Chapter 1

Lucy POV

"Don't say no please." Judith says, shoving a skimpy stripper outfit into my arms. Her hands are shaking. "Please, Lucy. I need you to cover my shift tonight."

I stare at the outfit like it might bite me. "I'm a waitress here, Judith. Not a dancer. I don't know how to do what you do."

"Please." Her voice breaks. "You're the only one I can ask. The only one I trust."

I look at her properly then, and my stomach drops. Bruises run down her arms, dark purple and fresh, like fingers had pressed too hard into her skin, roughly, giving her bruises. There's a split in her lip she'd tried to cover with lipstick.

I don't ask who did it, I already know. Marcus owns this club, and Marcus is her boyfriend. Marcus uses his fists on her like a punching bag. It happens over nothing. a wrong look, a slow drink order, a missed call. It has happened so many times that nobody questions him. Nobody dares to.

"He can't know I skipped tonight," Judith begs. "My legs are too messed up to dance, Lucy, look at them…" She lifts the hem of her robe just enough to show me. My throat tightens. "If he finds out I didn't work today, he'll do worse. Please. Please, just for tonight, help me."

I shake my head, stuttering with words. "I can't dance. I'll embarrass myself. I'll embarrass you."

"You don't have to be good." She grips my wrists, desperate now. "The client tonight is in the VIP booth. They tip big, Lucy. Big enough to cover a whole round of surgery for your son."

The words land like a fist to my own chest.

My son. Eric. Four years old, pale in a hospital bed for weeks. He needs surgery soon or he won't get the chance to grow up at all, and I have been begging every shift, every double, every scrap of overtime just to get close to what it costs. He's been diagnosed with brain disease.

I think of his little hand wrapped around my finger this morning, speaking so pale. "Mom, nothing will happen to me, right." He'd asked. The memory only puts me in a tighter spot. I think of the way he looks so scared, lying in that bed.

I would do anything for him. He is a part of me I will never let go of, not for anything, not for anyone.

"Okay," I whisper. "Okay, I'll do it."

Judith doesn't waste a second. She's dressing me before I even finish nodding, her hands moving fast over buckles and straps, pulling the outfit tight, smoothing my hair, pressing a mask into my palm.

"Wear this," she says. "Some of tonight's clients like the mystery ones. It'll help. Just… go now."

My heart is slamming by the time I reach the hallway to the VIP room. The outfit barely covers anything, my thighs were barely covered, making me uncomfortable, and the mask feels strange against my face, but none of that is what makes my skin crawl.

But rather, the scent of this place. I recognized it immediately. Every man in that room is a werewolf, I sense it.

I am terrified. If they catch my scent, if they realize what I am, there's no telling what happens next. What are they doing in the human world?

I have to suppress my scent, it is the only way they wouldn’t notice I’m not a full human. With that, my fingers brushed the small silver pendant in my neck as I closed my eyes for a second and drew on the little control I still had over my wolf. Slowly, I forced my scent inward until it was almost nonexistent.

I push the door open and see four of them lounging across the leather booths, jackets roughly open, eyes looking like they've been drinking a lot. They are rugged in a way that has nothing to do with fashion.

I swallow the fear down and step toward the dance pole.

I don't know how to dance. I have never done this in my life, but I grip the pole anyway and move the way I think I'm supposed to. awkward, stiff, my knees nearly buckling in the heels Judith shoved onto my feet.

The men are not impressed.

"If you can't dance, just take your clothes off already," one of them calls out, laughing.

"We paid good money," another says, leaning forward. "Give us something worth seeing."

My hands start to tremble. Fear climbs up my throat and closes around it. I freeze on the pole, unable to move, unable to think, as two of them rise from the booth and start walking toward me.

Their hands close around my arms before I can pull back as they forcefully pull me to them.

One of them then yanks at the strap on my shoulder, pulling me lustfully close as I twist away, but there's nowhere to go.

He grips my wrist, the other one laughing somewhere behind me, closer now, his fingers catching at the mask on my face like he means to see my face whether I want him to or not.

Seeing how aggressive they got, my vision blurs with panic, my voice gone, my wolf clawing uselessly at the inside of my chest with nowhere to run.

“Come here.” Said one of them as he slaps my ass and squeezes it while they burst into laughter.

“How about I have you for the night?” Said another as he grabbed my cheek and made me look up to him, his face was an inch away as I could feel his breath on my skin.

Suddenly, a cold, husky, emotionless voice broke the silence. "That’s enough…"

The voice cuts through the room and every man in the club stops. I stop too, my heart beating so fast, my eyes lifting toward the corner booth where the voice came from.

My whole body goes still. I never expected to see him again. Adrian.

Memories flash before I can stop them. My stepbrother, from five years ago.

My wolf howls inside me, an aching recognition. I hadn't seen his face in five years and I had made sure of that. I had let him believe I was dead at the bottom of a cliff so that he would never have to look for me again.

My heart slams against my ribs at his cold presence.. He doesn't know it's me. He shouldn’t. That thought is the only thing keeping me from falling apart right where I stand.

The other men straighten immediately, their heads bowing low. "Alpha," one of them calls.

Alpha? He is now an alpha? His father was the Alpha. His father was supposed to lead the pack for another twenty years at least. What happened? What did I miss in five years of running?

"She will be my pick for tonight. Bring her to me," he says coldly, his voice flat, empty of any emotion at all.

Immediately, two of the men lift me off the stage and set me down on his lap like I'm nothing more than a prize being handed over. And the second my body meets his, something inside me detonates.

Invisible heat floods straight through me, sudden and electric, racing up my spine like static catching fire.

My skin prickles everywhere his is close to mine.

My wolf goes silent and then screams all at once. mate, mate, mate, clawing forward, straining toward him like she's been asleep for five years and just woke up starving.

I shiver inwardly even though I try to stay calm. I try to act cool but I can't stop it, can't hide it, my whole body is betraying me right now while my mind screams at me to get away and flee but my wolf wants otherwise. She wants him, she wants to stay.

Up close and lifting my eyes slowly, his eyes are exactly the way I remember them, except colder now, like something in him shut off a long time ago. He studies me without breaking eye contact, sending another shiver down my spine.

Does he recognize me? Nervously, I search his face for any sign of it, but just then, a phone rings. One of the men glances at the screen and takes a step closer, speaking with so much respect.

"Alpha. Luna is calling."

Luna? The word hits me harder than anything else tonight.

He now has a wife?