Chapter 1: The Three AM Shift

POV: Sierra

Blood doesn’t bother me anymore. That should probably concern me more than it does, but after three years of scrubbing it off concrete, you either learn to live with the metallic stink or go insane.

I chose option one. Insanity is a luxury for wolves who have the freedom to fall apart.

My wolf still heals what she can, but she's been suppressed for so long that my hands stay rough and cracked, and my knees ache against the cold stone floor of The Crimson Cage's main arena. The industrial brush grinds across dried blood, its scrape echoing through the empty arena like an animal's final cry.

Three in the morning. The witching hour for servants like me.

The arena, a vast underground colosseum beneath the opulent Obsidian Palace Hotel and Casino, stretches overhead. During fight nights, this pit holds three thousand screaming spectators, all rich enough to afford the quarter-million-dollar entry f*e and twisted enough to enjoy watching werewolves tear each other apart for entertainment.

Tonight, it's only me and the ghosts left behind.

My routine is carved into muscle memory after more than a thousand nights. Start where the blood is thickest, where tonight’s loser fell, then scrub outward in widening circles until every stain disappears. Cameras mounted every twenty feet follow my movements, but I know where their fields overlap and where they leave blind spots. I know which angles capture the obedient servant girl and which let me steal quick glances at security rotations.

Survival isn't only about staying alive. It's about disappearing so completely that nobody notices you're collecting the pieces you'll need when hiding stops being enough.

The arena floor tells tonight’s story in crimson. Two fighters. Both Alphas, if the blood patterns mean what I think they do. The winner left size thirteen boot prints leading toward the victor's tunnel. The loser left only the outline of a body that had taken four guards to erase before my shift even began.

I don't know their names. I don't want to. Names make ghosts harder to ignore.

"You're getting sloppy."

The voice doesn't make me flinch, though my wolf shifts uneasily beneath my skin. Scarlett Monroe moves like smoke whenever she wants to, which is almost always. At thirty-two, she's the head healer in this nightmare factory and the closest thing I have to a friend in a place where friendship can get you killed.

She's beautiful, tall, and curvy, with deep brown skin and box braids pinned neatly above her shoulders during work hours. Her healer's coat remains spotless despite the carnage she spends every night stitching back together. She smells of antiseptic beneath the vanilla lotion she uses to bury the smell of death.

"My sloppy self still gets the job done," I reply without lifting my head. Keep scrubbing. Keep moving. Busy servants don't attract attention.

"The north camera has been fixed on you for the last five minutes." Scarlett crouches beside me, careful to stay below the monitoring angles. "And Knox was in the control room when I walked past."

That makes the brush pause. My grip tightens until the wooden handle presses into my palm.

Knox Ashford. Owner of The Crimson Cage. Billionaire entrepreneur to the human world. Slave master to those of us who know better.

Forty-five years old and handsome in that silver-fox way that makes humans trust him and the supernatural fear him. A charcoal-gray wolf with gold eyes that never blink, never forgive, and never forget.

"Knox doesn't watch the help," I say, forcing the brush across the floor again. "We're beneath his pay grade."

"Knox doesn't watch the help unless he's planning something." Scarlett lowers her voice another notch. "And lately, he's been paying far too much attention to you."

My stomach sinks. My face gives nothing away. Three years inside this place has taught me that surviving often depends on convincing everyone you're already broken.

"Then I'll make sure I'm not interesting enough to plan for."

"Sierra." Scarlett lays a hand over mine, stopping the frantic scrubbing I hadn't realized I'd fallen into. "I'm serious. Something's changed. The guards keep talking about a championship tournament. Huge money. An even bigger spectacle. And somehow your name keeps surfacing where it shouldn't."

I lift my gaze to hers. Brown eyes. Filled with worry. Far too kind for someone who works in a place like this.

"My name doesn't come up in conversations," I say. "I'm a servant. I clean blood, empty trash, and restock the refreshment stations. That's all."

"I used to believe that too." She gives my hand a brief squeeze before standing. "Just be careful. If you need anything, you know where to find me."

She disappears as quietly as she arrived, her white healer's coat swallowed by the service tunnel leading toward the medical wing.

Her warning lingers long after she's gone. In The Crimson Cage, being noticed by Knox Ashford is where nightmares begin.

I steer my bucket toward the east side of the arena instead of following my usual route. From there, the observation windows come into view without making it obvious that I'm looking.

Fear does one of two things. It sharpens you. Or it shatters you. I figured out which one I was a long time ago.

The tiny hairs along the back of my neck lift. The sensation won't go away. I tell myself not to look. My head turns anyway. Knox is already looking straight at me.

Our eyes meet. He smiles.