Chapter 2

Kassidy POV:

Blinding morning sunlight lanced through the gap in the curtains and hit my eyelids. I let out a low groan, my entire body aching as if I had been rolled over by a freight truck.

I tried to roll onto my side, only to find a heavy, muscular arm draped like an iron bar across my bare waist, radiating a furnace-like heat against my skin.

My brain flatlined. Images from the night before—tangled limbs, ragged breathing, and my own desperate whimpers—crashed into my head, freezing the blood in my veins.

Slowly, I looked down. Dark crimson bruises littered my pale collarbones, and the air was still thick with the suffocating scent of winter cedar and obsidian. Cold despair washed over me from head to toe.

I had broken my mating vows to the Graves Pack. Under the ancient laws of our kind, an unfaithful Omega wife wasn't just divorced; she was stripped of her pack status and executed in front of the elders.

I shoved my knuckles between my teeth to gag a sob, hot tears spilling over my lashes and soaking into the down pillow.

If Bart Graves, the old Alpha patriarch, caught wind of this, he would cut off the life-support funds at Silver Spring Sanatorium before noon. My father, Hosea—whose wolf soul had been shattered five years ago, leaving him trapped in madness—would die without that medical care.

Holding my breath, I inched toward the edge of the mattress, lifting the stranger's heavy forearm by a fraction of an inch.

The man let out a low grunt in his sleep, his fingers twitching and tightening slightly against my hip. My spine locked up. I didn't dare blink.

Thankfully, he rolled onto his back, releasing me. I slipped off the bed like a ghost, though the moment my bare feet touched the thick rug, my knees gave out and I nearly pitched forward onto my face.

Biting through the deep soreness between my thighs, I crawled across the floor to gather my clothes. My pale silk evening gown lay near the baseboard, shredded into useless ribbons.

Panic clawed at my chest. Scanning the room, I spotted an oversized white dress shirt draped over a velvet armchair. I snatched it up and shoved my arms through the sleeves, my shaking fingers missing half the buttons as I fastened it over my bruised skin.

Keeping my steps silent, I crept into the en-suite bathroom and eased the frosted glass door shut. I had to wash his scent off me before anyone smelled another male on my skin.

When I turned toward the vanity mirror, my stomach churned. The woman staring back was ghost-white, her lips swollen and her neck covered in dark, possessive bite marks—everything short of a full mating mark.

I twisted the cold tap on full blast, cupping the icy water and scrubbing wildly at my neck and wrists with a bar of soap until my skin turned raw and red.

It was useless. When a wolf encounters a high-tier predator during the Heat, the male's scent sinks straight into the bloodstream; no amount of soap could scrub that cedar aroma out of my pores.

My legs folded beneath me. I slid down the cold marble wall onto the tiles, burying my face in my wet hands as silent, ragged sobs tore through my chest.

Two heavy knocks sounded against the glass door.

My breath caught in my throat, cutting off my crying instantly.

"What are you doing in there?" The same deep, gravelly voice from last night rumbled through the door, thick with morning roughness and clear impatience.

I scrambled up, grabbing a hand towel to wipe my face.

"Nothing," I choked out, trying to steady my trembling voice. "I'm coming out right now."

I sucked in a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and pulled the bathroom door open—only to slam nose-first into a wall of solid muscle.

He had been leaning right against the frame. A single white towel hung dangerously low on his hips, water droplets trailing down the hard ridges of his eight-pack abs before disappearing beneath the cotton edge.

I stumbled back half a step, my heel hitting the threshold. My gaze snagged on the pale liquid-silver scar beneath his right collarbone, and my face went scorching hot.

In the daylight, his face was strikingly sharp, all chiseled bone and cold arrogance. He narrowed his pitch-black wolf eyes, looking down at me the way a king surveys a captured prize.

"Scared of me?" His voice held a dark note of amusement as he reached out, twirling a damp lock of my hair around one long finger.

I jerked my head back, slapping his hand away. Fear made my voice come out sharp and brittle.

"Last night was a mistake. We're both adults. Once I walk out that door, this never happened."

The amusement vanished from his eyes, replaced by a lethal darkness. He took a single step forward, caging me between his broad chest and the cold bathroom doorframe.

"A mistake?" He let out a cold laugh, his Alpha aura flaring until the air around us grew heavy. "You break into my suite in the middle of a full-blown Heat, beg me to take you, and now you call it a mistake?"

My chest heaved as I fought the urge to drop to my knees under his dominance. I bit my lower lip until it throbbed, glaring up at his chin to hide how badly my knees were shaking.

He leaned down until his mouth brushed the shell of my ear, each word dropping like a block of ice.

"Get one thing straight, little wolf. What I touch belongs to me."