Chapter One - Blood on the Marble

I don’t steal from the rich. I deliver to them and leave before they remember I was breathing the same air.

The elevator to the penthouse doesn’t ding. It sighs…quiet and expensive. I step out with a slim white box tucked under my jacket and three good lies under my tongue just in case I have to explain myself.

It should be an easy job. In and out. No cameras in the hall, just a glass console table and a bowl of orchids that look like they cost more than my rent. The door is already cracked, like they’re expecting me or like they don’t care  who sees.

“Drop it and go,” I whisper, because talking keeps my hands steady. “You are a shadow, Salomé. Shadows don’t get shot.”

I slide through the slit of the door.

There’s fucking marble everywhere. Gold mirrors that seem as tall as a church, a view of the city like a glittering photo. It smells like citrus, cedar, and something else that I can’t put my finger on.

I head towards the bar to leave the package and vanish but a sound from behind the curtain stops me in my tracks. It wasn’t a sneeze or a laugh, more like the cock of a gun as a bullet slots into the chamber.

I feel as though I stop breathing and the box bites into my palm as the curtains ripple, silhouettes moving behind it in a scene that I most definitely should not be watching.

Two men step left and two head right, and in the middle of them, someone on his knees. Shirtless. Head bowed. Hands cuffed behind him with a black chain that glints the way a snake does when it decides it likes you.

“Any final words?” A bored voice drawls. I can’t see who it belongs to.

The kneeling man huffs a laugh instead of answering. Arrogant or insane, I can’t really tell. His spine ripples…wait…no, it moves, like something is trapped under the skin and wants out.

What the fuck…

The first shot fires just as the man in the middle jerks and begins to change.

It happens too fast for it to be real. I had to be high on something..

His bones were shifting, joints breaking and resetting, skin tearing like wet paper. Fur rips through him in a dark rush and suddenly he’s half man, half wolf, and he surges upright on a snarl that doesn’t sound human.

The curtains explode as men shout and another shot fires, then another…someone screams as claws tear through the skin on a face.

I dive behind the nearest column and press my cheek against the cold marble.The package slides from my hand and lands without a sound. I definitely was not being paid enough for this bullshit.

Don’t breathe. Don’t move.

The room looks as though a tornado has been unleashed inside as gold mirrors shatter into bright stars, a body hits the bar, then thuds to the floor, and blood runs in elegant lines the way wine always spills so perfectly in commercials.

What a fucking ridiculous thought to have right now… Don’t look. Don’t look.

I look anyway.

Fuck.

He is both monstrous and beautiful at the same time, his silvered eyes seem lit from the inside and his chains dangle from his wrists,the  links smoking where they touch his skin. He seizes a man by the jaw and tears it apart effortlessly as I watch and my stomach drops..

Why the fuck am I still stood here? I need to run.

No. If I run, I’ll make noise. Noise gets noticed and if I get.noticed I’m dead for sure.

The doors at the end of the hall swing open and a man walks through them like he owns the very air that we breathe.

Gray suit, no tie, jacket unbuttoned, hands in pockets and an aura of calm about him that screams kill first, blink later. His gaze flicks across the carnage like he’s checking his reflection: blood, bodies, shattered glass, the half-shifted beast panting in the middle of his nest of red.

Cassian Vairo.

I know the name the way you know the names of hurricanes once they’re announced.. Heir to the family that never used to have a face. Now they have his and the city learned it fast.

He takes in the scene before him, tilting his head abd says one thing, as if he’s sick of the whole incident already.

“Chain him.”

Three men move like they’ve rehearsed this nightmare  a thousand times. Silver nets appear as if from nowhere and hooks flash through the air. The wolf lunges furiously and its chains scream against the marble, and another gunshot goes off, the bullet tearing through his shoulder.

I press myself flatter to the column even as my heart tries to escape through my throat.

Cassian steps closer to the beast and doesn’t flinch his when blood splashes his shoes.

“You had your moment,” he says, softly. “Now it’s mine.”

The wolf snaps his jaws at him and Cassian doesn’t bother to step back. He just looks at him like a math problem with only one answer.

“Submit.”

His voice is a command that seems to hum through my bones as the wolf shudders.

For a second I see the man flash under the monster. His dark hair, a mouth that looks like it was made for sin and violence with eyes blown wide...then the chain tightens. The beast snarls, choking as his shoulders heave.

I should crawl backward, melt into the wall and become part of the paint. I should…

Then my shoe skids a whisper over the  marble floor, the smallest of sounds, but Cassian’s head turns.

Oh for fuck sake.

Gray eyes zero in on my column. Assessing what lay beyond it and deciding what he intends to do about it.

I stop breathing and will my pulse to slow from it’s frantic pounding.

His mouth curves. It’s most definitely not a smile, more like a blade pretending to be one.

“Come out,” he says.

Fuck that. I snort internally as my body tries its best to stay welded to the column. My legs say, we can be furniture yet my stupid-ass mouth says “I’m… I’m with cleaning.”

My voice doesn’t shake and I inwardly high five myself. Good girl. Lie like a pro.

“Cleaning,” he repeats, amused, like he’s tasting the word. “At midnight. During an execution.”

“Rich people make messes,” I say before my fear can strangle me.

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

He laughs once and it’s much worse than if he shouted.

“Drop the box,” he says. “And step out slowly.”

I look at the box already on the floor.

“Box is done.”

“Step out,” he repeats through clenched teeth and I know I can’t stall any longer.

I peel away from the column and every inch of me screams. My knees want to go down on instinct in a display of submission.

No.

I keep my spine straight and walk into the open. There is blood everywhere, a body close enough to touch and the wolf drags air into his lungs like each breath is a fight.

Cassian watches me carefully as I move and I do the same to him.

