Chapter 3

Valentina screamed. The sound cut through the bass and the chatter and hit every corner of the club like a siren. She scrambled off Nicolás's lap, champagne soaking through her white dress, glass everywhere.

I still had a shard in my hand. I didn't even realize I was holding it until the sharp edge bit into my palm.

Nicolás was on his feet, blood streaming down his face from the gash between his brows. His eyes were wild, shifting between gold and human, his wolf barely caged beneath his skin. "You crazy little..."

"Finish that sentence." I stepped closer, the glass between us like a dare. "Go ahead, Nicolás. Finish it."

He didn't. He pressed his hand harder against the wound, blood slipping between his fingers, and for the first time in four years I saw real fear behind those pretty eyes.

Valentina grabbed a napkin and pressed it to his forehead. "She's insane! Someone call security."

"Oh, I'm insane?" I turned to her. The fury was clean now, focused, like a blade heated until it glowed white. "You planted that photograph. You were sleeping with my mate behind my back for years. And I'm the crazy one?"

"You were never good enough for him." Valentina lifted her chin, even with champagne dripping from her hair. "Everyone knew it. Mama knew it. Papa knew it. You were just too desperate to see it."

Something snapped loose inside my chest. My arm moved before I made the decision. The shard caught her cheekbone and dragged a thin red line from below her eye to her jaw.

Valentina stumbled backward, her hand flying to her face. When she pulled it away and saw the blood, her scream was so high it cracked her voice.

"That's for four years of lying to my face." I dropped the shard on the table. My hand was bleeding too, but I couldn't feel it. Not yet. "Come near me again and I'll give you a matching one on the other side."

Isadora appeared at my elbow like she materialized out of thin air. "Time to go. Right now." She grabbed my arm, wrapped her jacket around my bleeding hand, and pulled me toward the exit before security could reach us.

We hit the cold air and kept walking, fast, heels clicking on wet pavement until we were two blocks away and the music had faded into nothing. My lungs burned. My hand throbbed. But for the first time in two days, I felt awake. Actually, fully awake.

"That," Isadora breathed, leaning against a wall, "was the most terrifying and beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life."

"I cut my sister's face open."

"She deserved worse."

We looked at each other and for one wild second I almost laughed. Almost.

Then Isadora's phone buzzed, and her expression shifted. She glanced at the screen and closed her eyes. "No. Not right now."

"What is it?"

"My agent. There's a last minute shoot tomorrow morning, big campaign, and if I don't confirm tonight they'll replace me." She looked at me with pure guilt. "Harper, I can't leave you alone right now."

"Go." I squeezed her arm with my good hand. "I'm fine. I promise."

"You literally just assaulted two people with a champagne bottle."

"And I feel great about it. Go do your shoot, Isa."

She hesitated. She always hesitated. But she hugged me hard, pressing her face into my shoulder, and whispered, "Call me if you need anything. I mean it. Anything."

Then she was gone.

I stood on the sidewalk, cold wind pulling at my dress, my thick legs aching in these ridiculous heels, and I thought about going home. Going back to that dusty apartment and climbing into those stale sheets and sleeping for another two days.

Instead, I flagged a cab and gave the driver the address of the first dive bar I could think of.

The place was called Rudy's, and it was everything Luna's Eclipse was not. Dim yellow light, sticky floors, a jukebox playing old songs nobody asked for. I slid onto a stool and ordered a whiskey sour. Then another. Then I lost count.

The bartender stopped refilling after the fifth one. Or the sixth. I couldn't tell anymore. The room had gone soft at the edges, the pain in my hand was far away, and Solana had gone completely quiet inside me, curled up so small I could barely feel her.

"That's a lot of whiskey for someone your size."

The voice came from my right. Low, calm, slightly amused. I turned on my stool and nearly fell off.

It was him. The neighbor. Standing there in a dark jacket with his hands in his pockets, looking at me with those brown eyes that had no business being that warm in a place this cold.

"Are you following me?" I squinted at him.

"I was here first." He nodded toward a booth in the corner where an untouched beer sat next to an open book. "You walked in, sat down, and started drinking like you were trying to set a record."

"Maybe I am."

"You're the one who kicked my door at three in the morning last week." He sat on the stool next to mine, unhurried, like we had all the time in the world. "Unit 4A."

"And you're the one who watches women cry in hallways without offering a tissue." I pointed at him with a wobbly finger. "Savior Complex Alpha."

His mouth twitched. Not a smile. Something close to one that he swallowed before it could land. "Is that what I am?"

"You showed up when I was crying. Now you're showing up while I'm drinking myself stupid. You tell me."

"I think you're a grown woman making choices I have no right to comment on." He signaled the bartender and ordered a water, then slid it across the bar toward me. "But the water is free, so you might as well."

I looked at the glass. Looked at him. He didn't flinch. Didn't pity me. Didn't look at my round body squeezed into this dress and make a face or soften his voice like I was something fragile. He just sat there, steady and sure, waiting for me to make my own call.

I drank the water. Then I set the empty glass down and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

"You're pretty for a neighbor," I told him, because the whiskey had eaten every filter I owned.

"You're bleeding on the bar," he replied, glancing at my wrapped hand.

"It's a war wound. I earned it."

"I can see that."

The silence between us was warm and heavy, like a blanket dropped over a fire. The jukebox switched to something slow. My body hurt everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

I reached out and grabbed his forearm. His muscles tensed under my fingers, warm through the jacket sleeve, and I felt his wolf flicker for just a second. A pulse of something strong and controlled and dangerous.

"Take me home." My voice was low and rough, stripped of everything except the wanting. "I don't want to think anymore. I don't want to feel anything except something new. So if you're really this savior complex guy, then save me all the way. Take me home."

He held my gaze. Didn't blink. Didn't lean back. Didn't give me any of the signals that meant he was going to let me down easy or pretend he hadn't heard me.

"You're drunk," he told me quietly.

"I know exactly what I'm asking."

"And in the morning?"

"In the morning I'll deal with the morning."

He studied me for a long moment, his eyes moving across my face like he was reading something written in a language only he understood. Then he leaned in close, his mouth near my ear, close enough that I could smell cedar and something darker underneath.

"I'll take you home," he murmured. "But you're going to own this when you're sober. Every part of it."

"That," I whispered back, my fingers tightening on his arm, "is the clearest thought I've had all night."