CLAIMED BY MY ALPHA STEPBROTHER.

AZRIEL.

Driving forty miles per hour in a damn thunderstorm, but I didn't care.

Rain slammed against the windshield in sheets, and deep within me, the beast stirred. Restless. Hungry. Wanting to break free.

Not tonight.

 Rage coursed through my veins, my thoughts circling back to tomorrow's mission. I felt wound up, tighter than I had in years, which meant something given all I'd done and seen—the nightmares I'd become.

Loyalty was what tomorrow depended on. My unit's loyalty to the mission, to each other, to me. Because if even one of them faltered and betrayal seeped into our ranks, it would mean death for us all.

The strategy meeting had run three hours. Three hours of contingency plans and kill orders, of studying blueprints until my eyes burned. Three hours of being reminded that I'd never be normal. That I'd never live the quiet, simple life other people took for granted.

My father had made sure of that.

The ugly memory came back making me sick. My mother's funeral when I was six. She'd been the only person who looked at me and saw a child instead of potential. The only one who held me when I cried, who kissed my scraped knees, who called me her miracle.

Three months after we buried her, my father came into my bedroom at 2 AM.

I still remembered the cold leather of his car seats. The drive to the facility. The fluorescent lights that turned his face skeletal. He was a scientist, brilliant and completely insane. A maddened genius who decided his own son would make the perfect test subject. They pumped things into my veins that rewrote my DNA. They broke my bones and watched them heal in hours. They did things to my mind that I still can't name without wanting to put my fist through a wall.

I was seven when I stopped being entirely human.

Twenty-three now, and I'd never forgive him. Never forgive the government that used me. Never forgive myself for the bodies I'd left behind.

The wipers could barely keep up with the downpour so I had to slow down to the actual speed limit, twenty-five miles per hour. I should've been home, should've been preparing for tomorrow, but sitting still felt like suffocating. My skin itched. My jaw ached from clenching. The beast inside me snarled, scraping claws against the inside of my skull.

"Let me out," it whispered. "Let me hunt."

"Shut up," I growled.

"You need to run. You need to kill. You need—"

"I said shut the fuck up."

My knuckles went white on the steering wheel.  The last thing I needed was to lose control. The last thing the world needed was me losing control.

I needed a distraction. Anything. I would've gotten drunk if my body could still process alcohol, but they'd taken that from me too. Nothing worked anymore. No pills. No booze. Just this constant, gnawing awareness.

I reached for the radio, eyes off the road for half a second.

The headlights flickered across something in the road.

I looked up. Saw the figure directly in my path.

"Shit!"

I slammed the brakes. The Mercedes fishtailed, tires screeching against wet asphalt. My stomach lurched as the car spun, and for one terrifying second I thought we'd flip. Then the wheels balanced, and I jerked to a stop sideways across both lanes.

My heart was beating fast. The beast roared to life, flooding my system with adrenaline, sharpening every sense until I could hear the rain hitting individual leaves.

I threw open the door.

Another flash of movement in the headlights came closer now. Before I could process what was happening, a body slammed into me, all desperate momentum and wild energy. The impact drove me back against the car door, and instinct took over.

My hand shot out, fingers closing around a throat. I spun, using the collision's force to reverse our positions, and slammed the person against the side of my Mercedes. Hard. Metal dented under the impact.

One squeeze. That's all it would take. I could feel the pulse fluttering under my palm, rabbit-fast and fragile. Could snap this neck before my next breath.

Then I saw her face.

The world... stopped.

She was soaked, hair plastered to her skull, mascara running in dark rivers down her cheeks. She reeked of alcohol. Looked like she'd gone over her limit while having fun.

Despite all that, she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

The beast went silent. Completely, impossibly quiet. And my heart, my dead, frozen heart, beat. Not the mechanical pump of blood through veins. An actual feeling. Like something that had been dormant for sixteen years suddenly woke up and remembered what it was supposed to do.

The wolf inside me didn't snarl or fight. It preened. Paced. Made sounds I'd never heard from it before, eager, excited, almost desperate.

Her eyes locked on mine, wild, terrified, desperate and I became breathless.

Oh.

Oh no.

My fingers loosened on her throat, but I couldn't make myself let go. Couldn't step back. Couldn't look away. Rain poured over us both, cold enough to sting, but I barely registered it.

"What the fuck?" The words came out rough, confused.

She didn't pull away. Instead, she grabbed my wrist with both hands, not to pry me off, but to hold on. Like I was the only solid thing in her universe.

“Please help me!” she begged. “Please. I’ll do anything. Anything!”