MasukThe 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
The crosswalk sign flashes red as I approach, an unwavering command to stop, to wait, to hold. I heed it, just this once. There is no harm in pausing when I know what lies ahead. The penthouse is a world apart from the one I now move through, but I carry pieces of it with me, fragments of luxury an
The lock clicks behind me, each sound an echoing note of freedom. I inhale the promise of the morning and the heavy shroud of Derek’s latest message unfurls in the back of my mind. I will not think about it, about him, until I must. The weight of obligation falls away as I step forward, closing the
The first hum of traffic stirs beneath the apartment, the city awakening like a great beast stretching itself from slumber. I swing my legs over the side of the bed, bare feet meeting the warmth of the hardwood with practiced silence. In the hush, I hear the measured tick of my wristwatch from acros
My name commands attention, even whispered behind mirrored walls. Mara Wolfe. I sense the weight of their eyes on me, catch the reflection of their stunned admiration. Before my floor arrives, they already fear me. The girl with the coffee spills half of it on the way to her mouth, staining her bl







