Chapter 1.

OLIVIA

In the middle of rubble, under a bridge that barely stood, with cracks in the foundation, dust rising around the entrance, which added to the ambiance, a few of my friends had founded a club. That might’ve been a stretch— it was a shack with boarded-up windows and a craggy speaker blasting sounds in the corner. But it was ours.

Charity threw her hand up, a Woo rippling across the floor of the club when we pushed our way through the crowd of clinging bodies. If there was only one place for people to find escape, you bet everyone’s there all hours of the day.

”My best friend is turning eighteen today, so a round of shots for everybody!” Her strawberry blonde hair swayed across her lower back. The shorts rode up when she bent over the chair, shaking her ass to a Latin song we had on repeat, while everyone cheered as two girls came out from the back in their short dresses and poured shots. Some just took it straight from the bottle, tilting their heads back- sticking their tongues out when the liquor ran down their throats.

The intoxicating haze of alcohol moved through my body on the dancefloor when drink after drink was shoved into my hand. Closing my lips around the straw, I gulped the gin down with my eyes closed, hips swaying, moving my arms when the weight of eighteen lifted from my shoulders.

For some, it was all they had waited for, turning eighteen. For others, like me, it was a one-way ticket into the Ruby Ball. But none of that tonight. Tonight, we forget.

Charity shoved her shoulder against mine, flicking her head to the corner where, in a booth with bottles of homemade wine filling the table, a group of guys was sitting, eyeing the crowd, hunting from afar.

”Hot one in the middle,” she said. Alicia grabbed Charity’s arm, about to yank her into a dance, when she hurriedly blurted out. ”He’s got his eyes on you. Maybe tonight’s the night,” she winked before being hauled off into the center of the group, where she and Alicia got low before going lower, asses touching the ground, me laughing and admiring how they moved with such ease.

Turning away from them, I found myself catching the stranger’s gaze. Dark, glimmering eyes. A chiseled chest slightly visible through the two undone buttons on his white shirt. Thick dark hair waved back over his head with a lock falling in front of his eyes.

When I tell you the heat was too much to take, it was like the door of a sauna opening in front of me. I’d told myself earlier that I’d be brave today, dare to talk to a guy, hope that he’d take me home and fuck me like in the books I’ve read. Instead, I closed my eyes, moved my hips staler than a tree with its roots buried six feet under, pretending like that glance didn’t happen.

It was eerie how the crowd parted, eyes cast on something moving behind me, but I didn’t bother to turn. I finished my drink, grabbed a shot from the tray being passed around by a bottle girl who was biting her lip when she looked past me.

When the liquid burned my throat, pushing the shame into an unknown corner of my memory, a big hand snaked around my waist. As though someone held a torch, the flames licked my skin under the minidress I was wearing, spreading the heat down my front until it soaked my panties.

He folded his other hand around my throat, turning my head until our lips were dangerously close. ”You shouldn’t have looked away,” a husky whisper brushed my lips. Shit. Be brave, Olivia.

He was clearly not human. Werewolves had a distinct smell; we recognized our own. But this one, I hadn’t seen him around. Being the daughter of a Beta, I had joined my father and the Alpha at functions in different packs. I had never seen this guy. That was an oddity.

”What’s your name?” I asked. All I needed was one hint to place him. He dragged his finger over my lips, and I clenched my thighs. A devilish smirk lifted the corner of his mouth when he bent his neck to look down at me. It shouldn’t be this easy for my knees to buckle…but god.

”Isn’t it more fun if you don’t know?” 

For what I had planned, it could actually be perfect. I narrowed my eyes, but when he pulled my hips against him, they almost rolled back into my head. A need mimicking my own poked my ass when he glued me to his front.

”Where do you live?” I asked, dragging my eyes over the tattoos on his arm, following the shapes until they disappeared under his rolled-up sleeve.

”So many questions,” he chuckled.

I raised a brow and decided to wave off the cockiness that was putting me off.

”You can’t very well fuck me here, now, can you?” I said.

The mysterious man clenched his jaw, a sharp muscle feathered when he narrowed his eyes. Where the cockiness vanished, his lust intensified, sending a shiver through my shoulders.

He sucked his teeth and grabbed my hand before dragging his eyes over the dancefloor.

”Let’s go.”

I grabbed Alicia’s arm, seeing as Charity was away dancing with someone— human from the smell of it. ”Don’t wait for me,” after a second’s confusion, when she locked eyes with the stranger behind me, her eyes lit up like a star-gazed sky.

