Chapter 2 — New Name, Old Wolf

Three months later, my name was Mara, and my world smelled like stale beer and old fry oil.

The Vesperridge dive bar didn’t have a sign so much as a flickering red *OPEN* that never quite managed all its letters at once. It sat wedged between a pawnshop and a shuttered tattoo parlor, the whole block soaked in neon and indifference. Perfect.

Nobody here cared who you’d been, as long as you paid in cash and didn’t bleed on the furniture.

“Table three’s trying to pay with vibes again,” Risa called over the thump of bass. “And you missed a spot.”

I glanced down. A ring of someone’s spilled drink glistened on scarred wood. I wiped it away with a swipe of the rag, then moved, hips doing a practiced sidestep to avoid a staggering wolf twice my size.

Being pregnant made me slower. The cheap suppressant tabs made me dull around the edges. But the reflexes—those I kept. You had to, if you were an omega working nights in a place that sold more fantasies than beer.

“Mara, right?” one of the regulars slurred as I refilled his glass. His eyes dropped to my bare wrist, to the thin metal band hidden under my sleeve, then lower. Always lower. “Pretty little thing. No mark, no mate, no protection… Is that true?”

I gave him the same flat look I’d perfected over the last three months. Somewhere between bored and faintly amused.

“Drink’s paid,” I said. “That’s all that needs to be true.”

He laughed like I’d told a joke, not a boundary. Men like him always did.

I slipped away before he could get grabbed, weaving through the dim room. The bar’s owner, Ira, liked to keep the lights low enough that his patrons couldn’t see each other clearly. Or themselves. The only real brightness came from the battered holoscreens bolted over the shelves—muted sports, gossip channels, and the twenty-four-hour financial feeds that never slept.

The stool behind the counter had become my island. From there, I could see the front door, the bathrooms, and the far corner where the truly dangerous deals happened. I could also see the exit to the alley if I needed to disappear fast.

The baby did a slow, discontented flip under my ribs as I reached for the bottle of cheap bourbon. I pressed my elbow lightly against the swell—small, under my oversized uniform shirt, but real enough that my balance had shifted.

“Easy,” I murmured, more breath than sound. “We’re working, remember?”

“Mara!” Risa tossed a stack of glasses into the sink. “Break. You look like you’re going to pass out, and if you do it in front of them, they’ll start bidding.”

“I’m fine,” I lied.

Her eyes flicked to my middle, then away. Risa was an omega, too. She didn’t ask questions. That meant I liked her more than anyone else in this city.

“Ten minutes,” she insisted. “Go sit in the back room and pretend we pay you enough.”

I wiped my hands on my apron, nodded, and ducked under the pass-through. The thin, metal stairs to the stockroom creaked under my weight. My single rented room sat above the pawnshop next door—one lumpy mattress, two cracked windows, and a floorboard that hid a tin box of prenatal vitamins and every bit of cash I didn’t immediately need.

Three months of that routine taught me two things.

First: Vesperridge didn’t care where you’d come from, but it would absolutely try to eat you alive.

Second: the rule here was the same as it had been in Nightmoor.

No mark, no mate, no protection.

That was all strangers needed to decide what I was worth.

I pushed open the back door to the narrow staff bar, the one Ira used when he didn’t want clients listening. The lights were dimmer here, the music just a muffled bass through the wall. I sank onto a stool, muscles sighing in relief.

On the wall-mounted screen above the fridge, a newsfeed ticker scrolled in angry red.

I told myself not to look.

I looked.

VHALOREN DOMINION GROUP COLLAPSES, the headline screamed. FROSTVEIL MANOR SEALED. NIGHTMOOR COVENANT ASSETS UNDER TRIBUNAL REVIEW.

My heart stopped, then stumbled, then kept going.

Muted footage rolled: Frostveil behind bright yellow tribunal seals, guards in crisp black uniforms stalking its grounds like they owned the place. Another shot of Daire Vhaloren in a crisp suit from some old broadcast, jaw hard, eyes unreadable.

The next panel showed Calista Dravenne.

She’d always been pretty on the gossip clips—gold hair, ice-blue eyes, a smile like she’d never doubted she owned every room she walked into. On screen now, she looked serene, speaking to a crowd of reporters, one manicured hand resting over her chest like tragedy had humbled her.

The subtitles did the talking.

DRAVENNE: I only want what’s best for the Covenant. We all grieve Frostveil’s fall.

Stock tickers bled red at the bottom of the feed. *VHALOREN -72%… NIGHTMOOR ENERGY -44%…*

Another graphic popped up: HIGH HOWL TRIBUNAL LAUNCHES FULL EVALUATION OF NIGHTMOOR COVENANT HOLDING

* Evaluation * The word glowed in clinical white letters.

To anyone else, it sounded medical. Efficient. Responsible.

To anyone like me, it sounded like *seizure*. Like wolves in clean uniforms walking into your life with clipboards and chains.

My fingers tightened around the edge of the bar.

His empire was burning, stock numbers bleeding out on live feed—and somehow, I still smelled like smoke.

It shouldn’t have hurt. He’d told me to go. I had gone. I’d sworn I was done bleeding for him.

But seeing Frostveil sealed—seeing Calista’s patient, polished smile—ripped at something raw and ugly inside me anyway.

A bitter laugh slipped out before I could stop it. Half pain, half disbelief.

“Something funny?”

The voice cut clean through the muted noise and old music.

Low. Male. Close.

My spine locked.

He slid onto the stool beside me, hood up, broad shoulders dwarfing the rickety chair. The air shifted around him the way it did when storms rolled in over the mountains—pressure dropping, skin prickling.

I didn’t have to see his face to recognize him. My body knew before my mind caught up.

