She’s not.

My hand holds her in place, fingers spread across her back.

I tell myself she’s just a groupie. Just a human playing games, regardless of her connection to Hart.

But my wolf ignores me. He’s repeating one word.

Mine.

She sucks in an unsteady breath, her body warm and tense against mine. She still isn’t pulling away.

“Brave, Sienna,” I whisper, my voice deepening, my breath near her ear. “Or just careless?”

She doesn’t tremble like prey. Defiantly, she meets my gaze, her dark pupils wide. “Maybe both, Alpha.”

That mouth. The way she bites her lip ignites something in me. It implies everything: challenge, invitation, and more. A need to learn. The same lethal curiosity that killed her mother.

Her hand slides higher on my chest before I decide how to react.

I move before she can blink. One second her hand is on me, and the next I’ve caught her wrist and twisted it behind her back, her body colliding with mine hard enough to knock the breath out of both of us.

Shock flashes across her face, but she recovers too damn fast.

Still so fucking stubborn. Just like her mother.

“You think I wouldn’t notice this?” I murmur against her ear, my other hand brushing the silver at her throat. The metal’s faint burn reminds me of what she is. Human. Fragile. “Or were you hoping I would?”

She exhales, sharp and breathless. “Maybe.”

Before I can decide her fate, Maddox appears, looking serious.

“Alpha,” he says, voice low but urgent. “You should see this.”

“What?”

He glances toward the dark back corner, where the bass is muffled, where wolves are circling like something’s wrong.

“It’s not a fight,” he murmurs. “It’s worse.”

My chest goes ice cold. Maddox only interrupts when blood is involved. Or death.

I drop her wrist, but the heat of her lingers.

Her pulse still hammers between us, tempting.

But my attention is already on the sharp, metallic scent cutting through the club. Blood. Wolf blood.

I push through the crowd. Wolves are already forming a barrier, their bodies tense and protective. Dr. Elara Vayne, our pack healer, is kneeling beside the body with two others. Her hands are slick with blood, her expression carved from stone.

“This is the third this month,” she mutters. “Does anyone know who he was?”

Dario, my third beta, lies torn apart like a warning.

Yet this isn’t a dominance kill. His throat is torn out, but the wound is wrong. The blood has an unnatural, chemical stench.

The same signature as the others. The same impossible kill method.

The Architects are escalating.

Sienna’s wide eyes are on me, with the Luna Chasers clustered behind her. She looks scared, but there’s more. Like she’s seen this before, like she knows something.

Cora, my teenage cousin, leans in and whispers, “Who’s the girl with the silver necklace? New toy? Thought you hated humans.”

“Shut up,” I snarl, then turn back to Elara. “Anything unusual? Any trace evidence?”

Her jaw tightens as she shakes her head. Her eyes flick to a small puncture near Dario’s shoulder. An injection site.

He was drugged before his death. They sedated a werewolf so they could dismantle him without a fight.

The same method they used on my father.

Dario’s blood and Sienna’s scent make this hunt personal.