Page 3

Up in the balcony, the music is quieter. Just a gentle beat, beat, beat under our feet. Outside the tall, frosted glass behind us, the wind howls, snow blowing heartily through the air. Before, it felt like an onslaught. Now, with him touching me, it feels like magic. It echoes my heart still.

I wait for him to push me down onto one of the plush velvet couches, wait for him to do something—what does an alpha do when he finds his mate?

It hits me, suddenly, that I can feel the slick building inside me. That I’m undoubtedly going into a surprise heat just from the weight of his hand on my arm.

“Who are you?” he whispers, eyes wide, pupils blown out as he backs me against a wall. For the first time since walking up to him, I realize that his expression isn’t as dreamy as how I feel.

There’s definitely something behind his eyes—lust? Wanting? But those feelings are behind the bars of a cage, locked away, stifled. How is that possible? How can he fight this connection between us?

“I’m Mylah,” I say, like a zombie, because that’s all I can manage in front of him, surrounded by him, his scent and his arms and his heat.

Apparently, at the sound of my name, this man loses the grasp he has on control. Crushing me against the wall, pinning my body with his own, he lowers his mouth to mine and takes me.

I have never been kissed before.

Even if I had, I am sure I never would have been kissed like this.

His tongue sweeps into my mouth like it belongs there, coordinating with his hands on my body and his hips against mine. The moment the kiss begins, we’re locked together in a crude approximation of what will happen later, and as his fingers grip and tighten on my hips, I ache for him, feeling a vacuum inside myself like I never have before.

I need him to fill me.

Oh god, if he doesn’t fill me right now, I’ll—

And then, just as quickly as it started, it’s done. My underwear is soaked through by my slick, and the man is stumbling backward, his hand over his mouth, his eyes roaming me, pupils still blown out.

His scent is everything. God, he smells like…like oranges, crushed, candied in a pan. Something I could eat. A flavor I would devour.

Quietly, resolutely, as though commanding himself, he says simply, “No.”

“No?” I echo, still blinking, entire body leaning toward his, breath coming rapidly, thoughts not forming. Slowly, like my knees don’t work without him near, I start to slide down the wall, toward the floor. “What—?”

But with that—and this is the worst part of the dream, the part that always sends me gasping away, heart thumping, nausea roiling in my stomach—he turns on his heel and walks away, leaving me alone and starting my heat on the dirty floor of a random, rowdy club.

Chapter 2 - Augustus

As always, the meeting room is loud with the sound of Denvil’s laughter, which spills out of the open doors, down the hallway, and to me.

Any other morning, it would be far more welcome.

Right now, there’s a pounding in the back of my skull, dots in my vision, and an insistence from my body that there is someone I should be with at this exact moment. It happens to me about once a month.

I can only assume it correlates with something else that happens once a month.

Since the day I realized I have a mate in this world, I’ve followed two rules to keep that fact safely locked away. One, tell nobody—absolutely nobody, not even my best friends—about the fact that she exists. And two, try to think about it as little as possible.

At first, the rule was: do not think about her at all.

That proved an impossible feat. Even I, with all the discipline in the world, with the strict way my father raised me—even I cannot keep from thinking about my mate. It’s only biology.

But as King of the Northern Kault Pack, I cannot allow biology to control me. Can’t allow it to take the time from my day I should be using to serve the members of my pack.

To correct everything my father did before me.

“Auggie!” Denvil booms it, annoyingly, the moment I walk through the doors. I wince and clutch my tablet a little closer to my chest, as though the tech is going to protect my headache from his baritone.

“Don’t call me that.”

“But you answered to it, and thus, it’s an acceptable name.”