LOGINThe moment Alistair's footsteps faded down the stairs, Solana's shoulders slumped as if someone had cut the strings holding her up."Oh, goddess," she muttered, sinking into the nearest chair, and only then did her hands start to shake. "What a fucking mess."She pressed them flat against her knees and watched them tremble anyway. When Portia had dropped onto her haunches with those amber eyes fixed on her throat, Solana's heart had climbed into her mouth. She had spent years arranging her whole life around avoiding moments like that one, and it had found her anyway, in her own studio, wearing a silk blouse.Sister.She let out a short, disbelieving breath and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips.Of course the man who had spawned her would raise something like that. She could not bring herself to call him her father, not even in the privacy of her own head. A man who left one daughter in a motel and gave the other a crown would naturally breed a rude, entitled brat who thought her
"What?" Solana snapped, spinning around so fast that her hair whipped across her cheek. "What did you just say?""What do you mean, she's my sister?" Portia demanded in the same breath, her tears stopping as if a tap had been shut off. She pushed herself to her feet and leaned against the wall, eyes darting between them. "That's not funny, Uncle. That's not even close to funny.""You two will need to have a seat," Alistair said.Portia did not move. She glared at him with her chin trembling, the satin bunched in her fists, as though the words had been spoken to someone else."Now," Alistair said, his voice firm.The word fell on her like a hand. Her shoulders jerked, and a shudder ran down her spine. She resisted for the space of two breaths before she dragged herself up and shuffled to a chair, hissing through her teeth the entire way, and dropped into it with the fabric clutched around her.Solana stayed standing for a moment longer. Then she crossed to the nearest chair, pulled i
Solana snatched a pair of heavy tailor's shears off the nearest table and dropped into a crouch, locking her eyes on the soft, vulnerable spot just under the wolf's jaw.Her skin prickled as the familiar pull of her wolf stirred at the edge of her mind, and she shoved it back down with a shudder and tightened her grip on the shears. Shifting now would be a massive mistake. Though her omega wolf was fast, there was no way it could take on a beta wolf without getting seriously injured. Her best chance was to face her as a human.Jeremiah had drilled self-defense lessons into her until they lived in her muscles: the soft hollow beneath the jaw, the tender bridge of the nose, the joints that bent the wrong way no matter how much fur covered them. Even a wolf in the middle of a lunge had weak points, and she knew every one.Wait for the lunge. Aim for the throat. Do not freeze.But before the beast could reach her, the door suddenly exploded entirely off its hinges.The couch and cuttin
"What the fuck do you mean, who am I?" Portia snarled, her lip curling as she hugged the phone against her chest. "You asked me this exact same stupid question the last time we met."Solana crossed her arms, completely unimpressed by the display of superiority.“My goodness, were you not trained?” She continued, flicking her hair over her shoulder. She tilted her chin so high that she seemed to be looking down at Solana from the far corner of the room, as if she was beneath her. “What pack did you even grow up in that you don’t know the relevant people in the shifter world?Solana's eyes went cold, and her hand dropped slowly to her side."It says a lot about you that you have absolutely no name for yourself," Solana said coldly. "You just keep throwing your supposed identity around like it makes you special."Portia gasped, her mouth falling open in shock."If you were anything, I would know who you are.” Solana continued, shrugging nonchalantly. “In the shifter world, maybe you're
"Yes, my uncle," Portia said, smirking as she watched the color leave Solana's face. "Or don't you know the man whose eyes you're set on?"It took Solana only a second to gather herself. She had spent years learning how to bury a shock before it could reach her face, and she buried this one so deeply that not even a flicker showed in her eyes."Oh, Mr. Vance is your uncle," she said evenly, as though she were confirming the spelling of a name."He is," Portia replied with a self-satisfied little smile, tilting her head. "I was just curious to see who my uncle is so taken with that he left his entire pack behind for her."Solana neither blushed nor stammered, and she did not rush to defend herself. She simply nodded once and folded her hands in front of her, her expression neutral and her smile cordial and professional."Is that why you're here?" she asked politely. "Or are you here for an actual appointment?"Portia blinked, taken completely aback.She had played this scene before in
"I smell something," Alistair murmured, his eyes narrowing as he jerked his chin at Marcus. The Head of Security hurried over at once. Alistair turned his head toward the studio's open door, trying to pinpoint the scent. It was faint, a trace of something familiar, and it slipped away every time he reached for it. "I can't place it," he said, frowning. "But it's familiar. Has anybody we know been around here recently?" "Not that I know of, sir," Marcus replied, shaking his head. The moment he said it, both men stiffened. A tug. A faint, unmistakable pull at the back of their minds, the invisible thread that bound an Alpha to the members of his pack. Alistair's eyes flew upward on instinct. On the second floor, behind the studio's tall glass window, a figure stood looking down at him. A woman with her sunglasses pushed up into her hair, one arm folded across her stomach, a small and
The moment the penthouse door shut, Alistair’s restraint evaporated.He pinned her against the door, his large, calloused hand sliding up to grip the back of her neck with a terrifying but delicious pressure, and he slanted his lips over hers again.He was rough, but in a calculated way that made h
Solange felt a literal snap in the center of her chest as she stared at the heavy oak doors. It wasn’t the metaphoric ache of a breakup. It was a white-hot blade of agony carved through her ribs, twisting around her heart and pulling tight.She tried to scream, but the air in her lungs had turned t
Solange woke slowly, her body aching in all the ways that made her heart flutter and a strange humming in her chest. Her head was foggy, but she felt a calm she had never known, like she was connected to something that had been missing all her life. She felt… claimed, as if the night had somehow gi
"Sol! Table four needs a server," the manager barked. "And don't look him in the eye."Solange nodded and quickly hurried down the corridor to the VIP lounge of the Sapphire Heights, wrinkling her nose at the smell of expensive cigars and the heavy, humid scent of a desert storm rolling over the Ve







