Chapter 1

Freya

"Watch where you're going!"

The noblewoman shoved past me and my tray tipped, and before I could catch it two glasses slid off and shattered, splashing red wine all over the front of a golden gown.

The whole hall went silent.

The Luna candidate looked down at her ruined dress and then at me. "You fat, clumsy thing, do you know what this gown cost?"

"I'm sorry, my lady." I bowed my head. "She bumped into me, I didn't see her."

"It speaks." Her friend laughed behind her hand. "Blackmoor sent this to serve us? Look at the size of her, do they starve the whole pack just to feed her?"

They all laughed, and I stood there holding the empty tray with my face burning and said nothing, because omegas didn't talk back, omegas apologized and disappeared.

My wolf, Sable, whimpered in my head. I hate this place.

Me too, I told her. Two more hours and we go home.

The head server grabbed my arm and dragged me through the service doors. "One more mistake and your Alpha hears about it," she hissed. "Get to the back halls and clear dishes, and stay away from the guests before you shame us all."

"Yes, ma'am."

Honestly, the back corridors were a relief, because nobody looked at me there. I stacked plates and let the music fade behind the walls, and I told myself the night was almost over.

I was reaching for another stack when a hand clamped over my mouth from behind.

My back hit the wall hard, and Garrett Pike stood over me, pinning me with his body. The Beta's son, from my own pack, and his breath stank of wine.

"There you are," he said. "I've been watching you all night, Freya."

I twisted, but his arm pressed under my chin.

"Don't fight me, you should be grateful." He smiled. "Most males won't even look at you, but me? I like curvy girls, always have."

His thumb forced between my lips and something bitter smeared across my tongue, and I spat, but it was already dissolving down my throat.

"What did you give me?" My voice shook. "Garrett, what was that?"

"Something to help you relax."

Heat exploded low in my belly and spread fast, racing under my skin and turning my blood to fire, and my legs buckled. He drugged me. The Beta's son actually drugged me.

Sable snarled. Bite him!

His grip loosened as he leaned in, and I sank my teeth into his hand until I tasted blood.

He screamed, and I ran.

I ran with no direction, my body burning hotter with every step while his footsteps pounded behind me and his voice echoed off the walls, telling me exactly what he would do when he caught me. I turned a corner into a wide hallway with tall doors and thick carpet, and my stomach dropped, because this was the royal wing and nobody like me was allowed here.

His hand caught my hair and yanked me off my feet.

"You bit me, you fat little rat!"

"Release her."

The voice cracked through the corridor with a force that shook the walls, and Garrett dropped, his knees slamming into the floor beside me. An Alpha command, and a strong one.

I lifted my head.

Garrett was flat on the ground beside me, shaking under the weight of the command, but I felt nothing, no pressure, no force pushing me down, and that made no sense, because an Alpha command that strong should have flattened every wolf in the corridor, especially a weak omega like me. Why wasn't it working on me?

Sable had gone quiet, and then she started pacing, back and forth, back and forth, her tail up and her ears forward, excited in a way I had never felt from her in my life.

Sable, what is it?

She didn't answer me.

A man stood over us, tall and broad and dressed in black, and his silver eyes were fixed on Garrett with open disgust.

"Touch a female under this roof again and you lose the hands you did it with," he said. "Get out."

Garrett scrambled backward and ran without a single glance at me.

The man crouched down and offered me his hand, and that was when I saw it. Sweat shone at his temple, his chest was rising and falling too fast, and his eyes kept losing focus and dragging themselves back, like he was fighting to stay conscious, like something inside him was winning. Whatever was wrong with him, he was barely holding himself together.

I knew I should refuse his hand, I should press my face to the carpet and beg forgiveness for even breathing in this wing, but the drug was tearing through me and I couldn't think, so I put my hand in his.

The moment our skin touched, the world went white.

Mate! Sable howled in my skull. Mate! Mate! Mate!

No, that was impossible, because there was no way the Moon Goddess gave someone like him to someone like me.

He went completely still, and when his eyes found mine the silver had gone almost black, and his breathing had changed. So had mine.

Whatever Garrett had forced into my mouth was in full control of me now. My skin burned everywhere, my whole body ached and pulsed with a need so strong it scared me, and his scent, dark and rich and made for me, made all of it worse. I was shaking with want. I couldn't think past it, I couldn't breathe past it, and every part of me was straining toward him.

I stopped fighting. I grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him.

He went rigid against my mouth, and his hands closed hard around my arms, and for one second he held me away from him, his whole body trembling with the effort, his jaw locked, a low sound tearing out of his throat that was half growl and half surrender.

Then his control snapped.

He hauled me against him and kissed me back hard and deep and desperate, one hand fisting in my hair, the other spreading across the small of my back and pressing me into the heat of his body, and everywhere he touched me the burning turned to sparks. My mate. Mine. Sable was singing it and my blood was singing it and his mouth was on my throat and I stopped knowing where the drug ended and I began.

I don't remember how we reached the dark room or who slammed the door. I remember his hands and his mouth and the heat in my body finally easing everywhere he touched me, and I remember thinking, right before thinking stopped, that for the first time in my life someone was holding me like I mattered.

I woke at dawn in sheets that smelled like him.

For one second I was warm, happy even, and then I saw him standing at the window, fully dressed, watching me with no warmth at all in his face.

"Get out," he said.