Up close, he’s too pretty to be safe. Sharp mouth, dark stubble and a scar like a pale thread at his jawline.

“Name,” he says.

“Who’s asking?”

His brows lift a fraction. “I am.”

“Then maybe you already know,” I say, because fear and stupidity are cousins that hold hands.

For fuck sake shut up, Salomé.

“Someone hired me to drop a box on a bar. I didn’t see anything.”

“You saw everything.” He strolls closer, examining the blood on his cuff, bored with it. “What did you hear?”

“A gun coughed behind the curtains,” I say before I can help it.

He smiles, real this time. Interest brightens behind the gray. “You’re quick.”

“I’m busy.” I nod at the door. “And you’re…busy. We’re both so busy.”

He looks at me like he’s remembering something he misplaced. A knife, maybe, knowing my luck.

“What’s in the box?”

I shrug.

“You want me to open the client’s package? That seems a little rude.”

“Open it,” he says, and there it is again, that stupid hook in his voice, tugging, persuading you to do what he wants.

My hand moves before I decide to let it.

I hate that.

I hate that my fingers are already sliding the lid free when my brain is screaming don’t, and Inside the package, an old black-bound book with no title.”

Cassian’s mouth does that almost-smile again. “Good girl.”

Heat hits my face and I swear at myself again. I hate the way that phrase hit me and I snap the lid shut in annoyance..

“Interesting,” he murmurs, gaze flicking from the box to my wrist. “You hear well. You lie well. You obey…adequately.”

“I don’t obey.” My voice comes out thinner than I like. “I deliver.”

“Mm.” His eyes do another clean slice down and up, like a knife that enjoys its job. “Deliver what? Besides trouble.”

“Packages.” And lies, apparently. “Look, I’ll just…”

The wolf on the floor lifts his head.

For a second, the world narrows to nothing but his eyes, sun-bright, feral, and hungry. Something in my chest stutters like it forgot the beat of living. His lips part around teeth too long for a human mouth.

“Salomé,” he rasps.

My name is a wound in his voice and every hair on my arms lifts. How in the fuckity fuck…

I take a step back without meaning to and Cassian’s attention snaps from the book to the beast, then back to me, then settles like a hand at the base of my throat.

“Interesting,” he says again, softer this time as his gaze sharpens. “He knows you.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t know him.”

“Wolves don’t waste breath on people they don’t know,” the man to Cassian’s left mutters, warily. “Not when they’re bleeding out.”

Chains clink and the wolf tries to move even as the silver bites and smokes against his hide. He snarls, fighting it, fighting something and his gaze won’t leave my face.

Run. My body begs for it but my pride refuses to move.

“Say it again,” Cassian orders, eyes still on me, like he’s running numbers in his head while he plays with his toys.

The wolf’s chest heaves painfully as my name graces his lips once more.

“Sa—lo—mé.”

The way he says it, like he found water after a week of being stuck in the desert…like he’s known it longer than I have.

My mouth is dry. I don’t look away from Cassian because looking away would be another sort of submission

“I mean…he could’ve heard someone say it,” I manage weakly. “People talk.”

“Not to him,” Cassian says, amused. “He eats people who talk.”

His men chuckle but the sound dies quickly.

Cassian steps closer, into my reach, and every instinct inside of me screams that men like him don’t get this close unless they intend to keep you…or kill you.

He lifts his hand. Not quickly and not slowly as the backs of his fingers skim the underside of my chin, an inspection dressed as a caress. My skin flashes hot, then cold under his touch.

“A cleaner,” he says softly, “I should end this charade now.”

Cold fear slides through me and he studies my face carefully. The corner of his mouth kicks upwards slightly..

“But I’m feeling generous today.”

I know for a fact that he fucking isn’t. Men like him don’t give anything freely that they can’t weaponize.

“Here’s what's going to happen,” he says, voice still soft. “You walk to me. You hand me the box. You don’t run. You don’t scream. You don’t do anything clever. You don’t make me chase you.”

My heartbeat skips over its regular rhythm.

Don’t do anything clever. The worst instruction you could possibly give me.

“And if I do?” I ask, because I don’t know when to shut up, because anger is how I fuel myself in situations like this.

A smile laced with threat. “Then I find out how long you scream before you break.”

The wolf snarls, like the words infuriate him but his attention is still focused on the hand on my skin.

How does he know me?

I look at Cassian and suddenly decide something I should not decide in any moment of inspiration when faced with the same situation I was currently in.

He doesn’t get to be the only one who enjoys the game.

I step in, closing the space he left there on purpose. I hold the box out and, when he reaches for it, I don’t let go. We both feel the drag. His eyes lift and i see suspicion laced in there with a little surprise.

“How very fucking generous of you,” I say, sweet as poison. “Thank you.”

His fingers sit firmly on the lid. He could take it without any effort but he doesn’t. He watches me hold on to it and it felt like a test with no instructions.

He leans in. “Don’t make me like you,” he murmurs.

Too late for that though, isn’t it? The thought is a flash of pure lust that I hate myself for.

I release the box.

He takes it from me graciously, like I passed something ordinary. He turns the book inside the box with two fingers, gives it the kind of look you only give something precious, and nods to men.

“Secure him,” he says gesturing to the wolf, “and clear the mess up.”

“What about the girl?” the man to his right asks.

Cassian slides the book back into its coffin and he looks at me over the edge. His gaze is a claim he hasn’t spoken yet.

“Not dead,” he says. “Not yet.”

The wolf drags in a ragged breath like it hurts to be alive and his eyes are still on me, fever-bright. He speaks again, voice ruined and reverent.

“Mine.”

The word hits like claws down my spine.

Cassian’s smile returns, sharper this time.

“That,” he says, almost delighted, “is a complication.”