“W-what do you want me to do?” Madison’s voice came out rough with nerves. She’d been put in uncomfortable positions while working at the club before.She’d thought that nothing would top the night she’d been cornered in that room of Wolves on the eighth floor. It had been her first time up there, and she hadn’t even been scheduled to be there. Tired of waiting for her chance to see what all the fuss was about; she’d decided to take fate into her own hands.Much like the girl who’d called to notify her of this assignment, Jared had tasked her with letting another, more seasoned member of the waitstaff of their upcoming appointment. Seeing an opening, Madison had borrowed another person’s phone and posed as a worker at her son’s daycare. One quick call and the woman had been off to pick up her ‘sick’ son, and Madison had been there to volunteer to take her place.The experience had been everything she’d hoped for during the first hour or two of the party. The suite had been packed with

Xavier sped down the highway on his way back to the Green Light Club. He had only just touched down after his private redeye flight had ferried him upstate in record time. It was nearly four in the morning, but the urgency twisting his gut wouldn’t settle for waiting for a proper morning flight.​ His entire trip to New York, Xavier had been plagued with a low-level feeling of anxiety that refused to go away. He was in the middle of important talks, the kind that held the authority to keep the American Northeast a peaceful region or bring about war between his kind and the humans.​ The Alliance, unscrupulous as it was, was also the only entity actively working to keep the systematic subjugation that had already festered across so much of the United States, as well as the world at large, out of the Alliance territories.As the reigning Alpha of the Red Moon Pack, his presence wasn’t only mandatory at these conferences, it was essential. He was expected to meet with the president

“Filthy fucking humans,” Dylan grated through elongated teeth. ​ Xavier hummed in approval from where the Alpha Prince stood before the bleeding and bruised excuses for men. He was in his completed half-formed state; seven feet tall, with a large wolven head, hundreds of pounds of muscle hulking over the pathetic sacks of human waste on plate-sized paws.​ Ava’s captors cowered beneath him from where they sat broken on the bathroom floor. Covered as they were now in their own piss and tears, it was almost shocking to think that, only minutes before, they’d been waterboarding a girl, suffocating her to within an inch of her life.Where was all of that gall now? The wherewithal to stand over someone and play God, taking the reins of life and death in your hands?It was in Xavier’s hands now. And Dylan’s. And he’d already made up his mind on the fate of the men on the floor. When he shared a look with his friend, he knew he had, as well.Eight men were in this room, and only four

I fucking hate you, Xavier Michaels.​ Xavier’s gut clenched at the finality of the words. Ava had said them to him before, but this time was different, and he felt it as sharply as if she’d taken a knife to his chest.​ Before he’d made a conscious decision to do so, Xavier was out of his chair and standing before Ava’s rigid form. When he reached his hand out to her, this time she didn’t flinch. There was too much fire in her, a fire that he recognized because it matched his own. It was the same inferno that had lit his darker moments for more than a decade.​ It was also the same inferno that made it impossible to discount the fact that she might be a killer.​ “Don’t say that to me.” He lifted a hand and brushed a lock of Ava’s auburn hair behind her ear, “Say whatever else you want, but don’t you say those words to me. Not you.”​ “Who else has earned the right to be over your bullshit then me, Xavier?” She snarled, “What do you care how I feel about you? Or is it

“What do you *mean*, they were anonymous, Jared?” Bella planted her hands on the desk and slowly rose to her feet, whispers of her Wolfe slipping past her barriers enough for even this dunce human to perceive.​ Jared leaned back in his chair; eyes wide as he saw evidence of the predator lurking underneath Bella’s skin for the first time. She never lost control of her beast – she was much too disciplined for that. But clearly she’d been too lax, given this human too much of her trust.​ If the people she entrusted to keep her business running kept blatantly disregarding the delicate balance of rules she’d spent so long establishing, Bella could lose everything.​ “Tell me, Jared. In what world do we let random civilians off the streets have complete anonymity under our roof. We’re no better than a common brothel, if we can’t keep track of who walks in and out of our doors!”​ Jared looked frightened, and rightfully so. Anonymity was a privilege reserved only for the highes