DAMIEN

I could feel the handle pressed against my side, the cheap metal trembling slightly with every breath I dragged into my lungs, and beneath it, beneath the torn flesh and the blood soaking through my shirt, something inside my body was fighting a battle it had never once lost.

My healing had begun the moment the blade entered.

It had failed before the pain even reached its worst.

That was impossible.

I had been cut open in war, bitten by creatures that no longer existed, burned beneath silver fire, and left bleeding in places where ordinary men would have died before anyone found them. My body had always repaired itself. Sometimes slowly, sometimes painfully, but it had repaired itself.

Always.

Yet this wound remained open beneath my hand, pulsing with a vicious heat that spread through my ribs and into my chest.

Ava stood in front of me, staring at the blood.

She looked like she wanted to run.

Good. That was sensible. She should run. She should take her bag, find the nearest lift, leave the hotel, leave the city, and never come near me again.

The thought made my wolf bare its teeth.

I ignored it.

The wolf had been a nuisance since last night, a restless animal throwing itself against my control whenever Ava moved, breathed, touched me, or looked at me with those sharp, unimpressed eyes. I had blamed the sex. I had blamed the scent of her skin, the heat of her body, the fact that I had not wanted the night to end even after she had fallen asleep beside me.

I had blamed everything except the truth.

Now the truth stood in front of me with blood on her hand.

My mate.

No.

The word rose in my mind and I crushed it immediately.

No.

Ava Monroe was human.

I knew what humans were. Fragile bodies, short lives, soft throats, bones that broke too easily and hearts that stopped without warning. They were temporary things. They entered the world, made noise, desired foolishness, and disappeared before the people who loved them had finished mourning.

They were not mates.

Not mine.

Not after three hundred and forty-seven years of surviving every weakness the world had offered me.

My wolf slammed against my ribs.

Mine.

The wound tore wider.

A sharp breath escaped me before I could stop it.

Ava flinched.

“You're getting worse,” she said, and there was panic under the irritation she was trying to maintain. “You need to let me get someone in here before you bleed all over the damn floor.”

I looked at the knife.

Then at her.

“You did this.”

Her face tightened.

“I know I did, but I didn't expect you to start falling apart over a shallow stab wound.”

Shallow. The word lodged under my skin.

She had barely driven the blade into me. It had not reached anything vital. It had not gone deep enough to damage my organs, and yet my body was behaving as if she had torn me open from the inside.

I pressed harder against the wound. The flesh shifted beneath my palm.

My healing tried again. The edges pulled together. For one breath, I felt the familiar warmth of repair.

Then the wound split open with a fresh rush of blood.

I bent forward. Ava caught my shoulder before I could stop her.

Her touch burned through me.

My wolf surged so violently that my vision blurred.

I seized her wrist.

She gasped.

“Don't grab me like that.”

I should have released her.

Instead, I pulled her closer, because the moment her hand touched me, every instinct I possessed had turned toward her. Her scent filled my lungs. Her heartbeat struck against the air between us. The mark on her neck seemed to answer something beneath my skin.

The bite.

I remembered it now, When my control had slipped and the need to sink my teeth into her had become unbearable. I had thought it was hunger. I had thought it was lust sharpened by the night, by her mouth, by the way she had looked at me as though I were no different from every other man who had paid for her company.

I had bitten her. I had marked her.

And my wolf had known exactly what I had refused to see.

Ava tried to pull away.

My fingers closed more tightly around her wrist.

“Damien, you're hurting me.”

The words reached me through the pain.

I loosened my grip, but I did not let go.

She looked down at my hand, then up at my face, and I saw the calculation beginning behind her eyes. She was measuring the distance to the door again. Measuring me. Measuring how much strength I had left.

She believed I was weak.

She was right.

That thought was unacceptable.

I had spent centuries making men fear the sound of my name. I had built empires under identities that were eventually buried with the people who had known them. I had watched generations rise and vanish while my face remained unchanged.

A human woman had put a knife into my side, and now I was kneeling in front of her, bleeding through my clothes while my body refused to heal.

I would not accept it.

I forced myself upright.

Pain ripped through my side so fiercely that the room tilted, but I kept my hold on Ava and dragged myself higher. My knee remained on the floor. My other leg shook beneath me.

Ava's eyes widened.

“Stop trying to stand, you absolute idiot. You're going to make it worse.”

“I am not taking orders from you.”

“You are bleeding because of me, and you're still trying to act like some fucking king.”

I looked at her. The insult should have angered me.

Instead, I found myself watching her mouth.

