Derion sat motionless, his head thrown back against the plush velvet of the sofa, a fat, unlit cigar clamped between his teeth.

Two beautiful, half-dressed women flanked him, their fingers tracing seductive lines across the sturdy contours of his chest beneath his white shirt.

On his right sat Ross, his best friend, right-hand man, and Beta. Ross held a lit cigar in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, a superficial smile plastered on his face as his sharp eyes swept the crowded club.

This was supposed to be a final reprieve. A few hours of mindless indulgence before they embarked on a journey they both loathed, but had no choice but to endure.

Derion let the thumping bass of the music wash over him, drowning out his resentment. If there were any way to skip the upcoming ceremony, he would have taken it. But attendance was compulsory.

He took a slow, deep breath, pulling the unlit flavor of tobacco into his mouth before releasing it. But the very next breath froze in his lungs. His brows furrowed and his eyes snapped open.

"What is she doing here?"

The voice echoed in his mind. It was Griffin, his wolf, sounding just as shocked as he was.

Derion didn't answer. He surged upright, his sudden movement jolting Ross and scattering the two women. Ignoring the confusion around him, his gaze turned predatory, scanning the hazy atmosphere of the club, demanding the exact same answer Griffin sought.

Her scent was unmistakable. Amidst the suffocating cocktail of cheap perfume, sweat, and alcohol, that single, distinct scent pierced through the noise. Just a whiff of it sent a jolt of pure adrenaline straight to his heart, making it an agonizing struggle to sit still.

"Is something wrong?" Ross narrowed his eyes instantly.

Derion didn't hear him. His eyes locked onto her figure standing by the entrance doors, and his jaw went slack.

He closed his eyes, counting to three, believing it was his imagination. When he opened them again, everything remained the same, sending a dark scowl across his face instead. Why was she dressed like that? Since when did she wear clothes that hugged her body like a second skin? What business did a girl like her have in a place like this?

"She is beautiful. Ahh-woooo..." Griffin howled in his head, recovering from the initial shock with a wave of pure, unadulterated excitement. "More beautiful than these cheap distractions you surround yourself with."

"You call them cheap, yet you never complained all the years we patronized them," Derion snapped back, keeping his eyes glued to the woman who always managed to completely disorganize his mind by her mere presence.

"Not until I met our mate. Why complain when the service was good? I just don't want them anymore. I only want her." Griffin growled defensively, voicing his desire.

"Dream on," Derion muttered mentally, his lashes fluttering against the intensity of his vision.

"Tsk... You are a stubborn, foolish thing." Griffin sulked, retreating into the shadows of their shared consciousness.

Realizing he was being ignored, Ross followed the direction of Derion's transfixed stare. His breath hitched when he saw Vanika standing by the door.

But it wasn't just her presence that shocked him, it was the way she looked. She was dolled up, radiant, and wearing a dress that defied everything Ross knew about her. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would have called anyone else a liar.

Derion couldn't look away. Vanika stood like a lost lamb in a den of wolves. He knew she was a regular nowhere near this side of town, and her rigid body language screamed that this was her first time stepping foot in a club. Otherwise, he'd have to believe she lived a double life-a saint by day, a sinner by night. But his instincts told him a totally different thing was afoot.

Suddenly, his eyes narrowed into lethal slits.

A man approached her, and she started conversing with the bastard. Derion's blood began to boil. Why was she talking to him? Did he bring her here? For what? A barrage of furious questions slammed into his mind, stoking a dangerous fire in his chest.

He hated himself for it. He shouldn't care. It shouldn't matter who she smiled at or whose company she kept, especially since he wanted nothing to do with her. Yet, he couldn't tear his eyes away.

The moment the man offered his hand and Vanika reached out to take it, Derion's alpha aura erupted. A wave of oppressive, suffocating killing intent rolled off him, causing the women beside him to pull away slightly.

Recognizing the signs of an impending bloodbath, Ross slammed his wine glass onto the table and leaped to his feet.

"I'll handle it." Ross's voice telepathed into Derion's mind as he walked away without waiting for a reply. He knew Derion claimed to not want his mate, but the blinding, possessive jealousy radiating off the Alpha proved otherwise. If someone didn't intervene and deactivate the raging beast right now, heads were literally going to roll across the club floor.

The two women watched Derion cautiously, trembling under the residual pressure of his anger, trying to see what had triggered him. But the crowd was too dense so the source of his fury was lost to them.

By the time they looked back, Derion had forcibly suppressed his aura, his face a mask of cold indifference. He picked up a lighter from the table, brought the flame to his cigar, and took a long, deep drag.

