Chapter 2 Masked Night
The pain didn't stop when the gates closed on me.
It followed me. Every step away from Crescent Hollow felt like something was being peeled off my chest, slow and brutal. I staggered down the dirt roads of the forest, fingers clawing at my coatless arms as the night air bites deep. When I tried to turn back—just once— my body revolted. Nausea crashes through me, my knees buckle as an invisible wall pushes me back, rejecting me.
The land doesn't want me anymore.
I laughed then, an empty, broken sound. Of course it doesn't.
By the time the trees thinned and the road hardened beneath my feet, the sky was already dark. City lights shimmered in the distance like a promise I don't trust. But I walked anyway, I had no choice.
I checked my pockets as I went, my phone—barely alive. A little cash I'd forgotten I had, folded tightly in my pocket and my duffel.
This is my future now.
People pass me as I reach the human city. They all ignored me as they went on about their nights. They don't stare, they don't even smell my shame or know I'm wolfless, unwanted, and banished like a disease cut out of the pack.
For the first time since tonight began, a numb feeling settled deep within me and I can finally breathe.
A shining neon sign of a club shown brightly ahead of me, music pulses through the pavement, deep and heavy, vibrating straight through my body. Laughter spilled out when the door opened, a couple stumbling out, heavily intoxicated.
I made to move but stopped, hesitating. Then I thought of Lyra's smile, her taunting, and Marcus's indifference. My stepfather's voice as he tore me loose from everything I was.
Fuck it. I stepped forward. The man at the door looks me over, my bare shaking arms, almost blue lips, and probably the bags under my eyes. He doesn't ask questions, just hands me a black mask and takes my money.
That could be the nicest I've been treated so far this night.
Inside, the world behind me dissolves. Velvet bass, low lights, and bodies moving like they were in a trance. Everyone was masked, and so was I. Like no names, no past, just live in the moment.
Good.
I went straight to the bar. “One," I tell myself as the glass is placed in my hand. The liquid is pink, deceptively eye-catching. I swallowed it too fast, the sweet taste fading as the aftertaste burns going down, blooming heat in my chest, and loosening the tight knot inside me.
Another follows, then another. Before I knew it, the music pulled me to the dance floor and I let it. I'm halfway there when I collide with someone solid enough to stop me cold. My palms were pressed into a firm chest, and my forehead nearly hit him.
Strong arms steady me instantly.
“Easy," he said. His voice slides over me, low, and roughly intimate in a way that has no right to be, I looked up and instinctively clenched my thighs.
An obsidian mask hides his face, sharp lines catching the light. But his eyes—God! They were violently blue, catching the club lights that made them look like they were sparkling. Their intensity was so unsettling, and they stayed locked on mine, as he could see through my disguise.
I broke out of my trance, “I'm fine," I lied, even as the room tilted slightly before me. I may or may not have drunk one too many.
He doesn't believe it though. I can tell.
“You don't look fine," he says.
“Neither do you," I shoot back before I can stop myself and that sparks something in him, his lips curved slightly in amusement.
He smells…weird. Not that I know any difference, but this isn't a cologne. It's something deeper and darker and it made my stomach flip, heat pooled low in my belly. I don't remember inching closer to him, but suddenly he's there. His presence was heavy and magnetic.
He offered me his glass, and I took it. Tonight was already a reckless night act and I'm not to blame.
No names were exchanged, or questions, we just danced. The music swells, our bodies pressed closer, his hands find the swell of my hips like it belonged there, his fingers firm and possessive. I should pull away.
Stranger danger. But, I don't.
I move with him instead, letting the rhythm guide me, letting my body speak when my mind is too tired to argue. Every brush of skin sends awareness up my thighs, my body reacts to his with humiliating ease, like it recognizes something I don't.
I'm drunk, angry, numb, and so tired of being unwanted.
When he kissed me, it was so sudden, no warning or gentleness. Just heat and hunger and my sharp realization that I wanted this more than I needed air. I kissed him back without thinking, clinging to him as if I let go, I'd fall apart.
Somewhere between the music and our rapid desire, we ended up alone in a private room. His hands roamed my body—hips, shoulders, chest. Peeling my clothes off me in a slow frustrating motion. Every touch of his was deliberate, reverent, like I'm something fragile and dangerous all at once.
Clothes were off our bodies in minutes, the pleasure blinding, my body igniting in ways I haven't felt before. I don't know his name and I don't want it either. I just wanted this moment where I'm chosen and worshipped.
His forehead rests against mine, breath uneven as he matches the rhythmic roll of my hips. I feel his restraint snapping, something wild flickering behind those blue eyes.
Then he goes still. Completely still.
“What—" I rasped, but the word cut as sharp pain spread on my shoulder.
His lips grazed my neck, nibbling at the spot he just bit. Not violent, just intimate and claiming.
Heat exploded through me, white hot and overwhelming, racing through my veins like wildfire. My body arched on instinct, a sound tearing from my throat as a shudder tore through me.
He freezes, hands locked hard on my hips. Then I hear it, a low, unmistakable growl.
“Fuck," he whispered. The words weren't meant for me, but as the bite burns and my vision slips into unconsciousness, I know—deep in my bones, that whatever just happened had changed everything.
And there was no going back.