That mouth had been against mine only hours ago. It had spoken filthy things against my skin, laughed when I tried to control the pace, and told me exactly what she wanted without once pretending she needed tenderness from me.

She had come to my bed for money.

She had taken it without shame.

A whore, the world would call her.

My wolf wanted her closer.

I wanted her closer.

I hated the distinction.

“Why isn't it worsening?” she demanded.

I looked down at the wound.

“I don't know.”

The admission tasted foul.

Ava stared at me.

“You don't know?”

“I said I don't know.”

“Then stop acting like you have everything under control, because you look like shit and you're still refusing help.”

My vision blurred again.

I heard the blood before I felt it, a thick drop striking the floor between us.

Then another.

The pain had moved beyond my side. It was inside my bones now, crawling through my chest, tightening around my lungs. My wolf was no longer pacing.

It was panicking.

That was worse than the pain.

A wolf did not panic.

An Alpha did not panic.

I forced my breathing into order, but my body betrayed me with another cough. Blood filled my mouth. I turned my head and spat it onto the floor.

Ava recoiled.

“That's not normal.”

“No.”

The word came out low.

She looked toward the door.

I felt her preparing to move before she actually did.

My hand caught her waist.

She jerked violently.

“Damien, what the hell are you doing?”

“Stay.”

The command left my mouth before I could soften it.

Her eyes flashed.

“You don't get to order me around after trapping me in this room and bleeding on me.”

I pulled her down beside me.

She fought immediately, pushing at my shoulder, trying to wrench herself out of my hold. I could have stopped her easily under ordinary circumstances.

These were not ordinary circumstances.

Every movement tore the wound open.

Every struggle made the pain worse.

Still, I wrapped one arm around her waist and held her against me.

Her body fit against mine with an accuracy that made denial almost impossible.

My wolf went still.

Ava froze when she felt the blood soaking into her clothes.

“Damien, you're getting blood on me.”

“I know.”

“You need to let me go.”

“No.”

Her breath shook against my neck.

“Why are you doing this? I tried to leave, and you blocked the door. I picked up a knife, and you still stood there like nothing could happen. Now you're bleeding like I've done something insane, and you're holding me here as if I'm the one who needs to be restrained.”

I closed my eyes.

The mark on her neck burned.

My wound opened again.

Ava cried out when my arm tightened around her.

I felt the sound move through her body.

Mine, my wolf insisted.

I rejected it.

Human.

The rejection struck through me like another blade.

My breath caught. Ava lifted her head.

“Damien?”

I opened my eyes.

She was close enough that I could see the pulse beating in her throat, close enough to smell the blood beneath her skin, close enough to know that if I released her now, she would be gone before I could reach the door.

A knock sounded from outside.

“Sir, are you all right in there?”

Ava turned toward the door. My hold tightened.

The footsteps came closer. The handle moved.

I felt the mark on her neck flare hot beneath her hair.

My wound opened wider.

Blood spilled over both of us.

Then my wolf spoke inside my head with a certainty that left no room for argument.

If anyone takes her from you, kill them.

DAMIEN

The command was still inside my head when the knock came again.

If anyone takes her from you, kill them.

I had heard my wolf before, through rage, hunger, blood, pain, but never with that kind of certainty, and I hated the words because some part of me had already decided they were right.

Ava was still trapped against me, staring at the blood on my hand as if she could not understand how something so small had made such a fucking mess.

Neither could I.

The knife remained buried in my side.

I lowered my eyes to it.

The blade had gone in shallowly, but it had no business still being there, and my body had no business behaving like this. I had taken bullets, blades, broken bones and wounds that should have put an ordinary man into the ground, yet my flesh had always closed before the blood had enough time to matter.

This one refused.

I wrapped my fingers around the knife handle.

Ava saw what I was doing and immediately caught my wrist.

“Wait, what are you doing? You cannot just pull that thing out when you are already bleeding like this, Damien, please stop messing with it.”

I looked at her hand around mine.

Her fingers were shaking. Ava's grip tightened around my wrist, but the blade came free with an ease that made my attention snap toward her.

There was no resistance.

None.

The knife slid from my body as though her hand had somehow loosened something I could not see, and I stared down at the blade while blood ran over my fingers.

Ava stared at the knife. Then at me.

Then at the wound.

I watched the realization struggle across her face before fear swallowed it.

“What the hell is happening to you?”

Her voice cracked on the last word.

I did not answer. I could not. The wound was open beneath my palm, hot and wrong, but the moment Ava's fingers brushed against my side, the pain changed.

She had reached out because she was frightened by the blood, because she had seen it pouring between my fingers and apparently forgotten that I was the man she had just stabbed.

