The Alpha's Christmas Sin

Ava's POV I watched our reflections rise in the elevator, me in my cheap coat with mascara probably smeared down my face and him in his perfect suit looking like he stepped out of a magazine ad."So." I broke the silence. "Do you do this often? Pick up random crying women in hotel lobbies?""No." He pressed the button for the top floor. "First time.""Lucky me."The doors opened to a hallway that screamed money. Thick carpet and actual paintings on the walls, not prints. He unlocked a door at the end and held it open.The room was massive, floor-to-ceiling windows showing the whole city lit up for Christmas. A couch that probably cost more than my car and a bar cart with bottles whose name I couldn't pronounce.He walked straight to the bar and poured two drinks. Whiskey, neat and he handed me one without asking if I wanted it."Thanks." I took it, drinking half in one gulp. It burned going down but I didn't care. "I'm Ava, by the way, since we're apparently doing this.""Damian.""

Ava's POVThe contract sat on my kitchen counter for six hours before I opened it.I made tea I didn't drink, reorganized my bookshelf twice, and stared at my ceiling long enough to memorize every crack in the plaster. My apartment was small, the kind of small that felt cozy when I was happy and suffocating when I wasn't. Right now it felt like the walls were slowly closing in and personally offending me.My phone had not stopped since this morning. Reporters, unknown numbers, a voicemail from my landlord that I was too scared to play. Jamie had texted seventeen times, which was impressive even by her standards. The messages had evolved from are you okay to okay you're clearly not dead so CALL ME to a string of capital letters that I chose not to read in full.I didn't answer any of them.I sat down at the counter and opened the folder.The contract was forty pages long. Forty pages of legal language so dense it made my eyes cross. I understood maybe a third of it but the parts I und

Ava's POVThree days into living at the manor and I had developed a system.Wake up before seven, beat Damian to the kitchen, pour my coffee, and position myself at the far end of the counter with my phone before he came downstairs. That way we could exist in the same space without the particular awkwardness of arriving together, which somehow felt more intimate than it had any right to for two people who were essentially roommates with paperwork.It was a good system. I was proud of it.On day four it completely fell apart because I overslept.I came downstairs at seven twelve with my hair still damp from a rushed shower and my shirt on inside out, realized the shirt situation halfway down the staircase, fixed it on the landing while hoping none of the invisible staff were watching, and walked into the kitchen to find Damian already at the table with his coffee and his phone and what I was almost certain was the ghost of amusement on his face."You're late," he said."I'm aware." I w

Damian's POV I knew what she was the moment she walked into that hotel lobby. Not who she was actually, not her name, not the way her hair fell slightly out of place like she had stopped caring halfway through the night and never picked it back up again. What I knew was what my wolf knew. And my wolf didn’t hesitate. Ashmoon. The recognition hit low in my chest…instinctive, immediate, and completely unwanted. That bloodline had been extinct for years. Erased from record and rumor alike. The last Ashmoon female was believed to have died in a fire. Most wolves called an accident and a few of us never believed it was anything close to it. There were no survivors. No continuation. There was no lingering thread left for anyone to follow. It was supposed to be finished until she walked into the Devereaux Hotel on Christmas Eve with mascara smudged under her eyes and fire she didn’t know how to hide, and something long-buried in the world shifted without asking permission. I said noth

Ava's POVI woke up at three in the morning with my heart beating too fast and my skin on fire.Literally on fire,not just a figure of speech or at least that was what it felt like, a burning that started at the surface and went deeper than skin, moving through muscle and bone like something trying to get out from the inside. I sat up gasping and grabbed the edge of the mattress with both hands and waited for it to pass.It took four minutes. I counted the seconds.When it faded I was drenched in sweat and shaking and the room felt too small and too dark and too enclosed in a way it never had before. I went to the window and opened it and leaned out into the cold night air and breathed until my heartbeat stopped trying to escape through my throat.I stood at the open window for a long time, letting the cold settle the burning, and told myself it was stress. Stress did things to bodies. Stress caused physical symptoms that had no other explanation. I was living in a stranger's house un