Clara
The black-market suppressant burned like liquid ash going down my throat.
I gripped the marble edges of the sink in the fifty-second-floor restroom, gasping as the synthetic chemical surged through my bloodstream. In the mirror, my reflection looked pathetic. The oversized, charcoal-grey blazer hung off my shoulders like a shroud. My raven hair was pulled back into a bun so tight it made my scalp throb, anchored behind thick, prescription-less tortoiseshell glasses.
I looked like a mouse. An invisible, terrified human secretary. But underneath the disguise, my claws begged to unsheathe.
My silver wolf whined, suffocating beneath the heavy blanket of the drug. To every predator in Lysander Tower, I was completely odorless. Dead air and a scentless blank slate.
Three years ago, the Lysander’s Syndicate framed my father for treason against the Lycan High Council, massacring the Silver-crest Pack in a single night of blood and fire. I was the sole survivor of the royal bloodline. I hadn't returned to beg for mercy; I had returned to tear this empire down brick by brick.
The gold watch on my wrist beeped. Eight twenty-nine in the morning.
I took a steadying breath, smoothed down my hideous pleated skirt, picked up the leather-bound executive folder, and walked out into the lion’s den.
The executive floor was dead silent. The air was thick with the scent of cedar, cold ozone, and raw, unrestrained power. Every guard stationed along the glass corridor was a high-tier Lycan enforcer, their amber eyes tracking my every movement as I passed. They sneered, turning their noses away in disgust. To them, a human was nothing more than prey that took up office space.
Good. Let them underestimate me, that’s all I needed anyway.
I reached the double mahogany doors of the CEO suite and knocked twice.
"Enter."
The voice was low, gravelly, and vibrating with enough authority to buckle the knees of any lesser wolf.
I pushed the heavy doors open. The office was vast, lined with floor-to-ceiling panoramic glass overlooking the sprawling city below. Behind a massive desk of black obsidian sat Gabriel Lysander, the Lycan King.
He wore a tailored three-piece charcoal suit, his broad shoulders filling out the cut with lethal grace. His dark hair was slightly tousled, his jawline carved from granite, and his obsidian eyes held the terrifying stillness of an apex predator. Scars mapped the knuckles of his right hand—relics of the underground cartel wars he fought to claim this throne.
My wolf thrashed violently against the chemical cage in my chest, slamming against my ribs.
Mate, my wolf whimpered.
“Shut up, I ordered her silently, my heart hammering against my ribs. "He is the executioner and he killed our pack.”
"You're late, Miss Thomas," Gabriel said without looking up from the holographic tablet on his desk. His voice sent an electric shock straight down my spine.
"By twelve seconds, Mr. Lysander. My apologies," I replied, keeping my voice pitched slightly higher, timid and trembling. "The express elevator was held on the fortieth floor."
Gabriel lifted his head. His dark eyes locked onto mine, narrowing into razor-sharp slits. The air pressure in the room plummeted.
"I don't pay you seventy thousand a year to offer excuses, Miss Thomas. I pay you to manage my schedule and handle my correspondence without irritating me." He extended a hand, his long, scarred fingers gesturing forward. "The quarterly cartel ledgers for the shipping district. Tell me you brought the decrypted copies."
"Right here, sir."
I walked forward, keeping my gaze respectfully lowered to the Persian rug beneath my sensible orthopedic flats. With every step toward his desk, the suppressant pills inside my stomach churned, fighting the overwhelming gravitational pull of his presence.
Three years ago, on a chaotic night under a blood moon, I had worn a porcelain mask at the Solstice Masquerade. We had crossed paths in the dark, colliding in a storm of primal instinct. I had fled before the sun rose, stealing his signet ring to unlock my family's hidden armory.
He didn't know the woman who stole his heart and his ring was standing two feet away from him, holding a plastic pen.
I set the folder on his desk. As I pulled my hand back, Gabriel’s fingers shot out like lightning, wrapping around my wrist.
