CHAPTER 01: MASKS OF DESIRE

VELARA’S POV

As I entered the magnificent ballroom of the Banks Hotel, the glitzy center of the yearly Alpha Gathering, the night air hummed with unsaid tension. Crystal fragments from the chandeliers scattered broken starlight on the polished marble, resembling frozen constellations. Like a living creature, music, a sluggish, primordial bass, and a captivating tangle of eerie strings prowled across the atmosphere. It wasn’t background noise. It demanded attention. Each beat burrowed under my skin, syncing mercilessly with the thrum of my pulse.

Clad in silk and secrets, masked wolves sailed through the mist of candlelight and perfume, their features concealed by gilded masks, velvet, and feathers. Future Alphas, Betas, foreign dignitaries and threats wrapped in civility. Every smile was calculated. Every gesture weighed. Power simmered beneath the surface, a low, dangerous current that warned: tread carefully.

Astrid tugged my arm, her lips curving with mischief beneath a silver filigree mask. She looked like a fallen star, ethereal, dazzling, and a little too bold.

“Come on, Vel,” she whispered, her voice electric with rebellion. “Dad’s busy wooing the Elders. We’ve got at least an hour of freedom.”

I hesitated. My instincts flared, wary. Somewhere in this sea of silk and status, Alpha Viktor, my father was watching, scheming. He didn’t attend these events for spectacle. He came to bargain, to intimidate, to mark the chessboard. And tonight, I was meant to be one of his pieces.

But I wasn’t a pawn. Not tonight.

“I’ll give you thirty minutes,” I muttered. “And I’m blaming you if he breathes fire.”

Astrid grinned, triumphant, and passed me a champagne flute from a passing tray.

“To being invisible in plain sight,” she said, raising it.

“To surviving another year of lies,” I replied grimly, clinking mine against hers.

The drink bloomed on my tongue sharp, sweet, and recklessly smooth. Its warmth spread too quickly, blurring the sharpness of the world just enough to let me exhale.

We mingled. Laughed. Pretended. Names drifted in one ear and out the other heirs, warriors, the cruelly beautiful. Everyone was hunting something: power, pleasure, or prey. They looked at me and saw what they wanted. Not who I was.

But for once, I wasn’t trying to be her the daughter of Alpha Viktor. I let her go.

The music shifted. Darker. Hungrier. A rhythm that slithered through my veins and made my feet move before my mind caught up. Astrid pulled me into the dance. Lights flashed like fireflies, catching on sequins and shadows. I was spinning, laughing weightless, almost free.

Then the air stilled.

It was subtle. The silence before a lightning strike. The hush that signals a storm.

I felt him before I saw him.

A figure emerged from the crowd with the deliberate grace of someone born into command. People moved instinctively not out of politeness, but instinct. He didn’t demand space. He claimed it.

He was tall. Broad-shouldered. Clad in shadow-black, with a mask carved in obsidian and silver a crescent moon and clawed edges etched along the edges like old runes. His face was half-shielded, but his presence struck like a blow. I couldn’t see his eyes clearly. But I felt them. Felt them pierce straight through the silk and armor.

A shiver crawled up my spine. It wasn’t fear. Not entirely.

I didn’t look away.

He moved closer, slow, relentless. Like the room existed only to deliver him to me. My chest tightened, breath caught somewhere between dread and a fevered curiosity.

Then he was before me.

So close, I could smell him. Leather. Pine. Smoke. Wildness.

He tilted his head slightly, and though I couldn’t see his full face, I felt the weight of his gaze settle on me like a claim.

“Lost, little wolf?” he murmured, his voice low, intimate, laced with amused danger.

It shouldn’t have affected me. But it did.

It struck something buried.

I opened my mouth to respond sharp, maybe biting. But all I could breathe was:

“Yes.”

His lips twitched into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Come,” he said, extending a hand.

I stared at it, at the ringless fingers, the quiet promise of ruin or salvation in his grip. Then I took it.

He led me into the dance. But this was no ballroom performance. This was instinct. Seduction. Power and surrender disguised in movement. His hand guided me like he’d always known how I moved. He spun me, held me, pushed me just far enough before reeling me back in.

The world narrowed to his hands and the fire building between us. I couldn’t think. I didn’t want to.

A drink appeared. I drained it recklessly.

Astrid found me once more, panting. “Dad’s looking for you. He’s pissed.”

“I just need five more minutes,” I said, too softly, too slowly.

She vanished again.

The music faded. His arm wrapped around my waist, anchoring me to him. I felt his restraint, the leashed hunger, the awareness of what this was becoming.

“Come with me,” he said, close enough that I felt the words against my throat.

I should’ve said no.

I didn’t.

He led me down twisting corridors, behind closed doors and velvet-draped corners, until we reached a suite that smelled of money and moonlight.

He removed his mask.

And in that moment, the breath caught in my lungs.

I didn’t recognize him. But something primal inside me did.

I took off mine.

Our eyes locked. The world tilted.

Then he kissed me.

Not like a stranger.

Like someone who had found what he didn’t know he was missing.

We unraveled each other, slowly, then all at once.

His name was a question I never asked.

Mine was a truth I didn’t tell.

And when morning came, I woke with bruises on my hips and a hole in my memory.

Something stayed behind.

A spark.

A warning.

A beginning.