Dropping the lighter, he let the thick gray smoke billow slowly from his lips. He leaned back into the sofa, threw his head back, and closed his eyes once more, pretending the world outside didn't exist.

"Hypocrite. I thought you said you didn't want her. Why fume like a rabid dog the moment another man touches her?" Griffin mocked from the dark.

"Shut up."

Griffin let out a sharp, mental scoff. "Stubborn housefly."

***

Vanika stood frozen at the entrance of the club, her heart hammering against her ribs as her mind struggled to process the sight before her. Women moved through the neon shadows half-naked, some dancing with an uninhibited seductiveness that made her cheeks burn.

She had never witnessed anything like this. Compared to the sea of exposed skin, she felt overdressed, yet a deep, suffocating wave of second-hand embarrassment washed over her.

The music was a deafening, physical force that rattled her teeth. The man who had ushered her through the front doors had already vanished into the crowd, leaving her entirely isolated.

'What on earth was Janet looking for in a place like this?' she panicked silently, pressing her spine hard against the brick wall as if wishing she could blend into the masonry. The entire venue felt like a trap. All she wanted was for Janet to appear so they could run back to safety.

Minutes ticked away like hours. With no sign of Janet, Vanika's anxiety spiked. The unaccustomed heels she wore were already punishing her feet, forcing her to shift her weight uncomfortably from side to side. Her eyes raked the massive, pulsing hall again. Nothing.

For the first time in her life, she acutely felt the agony of not owning a phone. She had never needed one before, but right now, the lack of communication felt like a death sentence.

Maya was likely already waiting for them at the party venue, entirely unaware that Vanika was stranded in the corner of a dimly lit, dangerous club. The pungent stench of spilled liquor and heavy, narcotics-laced smoke burned her throat, making her head spin with sudden nausea.

"Hi there."

A voice sliced through the thumping bass right beside her ear. Vanika flinched, her head snapping around.

"Hi." She answered in a small, trembling voice, noticing it was the man from earlier. The easy smile he had worn before was entirely gone, replaced by a grim, severe expression that made her swallow hard.

"Want something to drink? It's just plain juice." He offered, thrusting a condensation-slick glass toward her, sensing the immediate hesitation in her eyes.

She shook her head violently, her instincts screaming at her to refuse. "I'm fine. Thank you."

The man's expression darkened slightly as he withdrew the glass. "Your friend still isn't back?" When she shook her head again, a deep frown marred his features. "Maybe she's with the staff. There's an injured girl in the back."

"An injured girl?" Vanika stepped forward, her fear for herself momentarily eclipsed.

"Yeah... Word is she took a nasty spill down the back stairs and cracked her head open. Pretty sure her name is Janet."

The world seemed to tilt beneath Vanika's feet. Her heart rate violently spiked into her throat.

"Janet? Janet fell down the stairs and broke her head?" Her voice elevated, drawing a few sharp looks from nearby patrons.

"You know her?" The man acted surprised, his eyes widening.

"Yes! She's my friend! Please, where is she? Can you take me to her?" Vanika pleaded frantically. Every ounce of caution she had cultivated vanished, swallowed whole by panic.

"Sure. Grab my hand. It's a maze back there. It's easy to get lost." The man extended a palm toward her.

Without a second thought, Vanika placed her hand in his, allowing the stranger to pull her deep into the pulsing, predatory darkness of the building.

Vanika followed the stranger deeper into the bowels of the building like a lamb to the slaughter, her mind entirely blank to the warning bells screaming in her head.

Panic had completely paralyzed her reasoning. Why would Janet be so reckless? Where had she been rushing to? How deep was the gash on her head? Was she even conscious? The brutal questions kept hammering against the inside of her skull, pushing her into a blind frenzy.

She let out a ragged breath, forcing her legs to match the man's aggressive pace. The realization hit her that the party was officially ruined.

A sick wave of relief washed over her since she had never wanted to go in the first place, followed instantly by a crushing guilt that it took Janet breaking her skull to grant her escape.

The thumping bass of the club began to mutate into a distant, muffled heartbeat as they crossed into a desolate, quiet wing of the building. The corridor was not too narrow, a row of heavy doors lined the right wall, while the left was a slab of blind, seamless concrete.

The hallway was a dead end, terminating at a single, reinforced metal door. Vanika's brows knitted together, a cold drop of sweat rolling down her neck. She clearly remembered him saying the staff were treating Janet in the backyard.

Desperate for reassurance, she violently pushed her suspicions aside.

"Is that the door to the back?"

"Yes." The man's clipped, monosyllabic response triggered a sudden burst of adrenaline.

Overtaking him, Vanika practically sprinted the last few feet and threw the metal door open without a single thought.

