Alexia POV
Freedom tasted like stale beer and floor peanuts, but I had never tasted anything sweeter.
It had been three weeks since I walked out of the Obsidian Pack, severing the ties that had choked me for years. I hadn't made it to Vienna yet. My savings hadn't stretched as far as I hoped, and the human world was brutally expensive.
I was working in a dive bar on the outskirts of a human town called Grayton, just inches outside the Pack's territory border. It was risky being this close, but I needed the money for a plane ticket.
I sat at the battered upright piano in the corner of the bar. The keys were tacky with spilled spirits, and the E-flat was flat in the literal sense, but the humans didn't care. They tipped me in crumpled dollar bills to play sad songs that matched their cheap drinks.
"Hey, sweetheart, play 'Piano Man' again!" a drunk patron yelled, waving a bottle.
I smiled tightly, my fingers finding the familiar, weary chords of the intro.
The door to the bar opened. A gust of rain and wind blew in, carrying a scent that made my blood turn to ice.
*Rain-soaked pine and ozone.*
Jacob.
The music died under my fingers.
He stood in the doorway, dripping wet, looking violently out of place in his tailored Italian suit among the flannel and denim. His eyes scanned the room and locked onto me instantly.
He didn't look angry. He looked... relieved?
He walked toward me, ignoring the bartender who shouted about a cover charge.
"Alexia," he breathed, stopping right by the piano bench.
I stood up abruptly, putting the piano between us like a shield. "Go away, Jacob."
"I’ve been looking everywhere for you," he said, his voice low and intense. "The Pack... the house is quiet without you. My wolf is restless."
"Buy a white noise machine," I snapped.
He flinched. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet box. He snapped it open. Inside sat a diamond necklace. It was huge, gaudy, and completely devoid of personality.
"I brought you a gift," he said, offering it like a peace offering to a wild animal. "To make up for the... misunderstanding at the party. Come home, Alexia. I’ll make you a Pack Consultant. You can have a salary. A real room."
I looked at the diamonds. They glittered coldly under the neon bar lights.
"A Consultant?" I laughed, a harsh, dry sound. "Is that the corporate title for a Mate you're ashamed of?"
"It's a title," he insisted, desperation creeping in. "You wanted to be useful. You wanted to help the Pack. Remember? You told me once, your dream was to heal our people with your music."
"No, Jacob," I said, leaning in, my voice trembling with suppressed rage. "I told you my dream was to find my family. My *real* family. The White Wolf line. Music was just how I survived waiting for them."
He blinked, confused. He didn't remember. He had rewritten my history to fit his narrative.
"I don't want your diamonds," I said. "I have a plane ticket to Vienna. I'm leaving tomorrow."
Panic flashed in his eyes. "You can't. You're Pack. You're mine."
He reached for my hand. The electricity of the bond sparked, but instead of pleasure, it felt like a chemical burn.
Suddenly, his phone rang. It wasn't a normal ringtone; it was the emergency siren alert used by the Pack.
He froze. He answered it, fumbling and putting it on speaker without thinking.
"Jacob!" Kassandra’s voice shrieked through the speaker, hysterical and high-pitched. "Help me! Rogues! They've breached the perimeter! I'm at the old mill! They're going to kill me!"
The color drained from Jacob’s face. The old mill was only a mile from here.
"Kassandra," he gasped.
He looked at me. For a second, just a second, I saw the conflict. He was here to bring me home. I was his Mate.
"Go," I said coldly.
He didn't even hesitate. He didn't say goodbye. He didn't check if I was safe. He turned and bolted out of the bar, leaving the velvet box on the sticky piano keys.
"Wait!" the bartender yelled. "You didn't pay!"
I watched his taillights disappear into the rain.
Then, a howl ripped through the night air. It wasn't a Pack howl. It was the discordant, jagged howl of a Rogue. And it was close.
Too close.
The window next to me exploded inward.
A massive, mangy wolf crashed through the glass, snarling, foam dripping from its jaws onto the floorboards.
The humans screamed.
I didn't shift. I couldn't shift in front of humans. I grabbed the only weapon I had—the heavy velvet box Jacob had left behind—and smashed it into the wolf's snout.
But there were more. I could smell them. They weren't just at the mill. They were everywhere.
And Jacob had taken the only car.