His grip was steel and the heat radiating from his skin seared through my shirt sleeve like a branding iron.
My breath caught in my throat so I froze, forcing my eyes wide with manufactured human terror while every instinct in my body screamed to break his thumb and drive a pen through his jugular.
"M-Mr. Lysander?" I squeaked, trembling realistically.
Gabriel didn't look at the papers. He was staring at my collarbone, his nostrils flaring slightly and his dark pupils dilated, the black irises bleeding into a molten, predatory gold.
"What is that?" he muttered, his voice dropping an octave, raspy and dangerous.
"Sir?"
"Your scent," he growled, leaning forward over the obsidian desk. His thumb pressed directly over my racing pulse point. "Or rather... the lack of it. Humans smell of soap, sweat, and fear. You smell like nothing at all. More like a ghost."
"I... I use hypoallergenic wash, sir. I have sensitive skin," I stammered, my heart racing at a dangerous speed. The proximity was doing something catastrophic to my blood chemistry. The synthetic blockers were beginning to break down.
Gabriel rose from his chair, towering at six-foot-four. He pulled me slightly closer, his chest inches from mine. He tilted his head, inhaling deeply right where my pulse hammered against my neck.
"You're lying to me, Miss Thomas," Gabriel whispered against my ear, the rumble of his voice vibrating straight into my bones. "And I despise liars."
Gabriel
Something was wrong with the new girl and I could feel it in my gut.
For three years, my beast had been slowly rotting from the inside out. Ever since that night at the Solstice Masquerade—ever since the silver-masked woman with grey eyes vanished from my bed, my wolf had been tearing at the walls of my mind. Without my true mate, my sanity was on a strict timer. Six months, the pack elders said, before the feral madness took me completely and they were forced to put a silver bullet in my skull.
I had torn this entire continent apart looking for her scent. Mint and crushed pine needles. Winter frost and wild storms.
Nothing. Not even a trace.
And now, Lysander’s Global was surrounded by vipers and my illegitimate half-brother Julian was making backroom deals with the High Council, rival packs were probing our borders, and someone was leaking our private logistical routes.
I needed absolute control. Instead, HR had sent me Clara Thomas.
She was an eyesore. Frightened, plain, buried beneath layers of ill-fitting wool and thick glasses that hid half her face. She jumped at loud noises and couldn't look me in the eye. A fragile, boring human.
Except right now, with my hand wrapped around her delicate wrist, my wolf wasn't ignoring her.
He was growling. Straining against his chains and begging to tear that ridiculous suit off her skin and sink his teeth into the soft hollow of her throat.
"I... I would never lie to you, Mr. Lysander," she whispered, her voice shaking like a leaf.
I leaned down, closing the distance between us. I wanted to terrify her. I wanted to see if she was a spy sent by the Council, or just another useless mortal who would quit before lunch.
I inhaled sharply against the pale column of her neck but there was nothing. Just empty, chemical-sterilized air.
I opened my mouth to dismiss her, to throw her out of my office and have security escort her from the premises—
And then it happened. Her pulse spiked under my thumb, hard and erratic. For a fraction of a microsecond, the sterile chemical smell cracked.
A ghost of a scent leaked through the air.
Pine needles. Crushed mint. A brewing winter storm.
My beast roared so loudly inside my skull that my vision went completely black for a second. The desk lamp next to us shattered from the accidental release of my Alpha aura.
I slammed her back against the mahogany edge of the bookshelf, pinning both her wrists above her head with one hand.
Clara let out a sharp gasp, her tortoiseshell glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose. Behind the glass, storm-grey eyes flashed with a split second of cold, lethal calculation—before morphing instantly back into wide, tearful human panic.
My wolf took over. I leaned in until my lips brushed the sensitive skin beneath her ear, my fangs extending past my gums.
"Who the hell are you?" I snarled, my voice laced with the full weight of an Alpha King's command. "And why do you carry the scent of the dead?"
