LOGIN|| Mira || He had dressed me in this. He had put me on that stage. He had sat three feet away with another woman on his lap and kissed her in full view of everyone, using her mouth to punish me — and now he was standing over a body calling me disgusting. The audacity of this wolf. The fear I'd been swallowing for days burned away completely and I didn't realize when my hand made contact with his face in a loud slap. "You put me on that stage, Matthew." The words came out controlled, which surprised even me. "You brought that man here. You told him I was entertainment and auctioned me to him." I took one step toward him, not backing down. "So don't stand there and act like what happened is something I did to you." A sound left him. It was low and guttural, his wolf bleeding to the surface and mine was a second away tearing into him to teach him a lesson. I should have stopped there but I didn't. "What? You want a turn?" I held his gaze. "Not a chance. You're not man enough.
|| Mira || Matthew! I couldn't believe he came. He threw Alpha Nick across the room and stood in front of me like the shield he never had been. I never thought he was this strong. Nick spat out blood, crawling up to his feet with one hand braced against the wall, his face cycling through pain and fury. His eyes moved from me to Matthew. Something shifted in them, confusion first then sudden realization. Nick let out a growl, releasing his Alpha aura and Matthew responded with a thunderous roar that was mightier. His aura was stronger and subdued Nick’s. “You dare touch what's mine." Matt gritted his teeth. Eyes red with unrequired furry. “You sold her to me.” Nick spat back. That was all I heard from the guy as my mind settled on Matthew's words. This?? The guy has never called me his. He hated me to the core so what has changed? Was he playing one of his games? Or was he jealous? Or perhaps it was his wolf talking? “The transaction is not complete yet, Nick.
|| MIRA ||I saw him kiss her.I was mid-movement and I watched him pull Jessica onto his lap and I felt it go through me like something cold and fast. I didn't stop moving. I swung wider. Moved harder. Let the music cover what I was feeling because nobody in this room was going to see it.My lycan whimpered somewhere underneath everything.I told her to be quiet.When the song ended I stood at the front of the stage and the room gave me something I hadn't expected.Applause.Real applause. Not mocking. Not the polite noise men made for things that were merely adequate. The kind that meant they had watched something and been surprised by it.I didn't bow.I stepped off the stage.And I walked straight to Matthew.I heard the room shift as I moved. People tracking me. Wondering what I was doing. I didn't look at any of them. I kept my eyes on him and I walked until I was standing directly in front of his chair.Jessica was still on his lap.I looked at her and I smiled."Move," I said.
|| Mira|| I wrapped one hand around the pole and let the music move through me. I closed my eyes for one second. Found the beat. Then I started to move. I was slow at first, not frantically. My hips found the rhythm before my mind did, and my body remembered something I thought the last few days had taken from me. I felt like me again. The carefree girl who used to dance in her room and bathroom without a care in the world. I knew how to do this. I had danced my whole life at pack events, celebrations, private moments in my room when nobody was watching. Dancing had always been the one thing that belonged entirely to me, the thing nobody had ever managed to take or regulate or make into something it wasn't. Matthew had just handed it to me in the worst possible way. I show him and the rest of his allies what I was made of. I moved around the pole and the music and let everything else fall away. The laughter. The stares. The whispers still working their way around the r
|| Mira || The room erupted. Instead of chaos, the room buzzed in excitement. I felt disgusted just by looking at them. Instead of them protesting against Matthew or whatever his name was, they were elated to see their fellow human in distress. They were not humans, they were animals. Evil ones. I stood inside the cage and the word moved through me like a current. Auction. He was auctioning me. Was this his big surprise? The one he was grinning about? Anya’s rage mixed with mine almost made me tremble for all to see but clamped my knuckles tight to keep me grounded. I turned to Matthew. He was already looking at me, Jessica still tucked against his side, and the expression on his face was the most dangerous thing I had ever seen on a person. Ever since I met him, I haven’t seen him smile but now he was. It was a full smile with teeth and not his usual smirk. The smile felt strange on his face and I couldn’t believe he was grinning like this because of my downfall. Bastard!
|| Mira ||I had about two seconds to stare at it in confusion before Kael's hand pressed into my back and pushed me forward.My legs moved on their own with my brain still stacked at the banner. The room came into focus in pieces. Low lighting, thick with smoke and heat that came from too many tetesterone packed into one space. A wide staircase descended in front of us and at the bottom, a floor packed with men. Only men. I scanned left to right and counted two women in the entire space, both of them standing behind powerful-looking wolves who barely acknowledged they existed.Testosterone was so thick in the air it sat on the back of my tongue.My instincts screamed at me but I kept walking.Welcome Mira Sloan. The words kept looping in my head. Why would anyone throw a party for me? What was Kael up to? And why has he gathered all these people here?I was nobody to these people. I was Alpha Zane's little sister who had gone to university and disappeared. I was not someone you hun
|| Mira || Hours passed. Or maybe just one. I had no way of knowing. The only clock I had was a thin strip of moonlight leaking through the gap I found between the boards on the window. It crept across the floor so slowly I had to stare to catch it moving at all. I watched it anyway. Counte
||Mira|| Pain came first. A deep throb behind my eyes, constant and mean. My stomach lurched before memory did, and then it all came back and I wished it hadn’t. The club, the drinks, and Kael. He drugged me. The bastard took advantage of my trust and drugged me. The thought sat in my ches
||Mira || Friday didn't arrive so much as collapse through the door. By the time my last midterm ended, I had nothing left. Exam week had wrung me out completely,no thoughts, no feelings, just a body running on habit and the memory of caffeine. The walk back to my dorm happened without me. My
||Mira|| The train was late. I know how that sounds. But standing on that platform at eleven at night with a cold coffee in my hand and nobody who knew exactly where I was, the delay felt like a gift. Every extra minute was another minute of being nobody. No last name. No pack. No brother steering







