Danae’s POV
Drusilla came for my throat.
I stumbled backward.
A side table toppled as I struck it, and my heart slammed so hard against my ribs that there seemed to be no room left to breathe.
Her claws were almost on me when something moved between us, too fast for my eyes to follow.
“Enough.”
Galen had her wrist in his hand.
He stood squarely in her path.
“Get control of yourself.
Now.”
Rage twisted her half-changed face.
“She hit me.
A human struck a wolf.
The law—”
“She’s my mate.” His voice dropped, quiet enough to sound more dangerous.
“Change back.
Immediately.”
For a stretched, airless moment, I thought she might turn on him too.
Then her features began to soften.
It cost her effort; I could see that much.
Fangs receded, the distorted shape of her jaw eased, and the beautiful woman I knew emerged again.
Her eyes still held something savage.
“We aren’t finished,” she hissed at me.
Galen’s warning followed.
Rejecting a mate bond had consequences.
The Pack wouldn’t accept it.
I didn’t understand what I was doing.
At last, the words reached a part of me that wasn’t trembling.
“I don’t care about your rules.
You lied.
You cheated.
You used me while telling me how special I was.”
A strange calm spread beneath the shaking in my limbs.
I backed toward the door until my hand found the knob behind me.
“You both disgust me.”
His face darkened.
“Walk out, and you’ve rejected our bond.
You can’t take that back.”
“Good.”
I pulled the door open.
“Then you’ve been rejected.”
He was still shouting when I left, filling the space behind me with threats about what happened to women who refused a mate bond.
Pain went with me.
Fear, too.
I had no idea what waited beyond that apartment.
But under both was relief so fierce it almost hurt.
I ran without choosing a direction.
By the time I stopped, my high heels had rubbed the skin raw, and Galen’s expensive residential neighborhood was far behind me.
Downtown noise pressed in from all sides: late-night crowds, busy restaurants, bars still spilling life onto the street.
I stood on a corner with nowhere to go and anger still burning through me.
The place I stumbled into was called Moonlight Lounge.
It was expensive-looking, polished, nothing like the mess inside my head.
I climbed onto a barstool and ordered a double vodka tonic.
“Don’t let this one be the last,” I told the bartender.
The first warmth of alcohol loosened memories I didn’t want.
A coffee shop, five years earlier.
Galen’s amber eyes meeting mine across the room.
I’d called that moment destiny.
Later, he’d told me he was a werewolf and explained what it meant to find his mate.
“We get one true mate in a lifetime.
You’re mine.”
And Drusilla, so friendly when we met.
So generous with her advice.
“I’m Galen’s friend.
I’ll help you understand what being a wolf’s mate means.”
Another swallow.
The truth went down with it, bitter and heavy.
No fiancé.
No home.
No job—I’d left teaching because Galen wanted me to.
Almost no money.
I was in a city largely controlled by the pack whose future Delta I had just rejected, and somewhere beyond this disastrous night were my father’s medical bills.
How was I supposed to help him now?
The vodka softened the sharpest edges without taking the hurt away.
It left me suspended in an unpleasant middle place: warm enough to feel briefly less broken, clear enough to remember why I was drinking.
Well after midnight, the room changed.
Conversation thinned.
Bodies shifted aside.
A tall man crossed toward the VIP section through a path that seemed to open of its own accord, and the bartender began preparing a neat whiskey before anyone asked for it.
I watched him.
High cheekbones, a straight nose, a firm mouth and square jaw.
Deep brown hair fell in loose waves.
When his attention passed my way, I caught a blue so dark it reminded me of ocean water after the light had gone—depths that kept their secrets.
Then I saw the black onyx ring on his right little finger.
The Jorah family.
Caspian Jorah.
Jorah Enterprises’ CEO.
The future Alpha of the Ashmoon Pack.
In person, he made the titles seem entirely believable.
Something about him held the eye and refused to let it go.
Unexpected warmth climbed into my skin, startling after everything that had happened.
I checked my phone.
Past midnight.
Too much alcohol, almost nothing in my bank account, no way figured out to get back to Eirwen’s.
I’d left my wallet and charger there because I was only supposed to be fetching a necklace.
A quick errand.
That was all this night should have been.
Now even the ring meant nothing.
I covered the drinks with my nearly exhausted credit card and left what little tip I could.
When I stood, the room shifted around me.
The vodka had reached further into my balance than I’d realized.
I turned to leave—and walked straight into someone.
A solid chest stopped me.
Before I could make sense of the collision, I breathed in musk and cologne, with something beneath them I couldn’t name.
Something that caught low in my body and sent my pulse stumbling.
I looked up.
Those dark-blue eyes were on me.
Gold flared briefly at their edges.
Every place we touched seemed suddenly distinct: the closeness of his body, the warmth between us, the hand that settled instinctively at my waist to steady me.
His fingers pressed against my dress, and awareness spread outward from that small contact until it seemed to occupy all of me.
“I’m sorry,” I managed.
I couldn’t look away.
His gaze moved over my face with startling intensity.
Something passed through his expression—surprise, recognition, something I had no name for.
His pupils widened.
His breath caught visibly.
An answering pull opened inside me.
It was absurd.
We’d never met.
I knew we’d never met, and still some dormant part of me seemed to reach for him as though it had been waiting.
Alcohol.
It had to be the alcohol.
My body refused to find that explanation useful.
I steadied myself beneath the searching blue of his eyes.
His hand remained at my waist, warm through the fabric, while another thought began to take shape beneath the strange attraction.
Galen feared this man.
Of all the people in the city, Caspian Jorah was the one he’d warned me to stay away from.
The one whose path I must never cross.
Perfect.
What would Galen do if I spent tonight with the man who frightened him most?
“Are you all right?”
Caspian’s voice was deep, carrying the easy authority I’d already seen the room obey.
At this distance, it felt almost private.
A shiver worked down my spine as the people nearest us instinctively gave us more space.
I straightened and held his gaze.
“What makes you think I’m not, Mr.
Jorah?”
My fingers brushed the onyx ring on his right hand.
Deliberately.
I let them linger against his skin a little longer than I needed to.
His eyes narrowed.
His nostrils flared, as though he had caught something in the air.
“You know who I am.”
I smiled.
Heartbreak and vodka made a reckless combination.
“Who hasn’t heard of Jorah Group’s future CEO?”
Leaning nearer, I lowered my voice until my breath reached his neck.
“Or the heir to the Ashmoon Pack?”
His body tightened.
He glanced around us, suddenly watchful, and the movement made me more aware of the strength beneath his clothes.
“That’s a lot for a human girl to know.
Who sent you?”
“No one.”
I moved closer.
His cologne filled my senses, and the heat gathering low inside me made the room seem further away.
“For once, I’m doing something just for myself.”
My lips came near his ear as I softened my voice again.
“I’d like to get out of here.
With someone, preferably.
Would you, Mr.
Jorah?”
He didn’t immediately answer.
Caution remained in his face, but beneath it I saw curiosity and hunger—and, strangely, something almost reverent.
His breathing deepened.
A pulse beat fast at his throat.
At last, his hand moved to the small of my back.
“Come.”
His fingers spread there with a possessiveness I felt through my dress, and he guided me forward.