She stepped inside, and the air vanished from her lungs. This wasn't the backyard. It was a concrete vault.

The horror of the room hit her all at once. Two men were violently tearing the clothes off a screaming young girl. Four more snapped their heads toward the door the second she breached the frame. And crammed into the far corner of the room were roughly eight other girls.

Their mouths were sealed shut with thick layers of duct tape, their wrists and ankles bound tight, forcing them into a humiliating posture on the floor. Tears cut tracks through the grime on their faces, their eyes wide with unspoken terror. More importantly, none of them was Janet.

Vanika took a frantic step backward, the crushing weight of her mistake hitting her like a physical blow. She turned on her heel to flee into the corridor before the trap snapped shut, but the universe was already moving too fast. The stranger slipped into the room behind her and slammed the heavy metal door, the latch clicking home with a definitive, horrifying finality.

"Welcome... to my world, my dear."

The man's voice had shed its easy warmth, warping into something deeply sinister. Vanika recoiled as he took a predatory step toward her, the friendly smile returning to his face like a grotesque mask. It sent a localized frost straight down her spine.

She kept retreating sideways until her shoulder blades collided with a wall. She froze. Before she could pivot away, the stranger lunged forward, his hands locking around her waist to yank her flush against his chest. A sharp, terrified gasp tore from her throat.

"Where do you think you are going? There's no escaping me, my dear."

"Where is my friend? You said she was injured! Where is she?" Vanika spat the words back, forcing a lethal glare through the sheer terror flooding her veins. Her heart vibrated violently against her ribs as she pushed against his chest, her fingers clawing at his grip in a useless display of resistance.

"Your friend?" He tilted his head, a sickening display of feigned ignorance bleeding into his expression. "I don't know what you are talking about."

Vanika flinched violently as he trailed the back of his knuckles down her cheek, a shudder of pure revulsion rocking her body as his fingers slid down to the sensitive skin of her throat.

"But what I do know is that you have some pricey goods here. Shall we take a look?"

Before she could say no, his hand hooked into the neckline of her dress and ripped it downward, tearing the fabric and exposing her bra covered boobs.

The world went white. Driven by pure survival instinct, Vanika drove her heel downward, driving the razor-sharp point of her stiletto directly into the bridge of his foot with every ounce of strength she possessed.

"Ahhh!" The man bellowed, a sharp hiss escaping his teeth as he instantly loosened his grip and stumbled backward.

He glared down at his ruined shoe, his face contorting as he measured the agony. When his eyes snapped back up to meet hers, they were bloodshot with pure, homicidal rage.

"You little bitch."

The words had barely left his mouth before his palm swung around in a blinding arc.

The slap was deafening. The impact numbed the entire side of Vanika's face, sending a flash of static across her vision that left her blind for three horrific seconds.

Her piercing, agonizing shriek shattered the silence of the room, echoing straight through the heavy door and vibrating down the empty hallway.

***

Meanwhile, Ross had been trailing the pair from a calculated distance, his brow furrowed into a deep, uneasy scowl as he watched Vanika willingly follow the man into the shadows.

The predator was no stranger to Ross. His name was Brad. Since this club was frequented by them, they knew every regular, every dealer, and every human who traded in its dark corners.

They had never had a reason to interfere with Brad's operations before, but they could tell the man dealt in shady business. They weren't naive to the darkness of the mortal underworld.

What stumped him entirely was why Vanika was following a creature like Brad with such eager urgency. Did they have a history? A mutual connection? Ross's initial instinct had been to call out her name, but a sudden, uncomfortable thought made him pause. What if she was here willingly? What if she was involved with him?

The theory felt utterly wrong the moment it crossed his mind. Everything about her suggested innocence, but the visual evidence unfolding before his eyes was forcing him to question his judgment.

When the duo turned the corner into the final dead-end hallway, Ross killed his engine, his feet coming to a silent halt. He leaned his shoulder against the peeling wallpaper of the corner, tracking their shadows as they neared the heavy metal door.

A quiet, frustrated sigh slipped through his lips. He had given Derion his word that he would handle it, but standing here in the dark, he didn't know what to do. If this was a consensual, secret affair, calling her out would only humiliate her.

It made more sense to turn back, lay out the facts for Derion, and let the Alpha deal with the reality of his choices. After all, Derion had explicitly refused to acknowledge their bond.

Reaching a decision, Ross turned on his heel, his shoes charting a course back toward the neon pulse of the main room. He had barely cleared six paces when a sound pierced the concrete walls.

It was a scream, a raw, terrified, scream that was undeniably Vanika's.

Ross froze instantly, his eyes dilating in the dark. He spun on his heel, his silent stance vanishing as he hurried back down the corridor toward the metal door.