Chapter 1 1

 Nineteen women.

That's what James left behind him. Not heartbreak. Not bad memories. Dead women with failed organs who thought they'd found something real.

I was supposed to be number twenty.

I had the hospice room. The goodbye letters. The funeral playlist: yes, I made one, don't judge me. Everything was lined up neat and final.

Then Morgan blew the doors off that plan and dragged me back to the living. Literally. She broke me out, broke the rules, and handed me a whole new set of problems   starting with the wolf now permanently living inside my skull.

Her name is Raven.

She's the reason James is currently on the floor.

He's staring up at me like he hates me. Jaw locked. Eyes hard. Every inch of him radiating the kind of arrogance that only men who've never faced consequences can pull off.

I stare back. Unbothered.

He almost killed me. I loved him while he did it. The embarrassment of that alone is enough to frost over whatever mercy I might have had.

Finish it, Raven says inside me. Not a question.

Soon, I answer.

She's been patient. That's not her default setting.

Most wolves war with their human halves   constantly wrestling for control, neither side winning cleanly. Raven and I never had that problem. She doesn't fight me. I don't cage her. We made our arrangement early: I lead when we walk on two legs, she leads when we drop to four. Clean. Simple. Mutual.

What she lacks in mercy, I make up for. What I lack in ruthlessness, she covers entirely.

James shifts his weight, telegraphing his next move before he makes it.

Raven's already three steps ahead.

She surfaces   and everything changes.

No man required.

A wolf? Different story.

My fingers worked down my buttons. Nobody in the room breathed. They weren't staring at my body, they were staring at what came next. Weeks of their little games, their cheap provocations, their attempts to corner me into shifting on their schedule.

I never bit.

This moment was mine.

Now? Raven asked.

Not yet, I said. Let them sweat.

She found that funny.

Here's what my pack didn't know yet: every werewolf they'd ever seen needed time to shift. Two minutes if they were exceptional. Five if they were average. That vulnerable, painful, drawn-out window  was when wolves got killed.

Raven and I closed that window entirely.

Done in seconds. Every time. I'd buried myself in Lord Adrian's library hunting for an explanation and found exactly one: whatever we were, nothing like us had shown up in written records for centuries. Credit the artifact that made me Other instead of a wolf's bite. Credit the fact that we spoke to each other in complete sentences instead of blurry feelings. Credit whatever you want.

The result was the same.

I stepped out of the last of my clothes. Calm. Unhurried. James watched from the floor with his wrists tied and his pride clearly killing him faster than I was.

He knew this body. He'd used that knowledge like a weapon once.

I remember, Raven said flatly.

So did I.

The Connection could have had him. That neat, terrifying machine  law, judge, prison and execution dressed up in one organisation  would have processed James without blinking. But the second I outsourced this, my pack would read it as weakness. New alphas don't get second chances at first impressions.

Reynolds hadn't moved from his corner. Arms locked across his chest, grey eyes tracking everything, the permanent tension in his shoulders saying what his mouth didn't: I'm ready to finish this if you aren't.

He'd been finishing things for me since day one.

Not today.

Go, I told Raven  and handed her everything.

One blink. Four legs. The world lost its colour, bled grey and brown at the edges the way it always did. Raven rolled her shoulders, tasted the air, and turned her gaze on James.

The pack's fear hit us like a wave.

Raven drank it in.

She moved toward him slowly, no rush, no noise, head level with her shoulders, eyes fixed. James pressed backward despite himself. Bound wrists, floor beneath him, nowhere to go.

I came forward just once.

Cut him loose.

Raven paused. Why?

Because a tied man looks like a victim. He isn't.

She held still for one long second  then sliced through the rope like it was thread.

James stood up fast.

Like height was going to change anything.