Her fingertips pressed against my skin.

Everything stopped.

The pain vanished so violently that my body almost moved away from her.

I stared at her hand.

The torn flesh beneath it pulled together.

Ava gasped and jerked back, but not quickly enough.

The wound closed under her palm, the edges drawing into one another until there was nothing left except blood smeared across my skin.

I caught her wrist before she could pull away.

She looked down at my hand around hers, then back at my side.

“No.”

The word came out of her mouth like she had not meant to say it.

I released her.

She stumbled backward.

Her eyes stayed fixed on my stomach, searching for the wound that was no longer there.

“What did I just do?”

I said nothing. My wolf was no longer screaming.

It was watching her.

Waiting.

Claiming.

The realization I had fought against came back harder than before, dragging everything with it; the bite, the mark beneath her hair, the way my instincts had reacted to her from the moment she walked into my room, the impossible healing beneath her hand.

Mate.

The word was poisonous.

I refused it.

My wolf snarled.

Ava looked at me sharply. She had heard nothing, but she saw something change in my face.

I stepped toward her.

She stepped back.

“You need to stay away from me.”

Her voice was trembling now, and she looked toward the door as though measuring the distance.

I should have stopped her.

Instead, I watched her. Blood covered my hands.

My shirt was ruined. The knife lay on the floor between us.

She looked at me as though she had finally realized that the man in front of her was not the man she thought she had sold one night of her life to.

She grabbed her bag.

I moved but she moved faster.

The door opened, and she slipped through before I could reach her.

“Ava.”

She did not stop. She ran.

I stood there for one second too long, staring at the empty doorway while the smell of her skin still clung to the room.

Then a voice came from the corridor.

“Sir, I heard something break, and I thought you might need… ”

The man stepped inside. He was one of the hotel staff.

His eyes went straight to the blood on my hands.

Then to my shirt. Then to the knife lying near the table.

His face drained.

“What happened in here?”

I turned toward him.

His question irritated me more than it should have.

“Where did she go?”

He blinked.

“I don't know who you're talking about, sir. I came because I heard shouting and…”

“Where did she go?”

I heard the edge in my own voice.

The man swallowed and glanced toward the open corridor.

“I saw a woman running toward the elevators, but I didn't…”

My vision sharpened, and his face changed. His eyes widened as he took one step backward, then another.

I felt the change before I understood it, the heat moving through my eyes as my wolf rose beneath my skin, furious that someone else had seen me like this, furious that Ava was gone.

The man's breathing stopped.

His gaze locked onto mine.

“What the hell are your eyes?”

I did not answer. The room went strangely quiet around us.

His mouth opened.

A scream tore out of him.

He stumbled backward so violently that his heel caught against the doorframe, and he crashed onto the corridor floor, scrambling away from me with both hands as though distance alone could save him.

I looked away from him.

Ava.

I could still smell her. I pushed past the man and ran.

The elevator doors were closing.

I reached them too late.

By the time I reached the lobby, the scent had already thinned beneath perfume, polished marble, coffee, human sweat and hundreds of strangers passing through my hotel every day.

I reached the entrance just as she climbed into the back of a taxi.

Ava slammed the door behind her, and the car pulled away before I reached the curb.

I stopped beneath the hotel lights, watching the rear of the vehicle disappear into traffic.

The plate caught beneath the streetlight. I read it once. Then again.

I had no need for a third look.

I had spent centuries remembering things other men forgot.

AVA

The taxi smelled like somebody had smoked inside it too many times, and normally I would have complained about that because I hate when my clothes pick up other people's disgusting habits, but I sat in the back with my bag clutched against my stomach and barely noticed the smell.

I kept looking at my hands. Then at the window.

Then back at my hands. There was still blood underneath my fingernails.

Damien's blood.

I rubbed my fingers against each other and felt my stomach twist because no matter how many times I told myself I had only stabbed him because he would not let me leave, the image would not fucking disappear from my head.

The knife had gone into him. He had bled a lot.

Then I had touched the wound because I was scared and confused and apparently had completely lost my mind, and the damn thing had closed underneath my hand like it had never been there.

I swallowed hard and looked out the window again.

Maybe I had imagined it.

That was the only explanation that made any sense.

Except I had seen it.

I had felt his skin move beneath my fingers.

I had watched the blood stop.

No, that was bullshit.

People did not heal like that.

I pulled my bag onto my lap and opened it just enough to see the envelope sitting inside.

The money was still there.

At least something about tonight had gone according to plan.

I closed the bag again and leaned my head against the seat, letting out a breath that shook more than I wanted it to.

