From the shadowed interior of the VIP lounge, Dorian watched the underground doors of Iridian swing open.
A girl stepped through. She didn’t just look out of place, she looked like an invitation to a slaughter house.
Her dress was cheap and faded, her small shoes worn at the edges, her skin entirely too pale for a place that thrived on pleasure and pain.
She was a lamb walking straight into a den of wolves.
But as she tilted her head, looking up at the flashing neon lights, her hair caught his attention.
Long and lustrous, as dark as midnight. But the tips were dyed the bright color of fresh blood.
Dorian’s golden-brown eyes narrowed as a low, involuntary rumble vibrated deep in his chest.
"Alpha Dorian," Jake called, stepping up beside the booth. "I just got word from the manager. Sasha isn’t available tonight."
Dorian didn’t look at his beta. His gaze remained locked on the girl as she pushed her way through the crowd of sweaty bodies toward the bar.
"Why?" he snapped finally, voice sharp with irritation.
"She, uh... she got picked up by a high-ranking rogue earlier," Jake muttered, shifting uncomfortably.
Dorian exhaled a harsh breath, his jaw tightening. The entire reason he had driven out to this lawless, underground hellhole was to escape the suffocating walls of his own pack.
The court council were breathing down his neck to secure an heir, and his fiancée spent every waking hour whining about her position as future Luna.
He had wanted a distraction. A nameless face, a paid whore and a single night where he wasn’t an Alpha.
Down at the bar, the girl with the blood-tipped hair slapped a handful of crumpled cash onto the sticky counter.
She didn’t order a cocktail. She pointed directly at a bottle of raw vodka.
"Should I find someone else for you, Alpha?" Jake prodded.
Dorian watched her throw back the first shot. Then the second. She didn’t even flinch at the burn. She was drinking like a person trying to commit suicide by alcohol.
"No," he murmured finally, his chin tilting slightly toward the bar. "Find out who she is."
Jake followed his gaze, his brows drawing together. "Her? Alpha, I don’t think she’s your type."
Dorian turned his head slowly, letting the full, oppressive weight of his Alpha aura flare. The air in the booth instantly grew thick with tension.
Jake’s breath hitched, and he immediately dropped his eyes, taking a panicked step back.
"I’ll get her name," he whispered quickly, bowing his head before scrambling out of the lounge.
Left alone, Dorian leaned back into the shadows, his eyes locked on the girl.
There was an intoxicating allure to her, a strange mix of pure, fragile innocence and a dark, reckless despair that called directly to the predator inside him.
...
Alyssa’s head was spinning from the shots.
The bass from the speakers didn’t just vibrate in the room, it thudded against her ribs, matching the erratic rhythm of her heart.
The air tasted like cheap gin, sweat, and heavy, oppressive male scent, but the alcohol was finally doing its job.
The agonizing image of Fabian and Melinda was fading, melting into a dull, distant ache.
She slammed down her fourth shot, the liquid fire tearing down her throat. As she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, a sudden chill raced down her spine.
Someone was watching her.
It wasn’t the casual, predatory leering she’d been ignoring from the men at the bar. This felt different. Dangerous.
Slowly, her blurred vision tracked upward, past the dancing crowd, landing on the glass-covered VIP lounge at the other end.
Inside the shadows sat a man. She couldn’t see his features, but through the darkness, two glowing, golden orbs locked onto her.
She froze. The room seemed to go entirely silent, the music dropping into a distant hum.
Those golden eyes held her captive, stripping away her defenses, burning right through her skin.
She didn’t look away. Driven by a sudden, drunken bravado and the taste for danger, she stared right back into the eyes of the beast.
Then, he stood up. He turned, his massive, broad-shouldered frame blocking out the light, and vanished through a side door.
The alcohol in Alyssa’s veins screamed at her to follow. Why not? she thought, a bitter, reckless laugh bubbling in her throat. It was a reckless night after all.
She slid off the high stool, her knees buckling slightly, and pushed her way through the side door into a narrow corridor.
The hallway was dimly lit. She saw his dark silhouette a few paces ahead, moving with a slow, lethal grace.
She hurried her steps, her worn shoes scraping against the floor. But as she rounded a sharp corner, the hallway was empty.
