LOGINThe silence is heavy—so heavy that when he finally speaks, the words seem to come from inside my chest, not his. “Whatever you need, Mara. I’ve got your back.” The effect is almost chemical. My skin prickles, blood surging under the surface. The hunger shifts, finding a new target in the heat of h
“Thanks,” I say, then gesture him inside. “But I was just leaving.” Lucas ignores the invitation and enters anyway, moving with that predator’s grace that always gets him underestimated. He scans the desk, the perfectly aligned files, the empty space where my laptop should be. He notices everything
There is a ritual to this, and I cling to it. Contracts go on the left. Personnel issues to the right. Litigation files dead center, because that’s where the real pain will be when I’m gone. I check the time—1:09 a.m.—and realize I’ve been at this for nearly thirty minutes, just shuffling paper. My
I kill the lights and let the rain speak for me. The only illumination left is the band of halogen from my monitor and the occasional spasm of lightning over the river. My office is a ship adrift, glass walls flexing with every gust, the city outside dissolving into grey static. It’s long past midni
I stare at the last item in the kit: a burner phone, set to autodial Lucas if I press the panic button. There’s a temptation to smash it, to sever the backup plan and force myself to trust only my own willpower. But I don’t. The wolf in me knows the value of fallback positions, and the human isn’t s
The transformation always begins subtly—an itch beneath the skin, a metallic taste where there should be only saliva and regret. Tonight it arrives early. The moon is only a waxy gash in the cloud cover, but my body reads the angles, the old arithmetic of hunger and inevitability. The pulse in my wr
Lucas smiles, the expression almost teasing. “Sometimes it pays to take risks, Mara.” The use of my name is deliberate, intentional, and I feel my resistance falter, my defenses crumble. I don’t respond. I can’t respond. Not with words, not yet. I reach for a file, anything to keep the conversatio
The pen wavers in my hand, an unsteady promise, an unsteady threat. I draw a line through Derek’s name, feel the pull to call him, to complicate things. The urge is sharp, almost as sharp as my need to avoid him, to handle this on my own. The breeze catches the edge of the calendar, rustling it like
I sit at the vanity, the invitation like an accusation at my side. It catches the lamplight, sending tiny, taunting reflections across the mirror, across my face. My own eyes challenge me from the glass, daring me to risk it, daring me to ignore the cost. I scroll through photos on my phone, past ga
Crystal shivers on the edges of the too-long silence between us. I search Derek’s face as we eat, my eyes skipping over his proud nose and chiseled jaw, noting every flicker of emotion that might tell me why this evening feels different. He smiles, but it’s an empty gesture that doesn’t reach his ey







