His phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen—Nyx. The slight tension in his jaw that appeared whenever pack security called took hold.
“Take it.” She stepped toward the deli. “I’ll grab you an Americano. You drink too much espresso for someone with wolf hearing.”
“My hearing is fine.”
“Your hearing is superhuman. The espresso is still excessive.” She backed toward the door, still facing him. “Two minutes. Don’t negotiate a hostile takeover while I’m gone.”
“No promises. I’ll be around the corner.” He gestured toward the side of the building.
She pushed through the deli door
The heat hit her—the smell of fresh bread and burnt sugar and the familiar fluorescent haze of a bodega at 7:00 PM. She joined the line behind a man ordering a chopped cheese and pulled out her phone to text Mika.
Walking home with Z. He held my hand for six blocks. I’m a grown woman and I’m reporting hand-holding like a teenager. Don’t judge me.
Mika’s response was immediate:I’M JUDGING YOU WITH JOY. Details tomorrow or I’m revoking your best friend privileges.
The line moved. She ordered. Two Americanos—his black, hers with oat milk, because she had standards even if her taste in men ran toward apex predators.
She stepped out of the deli into the cold. She turned toward the alley then heard her name called from the other side of the building. Zeir must’ve paced to the other side. She hoped there wasn’t anything wrong. Pack business always seemed to be so serious.
She turned toward the corner to look for him.
The air shifted.
The same wrongness she’d identified twice before: at her loft, at Axan Dark. The sour signature of disconnection. It hit her a half-second before the arm did.
Draven Korr materialized from the dark. His arm closed around her from behind—fast, brutal, practiced. He dragged her halfway down the alley.
The coffees hit the pavement. She drove her elbow backward into his ribs, felt the grunt of displaced air. Stomped his instep. Twisted in his grip and bit his hand deep enough to draw blood. The copper taste flooded her mouth.
He swore. She broke free and ran—long enough to yank her phone from her coat pocket, type one word blind, and hit send to Zeir.
korr
Then Korr had her again. Stronger. Faster. A man built for damage. He dragged her farther into the service alley, where a dark vehicle idled with its lights off. Her phone clattered to the pavement as he shoved her inside.
She memorized every turn. Every stop. Every change in road texture beneath the tires.
South. Toward the waterfront. Past the Gowanus.
Red Hook.
THIRTY-FOUR
LUMI
The space was everything the rest of her life wasn’t.
Cold. Cavernous. Floors stained with oil and age. Rusted machinery—old industrial presses, overhead hoists trailing chains—casting angular shadows in the dying light that fell through shattered glass thirty feet above. The air tasted like metal and neglect. No warmth. No beauty. No art. The visual opposite of every studio, every brownstone, every space where creation happened.
This was Korr’s ground. Taken by violence. Held by nothing but the willingness to occupy it.
He didn’t restrain her. Didn’t need to—the building was isolated, the exits were too far, and in human form, he was still twice her size. He paced in front of her, boots echoing in the empty space, the restless energy of a man whose plan had outrun his patience.
She sat on an overturned crate and watched him. Her wrist ached where he’d pinned it. The inside of her lip was split from the struggle.
He needs an audience. That’s the weakness. His ego is bigger than his strategy.
