Chapter 1

Lila's POV

I woke up naked in a bed that wasn't mine.

The sheets smelled wrong. Hotel soap. Cheap detergent. And underneath it, something warm and masculine that made my skin prickle in a way I couldn't explain.

My body ached in places I didn't want to think about. There were bruises on my thighs that I hadn't put there, and my lips felt swollen and raw.

I pulled the sheet to my chest and sat up. The room was small. Peeling wallpaper, a cracked window letting in gray morning light, a bathroom door hanging open. My dress from last night was crumpled on the floor beside the bed. My underwear was gone.

If I woke up like this, my boyfriend Derek should be around.

"Derek?" My voice came out raw. "Derek, are you here?"

Nobody answered.

I tried to remember. Last night was the New Year's masquerade party at the Capital Pack, which is the Alpha King's pack. My twin sister Maya had dragged me along, said it would be fun, said I needed to get out more. I remembered the masks, the music, the press of bodies on the dance floor.

Then everything went blurry. My head had started swimming, and I'd asked Maya to take me back to our pack.

She hadn't.

Something glinted on the nightstand. A watch — heavy, with a black obsidian face and silver casing. It wasn't mine. I reached for it, turned it over in my hand—

The door slammed open.

Maya stood in the doorway with Derek right behind her. His arm was draped over her shoulder. Comfortable. Practiced.

"I knew it." Maya's eyes swept the room. The tangled sheets, my bare shoulders, the marks on my neck. She pressed a hand over her mouth. "Oh my God, Lila. Derek, look at her."

Derek looked. He didn't shout or clench his fists or do any of the things a boyfriend should do when he finds his girlfriend naked in a strange hotel room.

He smiled.

"Derek — this isn't what it looks like." I clutched the sheet tighter against my chest. "I don't remember anything. I woke up here and I don't know—"

"You don't remember." He pulled out his phone and started taking pictures. My bare shoulders, the marks on my skin, the wrecked hotel room. Click. Click. Click. "That's convenient."

"Stop — Derek, stop—"

I lunged for the phone, but my hand missed and I stumbled forward, heat flooding my face. He stepped out of reach without even hurrying.

"I'm telling you," I said. "I don't know how I got here."

"I do." Maya stepped into the room. The fake shock was gone. What was underneath was worse.

Satisfaction.

"I put something in your drink last night." She said it the way you'd mention the weather. "Your heat kicked in. The scent alone would've drawn every unmated wolf in that wing." She shrugged. "I left you there and let nature take its course."

My stomach went cold.

"You — you drugged me?"

"Don't be dramatic." She examined her nails. "You were in heat, surrounded by unmated wolves. Someone was bound to take interest."

A fragment of memory surfaced. Dark hallways and my skin on fire. Hands reaching for me, voices I didn't recognize. I'd been panicking, trying to shove through the crowd. And then I felt arms. Strong arms lifting me off the ground.

I'd pressed my face into his chest. His scent had cut through the panic and the heat, something deep and steady, and my wolf had surged forward so hard I'd thought I was going to shift right there. For some reason, even through the blur, part of me had wanted to stay in those arms.

But that was just the drugs. Just the heat making everything feel bigger than it was.

Derek was still typing on his phone. "Your father wants to know why his daughter is naked in a hotel room the morning after the ball." He didn't look up. "I sent him the pictures."

All the blood drained from my face. "You didn't."

"I've been wanting to end things for a while, Lila. It's getting boring." He slid the phone into his pocket and looked at me like I was something stuck to his shoe. "I just didn't have a good enough reason to dump a gamma's daughter. My Alpha father will scold me for sure. But with you cheating on me?" He clicked his tongue. "That's a reason."

"I didn't cheat on you!" My voice broke. "Maya drugged me—"

For a second, nobody moved. The radiator under the window ticked in the silence.

"My girl," Derek said. He pulled Maya against his side, and she fit there. Comfortable. "Maya's been helping me find the right moment. This was it."

I stared at them. My boyfriend. My twin sister. His arm around her waist, her fingers curled into his jacket.

They'd been together this whole time.

"Why?" I asked Maya. My voice sounded small. I hated how small it sounded. "I never did anything to you."

Her eyes went flat.

"You existed."

She stepped closer. "Do you know what it's like having a twin who's just better at everything? Similar scent, similar faces, just prettier, smarter." Her jaw tightened. "And you got Derek first. So yes, Lila. I took him back."

Maya's gaze drifted to the nightstand. She picked up the obsidian watch and turned it over in her fingers.

"Expensive," she said. "Whoever your mystery man was, he had money." She tossed it in the air and caught it. "Too bad he didn't stick around. Probably didn't even look at your face. Just a convenient warm body in the dark."

She was right. He left before even a word. He cared nothing about me.

Derek snorted. "Maybe he thought she was a whore."

The word landed in my chest and stayed there.

Maya flipped the watch at me. It bounced off the mattress and landed in my lap.

"Keep it," she said. "Consider it payment for services rendered."

Derek's phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, and the lazy smirk slid off his face.

"Your father." His voice went flat. "He says to bring his whore of a daughter home. He wants to teach her a lesson."

The way he said lesson made my skin go cold. I knew what my father's lessons looked like. I'd seen what they did to my mother.

Maya watched from the doorway with her arms folded. Still smiling.

When Derek dragged me toward the stairs, the watch was still in my fist. Cold. Heavy. The only thing left from a man I thought I'd never find.