Present Day

Saige’s [POV]

I feel his gaze skate down my back, linger on my ass, and then move away again. “Have her back tomorrow night.”

Rylan’s voice is as frigid as it always is. What emotion he has is never for me. But that’s okay, I don’t have any left for him. Not anymore.

I stand beside the white couch in my five-inch red stilettos and the tight black dress he orders me to wear, my long dark hair, still wet, is slicked back from my face. Other than a swipe of deep red lipstick, I didn’t bother with any makeup.

What does a girl need with mascara on the day she’s going to die?

Felix rises from the couch with catlike grace. Never taking his gaze from me, he places his whiskey on the glass coffee table and prowls toward me, ropy muscles bunching and releasing under his white shirt.

Most girls would take one look at him and spend the next month masturbating themselves raw because he’s just that pretty to look at. All honey-gold skin, hooded dark eyes, a wicked grin, and thick chestnut hair that you just know is as soft as it looks. The designer clothes and impeccable dress sense don’t hurt either. Even his scent—rich sandalwood, musk, and vanilla—is delicious. Edible.

But I’m not like most girls. I know Felix.

His wolf is in his eyes the way it is with all of Rylan’s pack, but I don’t react to the feral intensity of a predator staring back at me the way I would have two years ago.

Back then, they used to terrify me so much that I couldn’t look any of them in the eye. You could cut through my fear with a knife. It hung that thick in the air.

It didn’t take me long to learn that these other kinds of humans could shift from wolf to man and back again in seconds. Not on a full moon, but whenever they wanted. They would also rip out your throat if you stared at them too long.

Or just because they could.

I never realized how fast it could happen until Rylan caught me in a cab after I ran the first time.

You’d have been hard-pressed to tell the cab driver had been a man at all once Rylan was finished with him. Strips of flesh, hot blood splashing over the cab… and me. The scent of my terror in the cold sweat. And the prickle of Rylan’s rage brushing against my skin for trying to deprive him of something that belongs to him and will always be his.

Me.

Sometimes I still remember the smell.

Blood and piss.

Although the warm fingers grazing my cheek are light, Felix’s wolf stare burns me right to the bone. “I’d like to keep her this time.” The hard ridge of his cock nudges me. “We had so much fun last time.”

It’s easy now to keep my expression placid when inside I’m still screaming from the lash of his whip.

“She’s mine.” Rylan’s voice is bored.

I can’t see him from the angle I’m facing but he’ll be on his phone, scrolling through his messages, tapping away responses to his banker’s questions about his investments.

“How much do you want for her?” Felix moves closer, his cock a hot brand against my belly. “I’ll pay any price.”

I meet his gaze without blinking.

“She’s not for sale.” Rylan’s voice is a little less boring. “She’s mine.”

Felix isn’t dropping this, and the spark of rebellion in his eye combined with the possessive grip of his hand on my hip warns me he’s about to make a misstep. One he might not survive.

I can’t let that happen.

If Felix pushes Rylan too far, he’ll change his mind about me going with him, and who knows when I’ll get my next opportunity?

My mind flashes to last week. I relive the moment often because it’s the fuel I’m going to need to get through the next few hours.

Not many people can pinpoint the exact moment love turns to hate, but I can.

Of him, myself, the world.

All of it.

No more.

Whatever it takes, Saige. This has to end. Today.

I place my hand on Felix’s lean, muscled chest and stroke down, raking him lightly with my nails. When I’ve reached my destination, I close my palm around his cock, a pulsing, hard length, and gently squeeze him through his soft cotton pants.

His eyes go half-lidded with pleasure. When they do, I step forward and touch my lips against his throat, kissing lightly as I stroke him with the firmness I know he likes.

“You want my cock, kitten?” he groans as his hands glide up and down my back, gathering me close to his body.

“I want it,” I breathe against his skin, hiding my gaze because if Felix were to peer into them, he’d see the deadness in them and know there’s nothing in this world I want. “Give it to me.”

A half-human, half-wolf snarl snakes around me, and tension stiffens Felix’s body. I feel it happen, but I don’t take my hand from his cock, and I don’t stop kissing his throat.

Rylan doesn’t like it when the men in his pack touch me in his presence. He likes it even less when I touch them. No, that isn’t right. It’s the wolf that doesn’t like it, which is why I do it every opportunity I can. There aren’t many ways a human girl can fight back against a shifter, but this is one of mine.

I grasp Felix harder and nip at his throat. His groan of desperate need provokes another snarl from the couch, this one wetter—an animal poised to attack.

Felix rips himself away from me, and when I’m sure I’ve buried the deadness in my eyes, I open them and turn to the couch.

Rylan is half on his feet, cell phone on the floor, his hands gripping the sides of the couch as if to stop himself from flinging himself at me—or at Felix—and his wolf is in his eyes. The expensively attired businessman always perfectly in control is no more.

An animal stares at me with furious possession and I stare back.

I try not to look at his face anymore. Even after everything he’s done to me, he’s still the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in my life.

His beauty tricks me into believing that being chained naked to a bedroom wall isn’t the worst thing that could happen to a person. Or that one day soon he’ll change back into the man who loved me like no one ever had before.

It never takes him long to wrestle his wolf back inside him, and this time is no different. He blinks and his eyes are once again like the facet of a blue stone. As if nothing happened, he sinks back into the couch and reaches for his phone.

