Chapter 1 - Quinn
The cursor blinks at me like it’s judging me. Mocking me, even. I glare at the screen, then at the half-eaten chocolate cake beside my laptop like it’s responsible for this mess. It isn’t, but I still stab my fork into it with the sort of aggression normally reserved for personal enemies or tax season.
The cake doesn’t fight back. It never does. That’s why I love it. Cake is dependable. Cake never sends threatening emails with subject lines like “72 HOURS TO DELIVER OR WE TALK ENDINGS.” My editor does, though.
I lean back in my chair, groaning as I run both hands through my hair, wine glass balanced on the edge of a stack of sticky notes and old plot outlines. The wine is warm now, but I drink it anyway. It’s either that or throw my laptop out the window, and I promised myself I’d stop doing that after the third one.
“Okay, Quinn,” I mutter to myself, twisting in my seat, staring at the ceiling like the answer might be hiding in the water stains. “You’ve got a deadline, a villain who’s overstayed his welcome, and a brutal Alpha who still hasn’t committed a single redeemable act since chapter seven. You are so close to killing this asshole off, just push through.”
I tap the keys half-heartedly, watching the sentence unfold like a slow-motion car crash.
[The room stank of blood, betrayal, and the kind of cold silence that always came before something broke.]
God, he’s the worst.
Damien Voss, the so-called “right hand” to Kieran Volkov, is a sadistic, smug little snake who talks like he was born in a leather trench coat and quotes Nietzsche for foreplay. I created him as a plot device. He wasn’t supposed to be this important. He was just there to nudge Kieran toward his villain arc, to help show the rot festering under the pack’s empire.
But then, like a cockroach wearing a three-piece suit, he lingered. Smirking in the background, poisoning scenes with oily charm and thinly veiled threats.
And the worst part? Readers love him. There’s a thread on BookTok titled “Daddy Voss Could Ruin My Life And I’d Say Thanks.” I watched the video. I threw my phone.
“You’re not real,” I hiss at the screen, squinting at Damien’s dialogue as if I can glare him out of existence. “You’re not sexy. You’re not smart. You’re a parasite with good cheekbones and an unhealthy obsession with knives.”
The screen does not reply. Which is probably for the best because I’m two glasses of red into this spiral and fully prepared to fight a fictional character with my bare hands.
I shove another forkful of cake into my mouth and scroll back through the last few paragraphs. Kieran is off-screen for now, busy mauling someone in the woods. I’ve written him cold, brutal, feral from the first chapter. No humanity. No softness. No weakness.
He’s not the kind of Alpha you fall for, he’s the one you survive. I never gave him a mate. Never gave him love. Not even a hint. He doesn’t get a redemption arc, just blood and fire and an ending sharp enough to bleed on.
And yet…
Sometimes, when I’m writing late at night, and it’s just me and the sound of my fingers tapping at the keys, I catch myself wondering what would happen if I let him have something. Someone. A flicker of light in all that darkness. I never do, of course. I built him to break.
But God, he’d be terrifying if he ever wanted something.
I shake the thought away and take another sip of wine. The screen’s starting to blur a little, my vision going soft around the edges in that nice floaty way that makes writing easier and thinking harder. I need to hit 2,000 words before I pass out. That’s the rule.
I slam out another line.
[Damien smiled, the kind of expression that made people wonder if they’d live long enough to regret speaking.]
Disgusting. I love it. I hate him.
“Die already,” I mutter, stabbing the enter key like it owes me money. “Just let Kieran rip your throat out and be done with it.”
I’m in the zone now, fingers moving faster, sentences pouring out like venom. I know this scene. This is the betrayal. The moment where Kieran realizes his most trusted advisor has been orchestrating a quiet coup behind his back, funneling money to rival packs, manipulating the bond laws, targeting Omegas for leverage. Kieran’s going to lose it. Blood will spill. The courtroom will burn. It’s going to be the start of the end.
It feels good to finally take back control of a plot that’s been eating me alive for six months.
“Let’s go, you overhyped plot device,” I mutter, typing faster now, the keys clicking like gunfire. “Time for your villain monologue and a very permanent nap.”
I’m halfway through Damien’s smug speech when the screen flickers. I blink, frown, rub my eyes and chalk it up to wine and fatigue.
Keep going.
The screen flickers again. A longer pause this time, like someone breathing right into the back of my neck.
I freeze. Turn slowly, heart thudding in a way I don’t appreciate. My apartment is silent except for the hum of the fridge and the buzz of the heater kicking on. Everything looks normal. Messy and chaotic, but mine.
I face the screen again and that’s when the text starts to change. Not just a typo or autocorrect mishap. The scene changes. The words I just typed rearrange themselves on the page, one letter at a time, like someone’s backspacing my brain.
[Quinn Blake smells like fate.]
[She shouldn’t be here.]
[But now that she is—]
[She’s mine.]
The wine glass falls. Shatters.
My heart goes cold. Not racing or thudding. Just cold, like the blood in my body has paused to ask, “Hey, is this a stroke or a haunting?”
I don’t touch the keyboard or move a muscle. I just stare at those words. My name. In the manuscript. Not as the author. As a character.
[She’s mine.]
“Nope,” I whisper, slowly rising from my chair like I’m about to defuse a bomb. “Nope, nope, no—”
The light explodes. The screen goes white-hot. I feel it in my teeth, in my bones, in the roots of my hair. There’s a sound, not loud exactly, but deep, like something splitting open under my feet.
I open my mouth to scream… and the world goes black.