Daire.

He smelled different. Less polished Frostveil, more city grit and sleepless nights, but under the cheap cologne and bar smoke, under the suppressant tabs dissolving bitter on my tongue, my wolf—small, suppressed thing that she was—knew.

Mate. The word wasn’t allowed in my head. It whispered there anyway.

He didn’t look at me at first. His gaze was on the screen, on the image of his own ruined life, jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek.

His hair was longer, a shade rougher. Stubble darkened his jaw, shadowing the sharp line of it. There were bruises on his knuckles. His hoodie had seen better days.

He looked hunted. And dangerous. And alive in a way that hurt to look at.

“What’s so funny?” he asked again, eyes still on the collapsing numbers that used to be his kingdom.

My pulse hammered. The suppressant blurred my scent, flattened my pheromones, and dulled the edges of my heat and fear. I’d been dosing religiously for three months, choking my body quiet for the baby’s sake.

He inhaled once, shallow. His nostrils flared, then went still. No recognition.

Good.

One less person who could say my real name out loud.

“Nothing,” I said, pitching my voice a little lower, a little rougher, the way Risa did when she didn’t care. “Just… the universe’s sense of humor.”

He finally turned his head.

The impact of his gaze was physical. Pale eyes, gone sharper and more tired since the last time they’d cut through me on a balcony.

He scanned my face the way a predator scanned a room: one quick sweep for threat, for tells, for weakness.

His attention caught on my mouth, then my throat, then lingered a fraction too long where my pulse beat at the base of my neck. Heat crawled there, traitorous and unwelcome.

His brows drew together. Not in recognition. In interest.

Something in his chest responded despite the suppressant distance. His posture shifted half an inch toward me, as if his body were obeying an instinct his head hadn’t caught up to.

He doesn’t know it’s you.

I swallowed, forcing myself not to flinch, not to lean, not to do anything that would break the illusion of stranger.

“If you’re laughing at *that*.” His chin tipped toward the holoscreen, where Calista’s serene face filled the frame. “You’re either braver than you look or stupider.”

“Or both,” I said.

A corner of his mouth twitched.

Up close, the exhaustion was easier to see. The faint bruise at his temple. The tension that lived along his spine now, like he’d slept with one eye open for months.

He looked like a man who’d lost more than money.

The urge to ask :Are you eating? Are you sleeping? Did you miss me at all when you lit that cigarette?* It was so strong that I had to bite the inside of my cheek.

Instead, I said, “You shouldn’t stare so hard. People will think you care.”

His gaze cut back to mine, sharper this time.

“In Vesperridge,” he said slowly, “we don’t talk about the Tribunal’s business in public.”

“In Vesperridge,” I countered, “we don’t pretend the Tribunal isn’t already in every room.”

His jaw clenched. For a moment, something like agreement flashed there, then shuttered.

“You live here long?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Long enough to know not to answer that question.”

He huffed a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Smart.”

Silence settled between us, thick with old ghosts on my side and something wary and assessing on his.

I kept my shoulders loose, my body angled just enough to signal disinterest. A stranger. An omega sitting where she shouldn’t, but not *his*.

I could feel him sniffing, subtle, and slow, trying to sort me through the haze of bar smoke and spilled alcohol and too many bodies. His hand flexed once on the edge of the counter.

Under the hood, his eyes flicked to my bare wrist, where it disappeared into my sleeve. No visible mark. There is no visible claim.

In his head, it was simple.

*If she’s unclaimed, Crowe can seize her in daylight.*

A spike of anger flared, hot and irrational. He hadn’t recognized me, but his first instinct was still the system. The rules. The Tribunal.

The door banged open downstairs.

Raised voices leaked up the stairwell. Not the usual rowdy, drunk kind. Sharper. More measured. Boots, not stumbling feet.

I didn’t need a clear view to know what was about to walk in. I’d learned the sound of tribunal trackers the way other girls learned the sound of rain.

Three sets by the cadence. Maybe four. Heavy soles, unhurried, confident.

Daire heard it, too.

Everything in him changed.

The worn-out man in a hoodie vanished. In his place, the Alpha stepped forward—not with a title, but with the way his body went coiled and ready, eyes calculating exits, lines of fire, collateral damage.

He rose from the stool in one smooth movement and put himself between me and the stairwell, just enough that anyone entering would see his back, not my face.

To an outsider, it would’ve looked like he was blocking me in.

To me, it felt like a shield.

“You should go downstairs,” I murmured, keeping my voice level. “If they see you up here—”

“If they see you up here,” he cut in quietly, “we both have problems.”

The baby rolled uneasily. The bracelet under my sleeve warmed, metal against skin, reacting to the approaching scent of tribunal uniforms. Heat pulsed in time with my pulse.

A shadow moved at the bottom of the stairs. The first tracker stepped into view—dark jacket, neutral expression, eyes already sweeping.

Daire’s fingers clamped around my wrist before I could move.

His grip was firm but not bruising—anchoring, not crushing. He leaned in until his mouth was near my ear, his breath stirring the little hairs at my nape.

“If you scream,” he murmured, voice low and dangerous, more warning than promise, “I’ll silence you fast.”

He wasn’t threatening to touch me.

He was threatening to keep us both quiet long enough to survive.

I smiled, a small, cold curve that had nothing to do with obedience and everything to do with every man who’d ever tried to decide what I was allowed to be.

“If you touch me wrong,” I whispered back, “you’ll regret it.”

Her voice—*my* voice—wasn’t afraid of him. It was tired of men who thought they owned me.

His hand tightened just a fraction on my wrist.

As Tribunal boots climbed the stairs, my bracelet seared against my skin, the faint glass-singing hum building under my bones.