“Have her back tomorrow night. By midnight. Showered.”

Because I’m his. Just as he can’t stand to have men touch me in his presence, he can’t stand their scent clinging to me. How he has no problem giving me to his packmates for them to fuck me as a reward for whatever thing they’ve done right is a mystery I’ve never been able to work out. Maybe it’s his human side trying to assert dominance over the wolf half that hates to share me?

I don’t know. I no longer care.

Felix snags my hand and tugs me across the white minimalist living area toward the front door. He’s just reaching for the handle when Rylan’s voice stops him. “And Felix, bring up the subject of keeping what’s mine again and you’ll be dead before your body hits the ground.”

Felix pauses. “Yes, Alpha.”

We leave the room in silence, the door closing soundlessly behind us. My heels click on the highly polished marble in the hallway outside Rylan’s penthouse apartment in the very center of the city, a building so expensive it’s full of billionaires who can afford to buy apartments and never set foot inside them.

I know because Rylan once joked about having the building to himself.

So you’re a billionaire? I asked him, as we lay wrapped in each other's arms on a lazy Sunday afternoon, the sun streaming over us from the wall of glass. His finger stroked the side of my face as a smile creased the corners of his eyes.

Not a billionaire, but if I were, I’d give you everything.

He gave me everything all right, even the things I didn’t want.

The elevator slides open just as soundlessly as the front door closed, the sight jerking me back from the distant past. Without a word, Felix draws me inside the spacious, thickly carpeted stainless-steel space.

“Now, kitten,” he murmurs as the doors slide closed behind us and he backs us to one corner, his hands in my hair already pressing me down, “You know what I want.”

I do.

It’s what he always wants.

All of Rylan’s packmates have their wants and needs. Their quirks and cruelties. I’ve had nearly two years to get them all straight in my head. Felix has simple ones. A blowjob in the elevator, a fuck in his car, a harder fuck against his apartment door with his hand wrapped around my throat, and when he’s nice and relaxed, he reaches for his toys. That’s when the pain starts.

I draw his zipper down as I sink to my knees. His hands fist in my hair to hold me there because he never cared if I needed air. I learned that the hard way when I blacked out after choking on his cock. Now I remember to breathe through my nose.

Like I said, I know Felix.

And as the elevator makes its way down, I swallow him deep in my throat, letting my mind drift.

The drive to Felix’s townhouse north of the city usually takes thirty minutes. Fifty if there’s traffic.

By that time, the backs of my thighs are cold from the leather seats, and the front hot from straddling Felix.

Along the way, we cross a bridge over a river. The name isn’t important. Or it never has been to me. A bridge is a bridge, after all.

On it, he likes for me to climb into his lap. As he lets cruise control take over, he pounds into me, fucking me hard and fast because the bridge isn’t long, so we only have minutes before we hit the busy streets on the other side.

I don’t know if a regular human would ever want to attempt such a thing, but I guess with Felix’s fast-shifter healing, the possibility of dying in a car crash must not rank too high in his mind. Or maybe that’s where his thrill of fucking in a moving car comes from. I’ve never cared enough to ask.

One glance at his Porsche and the people on the sidewalks would instantly know what we were doing. While Felix likes to live a little dangerously, that’s not the kind of public sex he’s into.

Just as the name of the bridge isn’t important, the time isn’t either. But it is pretty.

The day is drifting into the night, dark purple hues and twinkling bright lights in the distance as he drives, one hand lightly clasping the wheel, the other strokes the skin high on my thigh.

Traffic, as always, is a joke, especially on a Friday night, so I feel the impatience building inside Felix at the slow crawl of cars. The moment we hit the bridge, the tension along his jaw melts away and he darts a glance my way.

“Kitten.”

I unbuckle my seatbelt. As he reaches for cruise control, I take his hand and squeeze.

He turns to me with his eyebrow raised in question.

I don’t respond, just crawl over the console and straddle him before lowering my lips to his. He holds still because I never kiss him on his lips. He kisses mine, but only after he’s tied me to his bed and I can’t dodge him.

When he demanded to know why I did it, I told him Rylan doesn’t want anyone to kiss me on the lips when, in reality, the person who doesn’t want it is me. I guess that’s the other reason Felix steals kisses from me. To get back at Rylan in his petty way.

But this time, I frame his face with both hands and press a soft kiss on his lips before lifting my head an inch, my eyes locked on his. I pretend I’m looking at Rylan from two years ago, back when I loved him so much I agreed to let him turn me into a wolf shifter.

If I’d known his love came with conditions, or that not all humans can be turned, I’d have looked at him as less of a hero and more of a villain. And run.

I’d have run.

Felix’s eyes burn, and his cock twitches against my inner thigh. I lower my head again and give him another kiss; soft, sweet, achingly tender. I make him believe I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anyone. That there is no one else in the world for me but him.

Groaning, his hands grasp me by my hips and drag me closer.

When he’s nicely distracted and responding with urgent need, I reach my right hand behind me, grip the wheel, and wrench it hard to the left.

A squeal of tires, car alarms blare, and Felix rips me away.

Then one stare, his dark eyes wide with surprise.

He’s grabbing for the wheel when my head smashes hard against something. Glass shatters. Cold air stings my face.

And then we’re falling.