I had gone to that hotel because Damien Cross had offered me money for a night, and I had accepted because I knew exactly what I was doing. I was not some stupid girl who had wandered into a rich man's room expecting him to fall in love with me because I looked good naked, and I certainly was not going to sit in a taxi pretending I had been some innocent victim who had no idea what kind of arrangement I had agreed to.

I knew.

I had wanted the money.

I had wanted him too, if I was being honest, which was probably the part that irritated me most.

Because even after everything that happened, my body still remembered him.

The way his hands had felt. The way he had looked at me.

The way he had made me forget where I was for a while.

That was the problem with being a whore, or whatever name people wanted to give women like me when they were feeling particularly generous with their judgment. I knew how to separate sex from feelings, and I was damn good at it.

Except Damien had somehow managed to crawl into my head without permission.

I pressed my fingers against my neck.

The mark burned.

I pulled my hand away immediately.

“Fuck.”

The driver glanced at me through the mirror. I forced myself to look out the window.

“I am fine, sorry, I just hit my neck earlier.”

He nodded, apparently deciding that was none of his business, which was exactly what I wanted.

When the taxi finally stopped outside my building, I paid him, grabbed my bag and stepped onto the pavement with legs that still felt strangely weak.

I looked behind me before entering.

There was no Damien. No black car.

Nobody standing across the road.

Nothing.

I went inside anyway like some paranoid idiot who had watched too many fucking movies.

By the time I reached my apartment, my hands were shaking again.

I locked the door.

Then I checked it. Then I checked it again.

I stood there with my forehead against the wood, breathing slowly while the silence pressed around me.

I was home. Damien was not here.

The thought should have made me relax, but it didn't.I dropped my bag onto the couch and went straight to the bathroom.

The woman staring back at me in the mirror looked exhausted, disheveled and slightly insane.

My hair was a mess. My lips were swollen.

There were faint marks along my skin from the night, and the bite on my neck stood out darker than everything around it.

I leaned closer. The mark looked just… wrong.

I touched it carefully. Heat shot through my fingers.

I jerked away so quickly that my elbow knocked against the sink.

“What the fuck?”

I stared at my reflection. Nothing happened.

The mark was still there.

I touched it again, slower this time, and the heat returned beneath my fingertips.

I pulled my hand back.

“No.”

I didn't know who I was arguing with.

Maybe myself.

Maybe the mirror.

Maybe the universe, because apparently it had decided I had not suffered enough tonight.

Later that night, I showered until the water went cold, changed into an oversized shirt and shorts, and crawled into bed with the envelope still inside my bag on the floor beside me.

I told myself I would sleep.

I needed sleep.

Tomorrow I would wake up, go about my life, keep the money, forget Damien Cross, and never again accept a job that involved a man who apparently healed from knife wounds like some fucking horror movie character.

I turned off the light.

For several minutes, nothing happened.

Then sleep took me.

I was standing somewhere I had never seen before.

There was grass beneath my bare feet, pale and damp, stretching in every direction without a road, house or single light anywhere around me.

I turned slowly, trying to find something familiar.

There was nothing.

Then I heard something moving behind me.

The sound was low and heavy, the kind of movement that made the hairs along my arms rise before my brain even understood why.

I turned.

A wolf stood several feet away.

It was enormous.

Not the biggest wolf I had ever seen in pictures, because that sentence would have been stupid considering I had never seen anything remotely that size in real life, but this thing was fucking huge, with dark fur that seemed to swallow the weak light around it.

It stared at me. I couldn't breathe properly.

I backed away. The wolf stepped forward.

I backed away again.

It came closer.

My heart hammered against my ribs so violently that I could feel every beat in my throat, and when the wolf lowered its head, I knew what was coming because every stupid instinct inside me screamed that it was about to tear my throat open.

I lifted my arms over my face.

Nothing happened.

I lowered them slowly.

The wolf was standing directly in front of me.

It could have attacked. Instead, it lowered its head again.

Its nose touched the mark on my neck.

Pain exploded through me.

I screamed and grabbed my throat as the mark burned like somebody had pressed a piece of hot metal against my skin.

The wolf stayed there.

I could feel its breath.

I could feel the heat.

I could feel something inside me pulling toward it even while every frightened part of me wanted to run.

I woke violently in my bed, choking on a scream.

My hands flew to my neck.

The mark was burning. Not in the dream.

Here.

In my room.

My fingers trembled against it as I stared into the darkness, trying to slow my breathing.

Then something growled outside my bedroom door.

The sound was low enough to make my entire body lock up, and before I could convince myself that I had imagined it, the handle began to turn.