Chapter 1
Harper
Ifelt him before I saw him. The prickle on my skin, the sudden vacuum in my chest. Not the club’s spotlight or even the acrid stink of beer and cologne—this was something cellular, a chemical alarm I hadn’t heard in years. My wolf flared up, hackles raised inside me.MATE.
The word pulsed through my veins, a bass line louder than the club’s thundering sound system. I didn’t dare glance at the crowd, not even a peek from under my false lashes, but every muscle locked tight and jittery. I was halfway through my set, crawling on my knees along the catwalk in six-inch Luciteplatforms, a string bikini top glued to my boobs and a scrap of glitter mesh covering what little else there was to see.
MATE. MATE. MATE.
My wolf vibrated with it, a dog with a scent she’d never forget, and I pressed my tongue to my teeth to keep from whimpering. My throat closed in on itself, and the velvet stage lights shimmered in that panicky way when you’re about to pass out. Jess Regan was here. The mate I’d left almost five years ago. Myfatedmate, the only person in the world I’d spent more than a week imagining a life with.
The last person I ever wanted here.
My human side panicked. My wolf, not so much. She stretched out, tail flagged, ears up, thrilled at the chase. But I was smarter than she was. I was a prisoner here, and he and I both were in danger if I acknowledged his presence. My father made sure of that when he sold me off like fucking cattle.
I tried to focus on the music, to keep count of the measures and not of the beating in my chest. Jess was out there, and he was watching. Probably with those sniper eyes of his, the ones that made you feel like he’d calculated the wind speed and trajectory of every word you spoke.
My knees stung from the rough patch of stage carpet—nothing like the burn of my shame. I stretched my arms overhead, arched my back, forced a practiced smile. The men whooped and hollered and tossed crumpled bills, none of them meaning a damn thing. I could smell him now, a hint of gun oil and leather and that impossible, specific heat of pack. Notmypack, but I still knew his scent: chocolate, bergamot, and cayenne. It made my hands shake.
The ultimate shame came when I stripped off the bikini top I wore. The men in the audience went mad over my body. Since I no longer trained as a ballerina, my body had filled out. My breasts, which used to be much smaller, now were full andnatural. My hands went to them; all a part of the routine. It’s my job to work the crowd into a frenzy as much as possible. I’m the headliner. The only girl who is a professionally trained dancer, for all the good that did. Of course, I’ll never be a ballerina again. Waylon Steiner, my Alpha, made sure of that. But I spin and crawl with the 85% motion my knees still have.
MATE.
I grabbed up the cash and tumbled off the catwalk with the last beat of the song, landed on my feet, and booked it for the dressing room. My ears rang with the music and the memory of my wolf’s howl.
The tiny corridor behind the stage was a tomb, lined with gray lockers and the whiff of dying hopes. I hit my dressing room and collapsed into my chair, doubling over. I counted breaths: in, two, three, four, out, two, three, four. My hands clutched the edge of the vanity so tight my knuckles turned white. My pulse was a jackhammer in my throat. I hadn’t been this close to accidental shifting in years. These days I stuck to full moon shifting, and that’s it.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to shut out everything but the slow throb of a migraine coming on. My mind raced trying to understand how he had managed to choose this strip club to walk into. What were he and his cowboy friend doing outside of Houston?
Someone knocked on the dressing room door. I froze, and for a split second, the animal panic inside me shrieked that it was him, come to drag me out by my hair. But the door opened, and it was just Angel, the bouncer’s girlfriend and sometime house mom, balancing a tray of tequila shots and cut lime. She winked at me.
“Harper, you okay, sugar?” Her voice was all cigarettes and warm honey.
I nodded, even though I was sweating through my rhinestone G-string. “Yeah. Just, uh. Low blood sugar.”
Angel set the tray on the counter. “You get paid extra for looking like you’re about to faint on stage? You oughta work that angle.”
I made myself laugh. It sounded like a dying cat. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
She tilted her head, peering with a raised brow. “You want me to tell Waylon you’re sick?”
At the sound of my owner’s name—because that’s what he was, even if the contract called me an “independent performer”—my stomach dropped. “No. I’m fine. Just need a minute.”
She shrugged and left me alone with my reflection. I looked like a ghost. My face was still pretty enough, but my blue eyes were empty. No shine or life reflected back at me. My wolf huffed in disgust. We used to be something; she reminded me. We used to be star material. We should be dancing on a legitimate stage somewhere in toe shoes, not stripper heels.
There was a time, back in the Houston suburbs, when I was going to be a ballerina. I’d started dancing before I could read, and I was good enough that my mother told everyone at the country club that her daughter would be the next Misty Copeland. My father was less impressed. He’d been president of a financial services firm managing hedge funds before his little “problem” with wire fraud. The only dreams he allowed in his house were the ones he could pay for.
I had known Jess for most of my life. He was four years older than me and had gone into the military when I was in high school, and I hadn’t thought much about him after that. Then,we reconnected when I was nineteen, at a coffee shop. He was home on leave, hair still regulation short and tan lines where his wedding ring would have been if he ever wore one. I didn’t know what he was at first, just that he had the stillness of a predator and tattoos you wanted to trace with your tongue. I watched him stir his coffee, black, one sugar, and I realized that I’m sure I’d fail to matter in his world.
But then he looked at me. Really looked at me. And every cell in my body rearranged itself to fit the shape of that gaze.
We didn’t talk about the mate thing, not then. But I knew. I knew by the way my skin ached to touch him, the way my heart sped up when he walked into a room. He knew too. He’d let his hand drift over mine on the little round table, like he was claiming me in public, and I’d felt the invisible chain loop around my soul. Finally, we both admitted it. It was undeniable.
It lasted three months. Three perfect, fragile, doomed months.
When I told my father, he lost his mind. Threw a glass across the kitchen, called Jess every ugly name he could think of—mutt, trash, criminal—and then told me if I ever saw him again, he’d see to it I lost everything. My tuition, my car, my spot at Julliard. My mother just watched, silent and brittle. I knew my father had plans to marry me off to some corporate partner he’d already picked out for me. He wouldn’t let me spoil his plans. Then he threatened my little sister Brie. She was only 16 at the time. He swore he’d have her given to some old wolf as soon as he could if I didn’t do what he said. It was hopeless. He took my computer and my phone and told me I’d better never contact Jess again. He told me to pack my stuff for New York that second. I did, and he had me on a plane that night.
I wrote a letter to Jess that I never had a chance to deliver.
