Chapter 3 Chapter 3

He came back three days later.

I was leaving work, taking the night shift shortcut through the parking garage, when I saw him leaning against my beat-up Honda Civic like he owned it. Like he had every right to be there in the dark, waiting for me.

"You," I said, stopping a safe distance away. Even though deep down, there was no safe distance from someone like him. I could feel it.

"Me," he agreed. He was dressed the same as before—expensive clothes, cold expression, that dangerous grace. "Mia Nathan. Nurse at County Hospital. Apartment 4B, building two-eleven. You order Thai food every Thursday. You spend Sunday mornings reading at the coffee shop on Fifth Street. You have one friend, named Elena, who works at Jimmy's Bar. No family. No boyfriend. No connections."

Each detail was a violation, a reminder that my new life, my safe life, had never been as safe as I thought.

"How do you know all that?" But I already knew the answer. Someone like him didn't follow women without resources.

"I have people." He tilted his head. "The question is why I'm bothering. You're not important. You're nobody. But three days ago, you moved like something that isn't nobody. You moved like something trained."

"I'm not trained. I was just—"

"Protecting a stranger." He stepped away from my car. "That makes you interesting,is Nathan, if that's even your real name."

My heart rate spiked. Did he know? Could he smell it on me? Werewolves could always smell each other, smell the wolf underneath the skin. But I wasn't a full werewolf. I was something else. Something broken.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"That's the interesting question." He moved closer, and I had to fight the instinct to run or to fight. "I want to know what you are. I want to know why you smell like a wolf but you don't smell like the pack. I want to know why you move like a predator and live like a ghost."

There it was. He knew something was wrong with me.

"I'm nothing," I said. "I'm nobody. Leave me alone."

He laughed, and it was cold like a winter wind. "You keep saying that. You keep playing human. But we both know the truth. You're not human, Mia Nathan. The question is whether you're going to run again, or whether you're going to talk to me."

"I'll run," I said.

"I'm faster."

"Then I'll fight you."

"Interesting." He smiled, and it made him look predatory instead of handsome. "But I'm not here to fight you. I'm here to protect you."

"From what?"

"From people who know what you are. From people who want what you are. From pack hunters who've been tracking the ghost of a girl who murdered her parents at sixteen."

The world went white.

He knew. Somehow, he knew everything.

"It was an accident," I whispered.

"I don't care if it was an accident or murder or self-defense," he said coldly. "What I care about is that you're valuable, and dangerous things are coming to collect you. My name is Alex Bush. I own most of the illegal operations in this city. I have soldiers. I have money. I have power. And for reasons I don't fully understand, I'm willing to use all of it to keep you alive."

"Why?" I was shaking now. "Why would you do that?"

"Because," he said, and for just a moment, something human flickered in those dark eyes. "I know what it's like to be the thing nobody wanted. And I know what it takes to survive when the world is hunting you."

He held out his hand.

"Come with me. Let me protect you. Or stay here and hope the hunters don't find you before next week."

I stared at his hand like it was a snake.

Then I took it.

The mansion was obscene.

That was my first thought when Alex drove through the iron gates and I saw the house sprawling across the hilltop. Five stories of stone and glass and old money, lit up against the night sky like something from a magazine I could never afford.

"This is where you live?" I asked.

"Where we live," he corrected. "Now."

The car pulled around back, where an underground garage opened like a mouth and swallowed us whole. When the door closed, it cut off the outside world completely.

I had officially crossed a line I could never uncross.

"You'll have the east wing," he said, getting out of the car. "The security system is biometric. Nobody can get in without my authorization. The kitchen is stocked. There's a gym, a library, whatever you need."

"What about what I want?" I asked.

"Right now? You want safety. I'm offering it." He gestured for me to follow. "After we establish safety, we can discuss wants."

The inside of the house was as impressive as the outside, all marble and high ceilings and the kind of furniture that required permission to sit on. His security team didn't look surprised to see him with a strange woman, which told me he'd done this before. Brought people here. Brought... what? Prisoners? Lovers?

The east wing was smaller but still enormous. A bedroom the size of an apartment, a marble bathroom, a sitting area with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the city lights.

"There are clothes in the closet. Phone if you need anything." He turned to leave, then stopped. "Don't try to leave. Not because I'll stop you physically, but because out there, they're hunting. In here, they can't get to you."

"And what do you want? Want you in return?" I asked. There was always a price. There was always a cost.

He turned back, and in the soft light of my new prison, I could see the scar on his face more clearly. A thin line from his left eye to his jaw, the kind of scar that came from violence.

"I want you to help me understand what you are. And I want you to help me with something that requires someone with your... abilities."

"You want me to kill someone."

"Not kill. Infiltrate. There's a man running an operation that I need to bring down. He's protected, paranoid, and careful. But he has a weakness for nurses. For pretty, vulnerable women he can control." His dark eyes held mine. "You'll go undercover. Get close to him. And when the time is right, you'll help me destroy him."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then the hunter pack that's been tracking you will find your apartment tomorrow. And they'll do things to you that make murder look like mercy."

I believed him.

"Okay," I whispered.

"Okay?"

"I'll do it. Whatever you want."

Something flickered across his face. Satisfaction, but also something that looked almost like... regret?

He left me alone in that room, in that mansion that smelled like money and danger and something else I couldn't identify.

Something that might have been care.

The east wing of Alex’s mansion became my gilded cage.

I'd been here for three days, and in that time, I'd learned that comfort and captivity weren't mutually exclusive things.