Chapter 3

Maya's POV

I made it back to Brooklyn.

Didn't remember most of the walk. One second I was standing in a warehouse full of bodies, the next I was in the alley behind my building. My knuckles were white.

My wolf was still whining.

Mate, she said. Quieter now. More like a bruise than a shout. Mate mate mate.

"I heard you the first fifty times," I said to no one in particular.

A cat on top of the dumpster looked at me with profound indifference. Then went back to grooming itself.

I pushed through the building's front door and nearly got bowled over by a screaming child.

The kid couldn't have been more than five. Wearing pajamas covered in reindeer. Giggling so hard he could barely run straight. He slammed into my legs at full speed and bounced off like he'd hit a wall. Looked up at me with enormous brown eyes. Took in whatever was on my face.

Stopped giggling.

His mother appeared in the doorway of the first-floor apartment. Flour on her hands. Embarrassment on her face. "Oh god, I'm so sorry—Ethan, what did I tell you about running in the hallway?"

I dragged my expression into something that resembled a human smile. The muscles didn't cooperate as well as usual. "It's fine. Really."

The woman's eyes traveled over my jacket. Over the blood. She opened her mouth. Closed it again.

"Merry Christmas," I said, and took the stairs two at a time before she could find the words she was looking for.

The sounds of celebration followed me up. Laughter from the second floor. Music from the third. The building was old and sound traveled through it without mercy. Every burst of joy. Every off-key rendition of Jingle Bells bleeding through walls that had never been properly insulated.

I unlocked my door. Stepped inside. Closed it behind me and stood in the dark for a moment.

The silence in my apartment felt like a physical thing. Heavy. Oppressive. Made worse by the muffled happiness bleeding through the walls from every direction.

I told myself I didn't mind the noise.

What I minded was the happiness.

Most wolves preferred the pack houses on the outskirts. Closer to the woods. Closer to that simple, communal life where everyone knew your name and your business and had opinions about both. I'd tried it once, for about six weeks. Six weeks of mandatory pack dinners and moon ceremonies and well-meaning wolves asking if I was okay every time I didn't smile fast enough.

I'd moved out on a Tuesday. Didn't tell anyone I was leaving until I was already gone.

This dump in the middle of Brooklyn suited me better. Human identity. Human neighborhood. The kind of building where people minded their own business because they were too exhausted from their own lives to care about yours. Big cities had enough weirdos that one more loner didn't register. And wolves had a working relationship with the authorities anyway—not exactly public, not exactly secret. The FBI's Special Division knew we existed. Knew what we did. Most civilians had figured it out by now too, or at least suspected. They just didn't particularly care. They were too busy paying off student loans to waste energy on fear.

Nobody asked questions. Nobody expected anything from me.

Which was exactly how I liked it.

I peeled off my jacket in the dark. The leather was stiff in places where the blood had started to dry. I dropped it on the floor and didn't look at it.

The punching bag hung in the corner.

I'd commissioned it custom from a supplier who asked no questions as long as the cash was green. Had them print a photo onto the leather surface before stretching it over the reinforced canvas. The image was crystal clear. Sharp enough to see every detail.

Victor's face stared back at me.

That perfect, aristocratic face that belonged on a museum statue, not on something that drank blood and killed for sport. The supplier had done something to the proportions when they'd stretched the leather. His features were just slightly warped. Just enough to make that eternally smirking mouth look faintly ridiculous. Like a funhouse mirror version of beauty.

I'd ordered it three months ago. Back when Victor Krauss was just a name on a wanted poster and a pattern of crime scenes that kept me up at night.

Back before tonight.

My wolf looked at that warped, ridiculous face and went very, very still.

I hit him anyway.

My first punch went straight for that smirking mouth. The leather distorted on impact. His face warped, stretching into something grotesque for half a second before snapping back to its original shape. That same condescending smile. That same knowing look in those printed eyes.

I hit him again. Harder. Right in the center of that perfect face.

The bag swung back. Returned. I was already moving. Jab-cross-hook combination that I'd drilled until it was muscle memory. Each punch landing exactly where I wanted it. His jaw. His temple. That elegant nose that he'd looked down at me with tonight.

Elbow strike to the printed throat. My knuckles split. Silver dust from the bag's interior coated the wounds with familiar sting. I welcomed it. Pain meant I was still thinking straight. Still in control.

I kept going until my arms burned and my breath came in sharp gasps and I couldn't feel my hands anymore. Until the only thing in my head was the rhythm of impact and the dull ache of muscle pushed past its limit.

My wolf sat quietly through all of it. Patient. Waiting.

She knew I wasn't actually hitting him. She wasn't fooled.

I stopped. Pressed my forehead against the leather. Felt the cool surface against my overheated skin.

Four dead wolves. Someone was going to get a phone call tonight. Multiple phone calls.

And the thing responsible for that had looked at me across twenty feet of blood-soaked concrete and smiled like I was the most interesting thing he'd seen in decades.

My wolf had called him mate.

I straightened up. Looked at that warped, ridiculous, infuriating face.

Victor Krauss was the most dangerous vampire in the region. He killed wolves for sport. He was everything I'd spent my adult life hunting. Everything I was built to destroy.

And my wolf had looked at him and started singing.

The universe clearly had a catastrophic sense of humor.

I was still standing there, dripping blood onto my floor and arguing with my own instincts, when the mental link snapped open again.

Gentler this time. The pack's standard frequency rather than an emergency pulse. Still made my teeth ache.

White Wolf. The communication wolf's thought was crisp and formal. Alpha requests your presence. Red Wood Garage. One hour.

The link closed.

I looked at Victor's face on the punching bag. At that smile that didn't know when to quit.

Isolde Hernandez was calling a meeting. Which meant the night wasn't done with me yet.

I pulled off my gloves. Examined my knuckles. Already healing. Give it twenty minutes and there'd be nothing left but faint pink lines.

Werewolf metabolism. The one perk that actually made this job survivable.

I went to clean up.