She stopped, blinking through her hazy vision, reaching out to touch the wall. "Where did..."
A massive, calloused hand suddenly clamped over her mouth from behind, cutting off her breath and her words.
Before she could even gasp, she was yanked backward into a pitch-black janitor’s closet. The door clicked shut, and she was slammed hard against the wall.
A split second later, a solid, towering wall of muscle pressed flush against her body, trapping her entirely.
The scent of rain and pure, dominant power flooded her senses.
"Who the hell are you?" a deep voice growled into her ear. "And why are you stalking me?"
The hand slowly slid off her mouth, leaving her skin tingling.
Instead of screaming, she let out a drunk, breathless laugh, her head tilting back against the concrete.
"I wasn’t stalking. You were staring at me, and I got curious."
Dorian clicked a small switch on the wall. A faint, amber light flickered to life, illuminating them.
He looked down at the girl pinned beneath him. Up close, her eyes were a fierce, fractured blue, heavy with intoxication and an underlying misery that awakened something primal within him.
"You’re drunk," he muttered, his eyes sweeping over her cheap dress and the faint, angry red scars peeking out from her sleeves. "And you’re entirely too innocent to be in a place like this. Where is your mate?"
At the word mate, something in Alyssa’s face shattered. The drunken mask slipped, revealing a raw, bleeding void of agony.
"I don’t have a mate," she whispered, her fingers suddenly reaching up to grip the expensive fabric of his shirt.
She pulled him closer, desperate for the heat of another body to drown out the coldness in her chest.
"I’m just a wolfless, little nobody trying to escape reality for one night. So don’t lecture me about where I belong."
Dorian’s breath caught. The raw pain radiating off her was intoxicating, but it was her defiance, the way she looked at him like she wanted to burn the world down, that snapped something inside his control.
His grip tightened around her waist, his thumbs digging into her skin.
"You don’t know what kind of men frequent this place, little lamb. If I were anyone else, you wouldn’t walk out of this room."
"But you are not," she breathed, her blue eyes locked onto his lips. "I saw how you looked at me. You want to take me. So do it. Make me forget who I am for just one night. Tomorrow, I’ll be a stranger to you."
Dorian’s jaw clenched, his golden eyes flashing dangerously. "You don’t know what you’re asking for."
"Trust me. I do."
In one swift move, she reached behind her back and unzipped her dress.
It pooled at her ankles, leaving her standing before him in nothing but her pale skin and the luscious curves of her body.
Dorian sucked in a sharp, ragged breath. The last thread of his Alpha restraint snapped.
He closed the distance, his mouth slamming onto hers with a feral, bruising intensity. It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was a claim.
Alyssa gasped into his mouth, tasting the dark liquor on his tongue as his large hands gripped her thighs, lifting her effortlessly.
He threw her back onto the small table in the corner of the closet, crowding over her before she could even catch her breath.
He stripped his trousers off, his body towering over her like a god of absolute ruin.
When he parted her legs and drove deep inside her, a sharp, ragged cry tore from her throat.
The pain of her broken heart was instantly swallowed by a wave of raw, erotic sensation. He moved with a wild, untamed force, his hips grinding into hers, setting her entire nervous system on fire.
She arched into him, her nails digging deep into the muscles of his back. She locked her ankles around his waist, begging for more of the friction, more of the heat, more of anything that wasn’t her real life.
When the climax hit her, it felt like an explosion behind her eyes. She screamed into the dark room, her body trembling, completely shattered and remade in the dark.
...
The next morning, the first thing she felt was a head-splitting migraine pulsing behind her eyes.
She groaned, her throat dry as sand, and tried to roll over, but a heavy, warm weight was pinned across her waist.
Blinking against the dim morning light filtering through a high vent, she sat up. The events of the previous night rushed back into her mind with the force of a tidal wave.
The alcohol, the golden eyed stranger, and the sex.
Slowly, her gaze drifted to the other side of the bed. Sleeping soundly beside her, his face relaxed but still radiating a terrifying, lethal beauty, was the stranger from the club.
Looking at the sheer size of him, and the expensive signet ring in his middle finger, she realized she had no idea what kind of nightmare she had just walked into.