A loud squeal followed behind as I was pulled out of the club and stuffed into a car. Slamming his lips on mine, he shoved his tongue into the back of my mouth. But Goddess in heaven did it do things to my body that I didn’t know possible.

The driver took off, and this guy didn’t spare a second when he put me on his lap, pressing his bulge against me.

I kissed his neck, dragged my tongue over his skin, relishing in how his hold on my ass grew rougher when he pressed against me.

”I hope you don’t have any plans for tomorrow, sweetheart.” he grabbed my throat to lift my head until our eyes locked.

”Why’s that?” I moaned.

Brushing his lips against mine, he swiftly pulled my dress up my back and dug his fingers into my ass, spreading my cheeks while the lace of my panties moved against him. ”Because when I’m done with you, your legs won’t do you much good,”

***

I woke up the next morning to the sun gently rising over the land. Townhouses were still dark with how early it was, three cars drove up to the gates of the Inn where my stranger was staying, coming to a skilled stop as five men got out.

A sigil on the hood of the first car twisted my spine. That was the Lockheart’s family shield. What the hell were they doing in Townsend? This little hole of a village had suffered enough from the Lockhearts expanding their territories by slaughtering our innocents, ripping their homes from their hands, and tearing families apart. Werewolves all over the country had risen in retaliation, taken their rage out on the humans, stealing new land as theirs had been stolen from them.

They were the reason for my pack’s suffering. For why we had to move three times before I turned sixteen. All the bad that had happened the last fifteen years was their doing… poverty, famine, death…my father’s death.

Clutching the sheet closer to my chest, I sat in bed. Shit, I could barely hold back the wince when I shifted my trembling legs and felt the soreness that had followed losing my virginity. It was a good pain, though, one I greedily wanted more of.

I dragged my eyes over the wounds I’d inflicted on the stranger’s back last night as he got up and collected his clothes. It looked like someone had carved overlapping paths into his skin. Sucking my lip between my teeth, I suppressed the urge to know why the Lockhearts were here.

He buttoned the royal blue before stepping into his pants.

” Good morning, sweetheart.”

There was something familiar about him today. Maybe it was the liquor exiting my system that allowed me to see more clearly, or perhaps the heat from last night subdued all other senses.

Something stabbed my chest, twisted my stomach as I dragged my tongue over my dry lips. Whatever this nausea was, I begged that it wouldn’t lead to my getting sick all over his bed. Piercing eyes bored into mine when he flicked his head.

”My ride’s here, but you have the room until noon,”

Wait…his ride?

My brows furrowed, my wolf stirred on the surface, digging her claws into the floor of my mind.

”The only ride here is for the Lockhearts,” I said, the floor cold under my feet when I rose. A twinkle in his eyes set off.

”I know,” he said calmly. Not to be mistaken, there was an undertone. A darkness that forced my legs into a tremble as I squeezed them together.

”Who are you?” I asked when I took a step toward him. Something about this was amusing to him; I wish I could see it. To me, it was the gasoline to a fire I’d suppressed for years, begging to explode.

The floor creaked under his weight. When he stopped, there wasn’t an iota of air between us, and I bent my neck to look at the man who started to resemble a monster under the morning sun pushing in.

”I’ll see you again,” he said, hooking his finger under my chin.

I slapped it away and pushed at his chest. ”Who the fuck are you?!”

He shot his hand out, grabbed my face, and pulled me in.

Our eyes were locked in a battle of dominance, treading without care or any self-preservation whatsoever.

”Next time, I’ll tell you,”

”You’ll never see me again,” I seethed through gritted teeth when his fingers dug into my cheeks.

The fucker laughed when he leaned down. One hand keeping my face still, the other shifting a lock of my hair behind my ear.

”Mark my word, firecracker, I’ll do everything in my power to make you mine,”

”I don’t want you to,” I said in a breath. My heart was beating like never before, forcefully hitting my ribs until my breath caught in my lungs. He leaned down, his lips hovering over mine, and all I could think was how easy it’d be to bite it off.

”That’s why I’ll do it. It’s what makes it fun.” He whispered. In the blink of an eye, he pushed me back onto the bed, dragged his eyes over my front before the floorboards screamed as he left the room.

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind. He was a Lockheart. Sinister and menacing through and through. Only they would take pleasure in the pain of others. And I just lost my virginity to him.