CHAPTER 1 - THEO ELLIS

The locker screamed at 11:07 pm.

Metal doesn't make that sound unless something is tearing it open from the inside. I was standing in the dark hallway outside the varsity locker room with my inhaler in my pocket, and I heard steel give way one slow claw at a time.

I shouldn't have been there.

My name is Theo Ellis. I'm nineteen. On the roster I'm on the university swim team. In real life I'm the benchwarmer with the asthma file who times laps and learns how to be invisible.

That's the hierarchy. Coach at the top. Then the A-relay. Then Karl Maddox above all of them. Then the rest of the team. Then me, somewhere under the bleachers where no one has to remember my name.

Karl is twenty-one. Captain. Three school records. The kind of golden boy who walks into a party and everyone moves for him. For two years he has looked through me in the locker room. That's the deal. Gods don't talk to ghosts.

I only came back because I'd left my inhaler in locker 14. My chest had been tight since dinner. The building was supposed to be empty.

The emergency lights were on low. The sound came from the far row. From locker 7. Karl's.

I pushed the door open.

He had his back to me. Shirtless. His parka was on the floor. His shoulders were shaking, not from cold.

His muscles were moving wrong under his skin. I watched his spine push up in sharp ridges, then settle, like something inside him was trying to get out. His hands were buried in the metal door of his locker. Not holding it. He was using it. His nails, too thick and too dark, were carving four clean gouges down through the steel.

The air smelled like blood and something wild. Like wet fur and ozone right before lightning hits water.

My inhaler slipped. It hit the tile and clattered.

Karl went still.

Then he turned.

His eyes were gold. Not reflecting light. Lit from behind. Blood was smeared at the corner of his mouth. When he breathed out, I saw his canines. Too long for human.

My brain tried to make it normal. Supplements. Contacts. A fight. None of it fit.

He saw me. Recognition flickered, then something colder.

"Ellis," he said. His voice was shredded. "You need to leave."

It was the first time he'd said my name in two years.

I took a step back. My hand found the doorframe. My lungs locked up. Fear and asthma feel the same at first.

Karl pulled his hands out of the locker. The metal groaned. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Did anyone see you come in?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"Use your words."

"No," I said. "No one."

He exhaled. Some of the tension left his shoulders.

"Third night," he muttered. "It's always the third night."

"Third night of what?"

He looked at me. "Before the moon. If I don't bleed it out on something that can't scream, I bleed it out on someone who can."

I turned for the door. I made it two steps.

He was there before I touched the handle. Not fast like a swimmer. Fast like a cut. One hand flat on the door above my head. He didn't touch me. He caged me.

My heart hammered against my ribs.

"Move," I said.

"No," he said calmly. "You run out of here scared, you tell the first person you see. That's how humans work."

"I'm not going to tell anyone."

"Everyone says that," he said. "Then they get a camera out."

I tried to duck under his arm. He shifted and blocked me without effort. He wasn't attacking. He was containing.

My breathing went shallow. I pressed a hand to my sternum without thinking.

Karl's gold eyes dropped to my hand. His nostrils flared.

"You're wheezing," he said.

He stepped back. In two strides he picked up my inhaler, checked it, and held it out. Cap off.

I stared at his hand. The same hand that had just torn steel.

"Take it," he said. "I need you breathing if I'm going to explain why you're still alive."

I took it. Our fingers brushed. His skin was too hot. I took two puffs and the cold hit my lungs.

He crouched so we were eye level.

"Listen to me, Theo," he said. "Human sees a shift on territory, the witness belongs to the wolf who was seen. That's pack law. It keeps us from killing witnesses. It keeps humans from selling videos."

I swallowed. "Belongs?"

"Protection. Responsibility. My problem now," he said. "You saw me, so you're mine to keep quiet. Not the pack's. Mine."

That should have terrified me. It did. But underneath it, something else moved. For two years I'd been invisible. Now the most untouchable guy on campus was saying my name and saying I was his.

"You didn't choose this," I said.

"Neither did you," he said. "You forgot your inhaler."

He glanced at the ruined locker. "Someone laced my water after practice. Not enough to force a full shift, just enough to make sure I lost control in the locker room. They wanted a witness."

My stomach dropped.

"Who?"

"I don't know yet," he said. His jaw tightened. "But they picked the wrong witness."

He stood. He was close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his chest. He leaned in, not to threaten, but to scent. His nose brushed the air just beside my jaw, then lower, to the side of my neck where my pulse was hammering.

He inhaled once, slow and deep.

His whole body went still.

When he spoke, his voice was lower.

"...You smell fucking irresistible."

It wasn't a line. It was a discovery, and it pissed him off.

He pulled back an inch, eyes dark. "That's not normal. Humans don't smell like that to us. Not unless you're compatible."

My breath caught. Not from asthma. Heat shot down my spine. My skin prickled where his breath had touched.

Karl saw it. His gaze dropped to my mouth.

"Tell me to stop," he said quietly.

I didn't.

That was permission.

He closed the distance. One hand slid to the back of my neck, not squeezing, just holding. His thumb pressed against my pulse.

"You've been watching me for two years from behind a stopwatch, Ghost," he murmured. "Did you ever think about what it would feel like if I actually looked back?"

My hands fisted in his parka. "Every practice."

He made a low sound in his chest. He tilted my head back and pressed his mouth to the side of my throat, right over the spot he'd scented. Not a kiss. A claim. Teeth grazing, tongue hot against skin. He didn't break skin. He didn't have to.

My knees nearly gave out. I grabbed his shoulders to stay upright. He was hard everywhere, muscle and heat, and I could feel him shaking with the effort of holding back.

"Third night," he breathed against my neck. "I have just enough control left not to ruin you on this floor."

"Then don't," I whispered. "Don't hold back."

He groaned and pressed his forehead to mine. Our breathing matched. His hand tightened on my neck.

"No," he said. "Not here. Not like this. If I take you, it's not going to be quick and dirty in a locker room while I'm half feral."

He stepped back, putting space between us like it hurt.

"Be at the pool tomorrow at five am," he said. "Not six. Five. Use the service door. Alone."

"Why?"

"Because if you walk into morning practice smelling like me, every wolf on the team will know I found something in my territory during the bleed," he said. "And the ones who set me up tonight will know they found the perfect bait."

He picked up his parka and zipped it over his chest.

"And Theo?" he said at the door.

I looked up, still trying to breathe normally.

"If you don't show, I will come find you. That's not a threat. That's pack law."

The door clicked shut behind him.

I stood alone in the ruined locker room with my inhaler in my hand, my neck still burning from his mouth, and understood that my life as the invisible benchwarmer had ended at 11:07 pm.

Because the Alpha heir had just scented me, claimed me, and left me wanting more, and tomorrow the whole pack would be able to smell exactly what he'd done.