Chapter#02

MAYA

I was at the foot of the grand stairs. My heart fluttered against my ribcage like a caged bird, frantic to be set free. The Packhouse loomed above me. It was just as I had remembered.

It had been three years since the night they had thrown me out. And between you and me, as I stood on these very steps, I remembered every damned detail. They gave me one duffel bag and a thousand-dollar charity I refused to touch for months. My mother had not even glanced in my direction. My father had closed the door behind me like he was doing me a favor.

I’d vowed at the time that I would never come back.

Yet here I was.

I swallowed it back, that lump in my throat that tried to rise, refused to let it show. Tonight was the annual Werewolf Pairing Gala, and I, the orphan it-girl, was expected to be there. I had no choice.

The door complained as it drew closed behind me. I squared my shoulders, stretching my back into long lines. Whatever lurked here tonight, whoever did, I’d meet it head-on. I’d always been facing it. Because survival wasn’t a choice. It’s what I’ve always known.

And then my mother's voice unmistakably cut through my ears.

“You’re late,” she hissed. Her eyes narrowed over me, and she made a face that suggested I was something abhorrent sticking to her shoe.

My sister Isla reached over and locked eyes with me. “So you’re still unable to control your heat,” Isla sneered. “Father, she should not be going like this. She reeks.”

“You think I wanted to drive four hours and drag her back?” my father snapped when he’d received the invite. “Said the invitation said you had to send at least one person over eighteen and ready for mating. I didn’t have a choice. She was never supposed to be on the table.”

I winced as the words stung worse than I cared to admit. “I’m sorry,” I began, but my mother cut me off with a sharp wave of her hand.

“Save it,” she snapped. “We’ve done fine without you, and we’d rather keep it that way. You’re only here because we had no one else. Don’t humiliate us. If you make a fuss or if you get yourself into the wrong sort of trouble, we’ll chop your name off the family register and make you an outcast. Is that clear?”

I wanted to scream that none of this was my fault, but I said nothing. Any love my family might have once felt for me had died many years ago, suppressed underneath their embarrassment and revulsion. I had never been enough for them… not without a wolf, and not with the monthlies… the monthly goddamned heat I had no control over.

“Yes, I know.” These were the words that made it out of my mouth.

“Good,” my mother said. “Borrow something from Isla. And do something about that hair.” She turned to Isla. “Give her one of your wigs, too. Her pheromones aren’t embarrassingly piteous enough, not to mention those silver strands, and it looks like we found her in a gutter.”

“All right, Mom,” Isla said, ushering me to follow her.

I fought back the stinging in my eyes and bit my tongue, following after her.

An hour later, a pack warrior deposited me at the entrance to the grand ballroom. My father had been too embarrassed to take me himself.

I straightened the borrowed dress and headed to the ballroom. The material barely rested against my skin, heated through with heat that simmered underneath the fabric. I could hear laughter wafting out down the hall, mixed with the sound of distant music and the clinking of glasses, growing louder as I made my way.

My fingers gripped by my side as I neared the two arched doors. The moment I stepped inside, I felt it... their eyes.

The eyes. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. A thousand unseen cinder blocks resting on my flesh.

I could feel each of them turning and looking.

I was a lamb among wolves.

A gasp shivered through me, and heat wormed its way up my neck. My cheeks blazed with shame, and there was nothing I could do to quench it. My body, for all my discipline, betrayed me in the most personal way possible.

My scent drifted out like smoke, exposing me before I’d spoken a word, letting them know about me before I would step to the stage to speak or be concealed.

Whispers rippled through the room like wind in tall grass.

“What’s that smell?” someone murmured nearby.

A couple of offended noses were seen to curl in disgust.

“Is she… in heat?” another voice questioned.

The words landed like open slaps.

“Not well controlled at all,” someone else muttered. “Gross.”

“She shouldn’t be here. Is she attempting to attract a mate with those pheromones?” The allegation didn’t require volume to sting.

I was shaking at my sides. I bit down so hard my jaw ached. I didn’t lift my gaze. I didn’t have the nerve to peer out to find the faces behind these words. I already knew what I’d find.

My nails dug into my palms. Just ignore them, I told myself. It’ll be fine.

But then a shrill voice cut the murmurs.

“I didn’t know they were allowing mutts in this year.” She took a step forward and forced me to glance up at her. She smiled mockingly with her perfect lips.

She was the epitome of Lycan beauty and grace; the woman everybody wanted their daughters to be. Once, I’d idolized her.

She drawled so the whole room would hear, “I guess they’ll take anyone these days.”

A wave of laughter passed through the room, and my brittle control started to splinter. I muttered, excusing myself and skulking off to a corner. I despised how powerless I was, how my body made me a freak show each month, a joke among the people I was supposed to belong with.

I tried to control my breathing and prevent the tears from falling as I pushed my back against the wall, and a strange prickle spiked the back of my neck. Something over there caught my eye.

A man in black was leaning there in the darkness. His hazel eyes stared at me. He was so good-looking, with jawlines so chiseled, and an air of quiet strength.

And it was his gaze that kept me in thrall.

For a moment, the ballroom din subsided and there was only him and me. My heart pounded, not with terror, but with a weird, alien kind of tug. Who is he?

Before I could dwell on the thought, a shadow overcast me.

I turned and saw Darius, a young Alpha, standing in front of me. A sly grin stretched across his lips.

He’d been a pain in my neck since we were kids… the one who’d started the story of my wolfless being at sixteen, and it was all because I chilled him at twelve. He still held that grudge.

“Well, well, look who it is—the Blackthorn freak,” he scoffed, surrounded by his stylish friends. “What’s the matter, Maya? You can’t find a better place to hide?”

My throat constricted, and I attempted to slide away, only to have Darius move in closer, blocking my escape. His friends congregated, encircling me.

“I notice you’re a little… warm there,” Darius taunted. “Maybe we can help with that, hmm?”

Fear spiked through me. I knew that look in his eyes. I attempted to pull back, but he seized my arm, his fingers digging into my flesh.

“Please,” I whispered. “Leave me alone.”

“Getting feisty, are we?” Darius laughed, seizing my chin. “Have you forgotten your place? Who the hell are you… a pervert like you to talk to me?”

“Get off me!” I screamed, but my voice shook. I could smell the alcohol on his breath, and mixed with that musky smell, I wanted to get sick.

“You know,” he said, twirling a strand of my wig around his finger, “some people may find your… situation… interesting. So much heat, but no outlet. I bet you’d just love for someone to step in, wouldn’t you?”

“Don’t you touch me,” I screamed, looking to see if there was anyone to save me.

His hand edged closer to my waist, and dread surged through my chest as if lightning had just struck me. I tried to pull away, but my body betrayed me.

Instead, I found myself melting into his touch, against my will, almost, like I had no choice in the matter. I moaned softly before I could contain myself.

My heat twisted inside me. It was a throbbing pain that was between fear and want. Scraping at my determination, filling my head, and dulling my perceptions. I didn’t want this, not this way, yet my body acted anyway, drawn to what it desired, while my mind wailed in refusal.

It was a war I never agreed to fight, and my body was losing on every front.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t want it,” Darius whispered. “I can smell it on you.”

His hand gripped my breast roughly, and another strangled moan escaped my throat before I could even stop it.

“Please,” I whispered, struggling to keep my voice steady. “Let me go.”

Darius’s smile broadened, but before he could respond, a piercing growl split the air, and the entire hall fell silent.