Chapter 2: Under the Lights

Chapter 2: Under the Lights

(Nayla’s POV — First Person)

The second we stepped inside Nocturne, I felt it in my bones.

Power.

Old and sharp and humming under the bass-heavy music.

Nocturne wasn’t just a nightclub.

It was neutral ground.

One of the few places in the city where witches, werewolves, and humans could breathe the same thick air without tearing each other apart.

Here, your species didn’t matter.

Money did.

Power did.

And respect for the rules set by the club’s owner — Dominic Gray — was absolute.

I’d never met him.

Didn’t need to.

His presence was stitched into the walls. In the way even the drunkest humans knew better than to start a fight. In the way the most reckless wolves kept their fangs sheathed when a witch brushed too close.

Dominic Gray ran Nocturne with invisible fists—and tonight, we were stepping right into his world.

The club pulsed with sound and light.

Bodies packed tight on the dance floor.

Red and silver flashes slicing through the smoke.

Kayla grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the bar, weaving through the crowd like she belonged here.

Maybe she did.

I wasn’t sure I belonged anywhere anymore.

But the tequila burned that thought right out of my chest.

“To survival,” Kayla grinned, shoving a shot glass into my hand.

I clinked it against hers half-heartedly and tossed it back.

The liquor hit my stomach like fire.

We ordered another.

And another.

Somewhere between the third and fourth round, I managed a shaky laugh at one of Kayla’s terrible jokes about getting hexed by a witch for dancing badly.

“You’re smiling,” she said, squinting at me dramatically. “Holy shit. Someone call the Moon Goddess.”

I flipped her off and took another sip of my drink.

The truth was — I was trying.

I was trying so damn hard to pretend that my world hadn’t shattered.

Trying to dance on the edge of something new without falling apart.

Kayla squealed suddenly, her attention caught by something — someone — across the room.

I followed her gaze.

Tall. Dark-haired. Lean muscle in a leather jacket.

Definitely her type.

Kayla bit her lip, considering.

“I’m gonna go dance,” she said, already shifting toward the floor.

She paused, turning back, all best-friend concern burning in her eyes.

“You good?”

I forced a smile. “Go. I’ll be here.”

“You sure?”

I nodded, lifting my glass. “Promise.”

She hesitated a second longer—because Kayla always knew when I was lying—but finally gave me a wink and disappeared into the crush of bodies and lights.

I leaned back against the bar, cradling my drink in both hands.

Alone.

But for the first time in a long time—

I didn’t feel lonely.

I felt… something else.

The air shifted around me.

Subtle at first.

Like the temperature dropping before a storm.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

My wolf stirred, sleepy and sluggish from weeks of mourning, lifting her head and sniffing at the charged air.

Something — or someone — had entered the room.

And even though the music roared and the lights blinded and the crowd swallowed Kayla whole—

I knew.

I was no longer alone.