Perfect Illusion
One year ago…
There were approximately fifty-two ways this night could land me in serious trouble, and I was currently risking number forty-seven.
I’d spent an hour brainstorming escape plans before coming here, but looking at him now, every single one left my head.
My eyes narrowed on his tattooed knuckles as his grip tightened over the motorbike handlebars. And not just any bike—a freaking Ducati Panigale V4 R. I didn’t know what made my skin burn hotter: the beauty of the metal gleaming beneath the streetlights or the beast of a man straddling it.
Holy shit.
I was standing inches from Darius Monroe—aka the Savage—in the blazing hot, six-foot-plus, golden, muscular flesh. My skin tingled, though I couldn’t tell if it was nerves or the hunger from skipping lunch and dinner. My heart thudded in an erratic, unfamiliar rhythm inside my chest. Or maybe it was just the insane need to touch him. To let my hands slide over those firm shoulders and—
Heat bloomed across my cheeks at the thought just as an elbow buried itself in my ribcage.
“Move over, Elise, you’re hogging the rail,” my cousin Loren hissed, shoving her way closer to the front barrier. Her long, coffin-style fingernails tapped a frantic, hyped-up rhythm against the metal.
“Seriously, lean back,” her twin brother, Lucas, added from my other side. He grinned, his eyes reflecting the floodlights as he flashed a fistful of crumpled hundred-dollar bills. “I’ve got five hundred bucks on the Savage to take the lead before the transition line. If he loses, you’re going to have to hire me as your stylist or something, because I will literally die of poverty.”
I tore my gaze from Darius for a brief second to meet the twins’. They were seventeen like me, completely unhinged, and currently treating a highly dangerous, cross-border turf violation like a front-row concert.
“We are on enemy territory, you idiots,” I muttered, turning back to resume my drooling fest. “If the Bloodmoon Brotherhood find out who we are, Lucas, your wallet is the least of our problems.”
“Please,” Loren scoffed, tossing a long strand of chestnut hair over her shoulder. “We’re the Alpha’s family. The Black Syndicate doesn’t hide. Besides, look at him. Nobody is looking at us when the Savage is on the grid.”
She wasn’t wrong. He stood in a sea of leather-clad, badass men, but not one of them reached his level of gravity.
A thunderous clap sounded, and the crowd erupted in cheers. Loren grabbed my forearm, her sharp nails digging into my skin with excitement. “They’re about to start! Look!”
“I’m looking,” I laughed, flicking a stray hair from my face and prying her hand away. “And chill. Sheesh. You’re going to maul me to death with those claws.”
Loren propped her hands on her hips and cheered louder, her voice drowning out as the rumble of motorbike engines took over. The vibration sent a prickle of excitement across my skin.
I stood on the tips of my toes to get a better look. I didn’t need to, considering we had snagged a spot in the front row, but I didn’t want to miss the takeoff. It wasn’t every day I got to see the Savage himself at one of these races.
I tilted my head skyward, spotting rows of werewolves lining the rooftops of the buildings. The onyx sky was dappled with the brilliant glow of their eyes, a kaleidoscope of color peering down and leaving warped, mystical shapes in the darkness.
Dropping my gaze back to the street, my attention snagged on a woman standing a few people to our left. She raised her candy-red blouse and flashed her chest toward the bikers. Her shrill voice carried over the crowd despite the noise. “Savage! Hey Savage! Look here, baby!”
Lucas let out a wild whistle beside me, while Loren leaned into my ear, laughing over the noise. “Careful, Elise, if you drool any harder, you’re going to give us away.”
“Please, I’m just appreciating the view,” I huffed, bumping my shoulder against hers playfully. “Stop ruining my vibe, Lor. This is supposed to be fun.”
“Oh, I’m having a blast,” Lucas cut in before Loren could respond, shaking his fistful of cash. “Always more fun when there’s money involved.”
The announcer’s voice barked over the loudspeakers, cutting Lucas off as the bikers lined up, revving their engines into a deafening roar. Most of them blew kisses and waved at the crowd, except for the Savage. He stayed locked in, staring ahead, refusing to glance at the masses once.
Which was one of the many reasons I liked him. He knew what he wanted and didn’t allow his attention to stray.
“Your dad is going to have an aneurysm if he knew what you are up to,” Loren commented with a knowing smirk beside me.
That thought made the moment more exciting. My father, the head of the most feared pack in the territory, would pop a vein if he knew what I was doing. It wasn’t just the fact that we’d broken protocol, or that the event was illegal, or that this was a prime spot for any black market trade-offs.
Nope.
It was because we were on enemy territory. It was worse because I was the Alpha’s underage daughter. Everyone would question my father’s leadership and our family’s strength if his only child got caught in a rival pack’s stomping grounds. He would have a full-on stroke if he found out I was here to cheer on the future Alpha of the Bloodmoon Brotherhood—and drooling over him the entire time.
But I wouldn’t get caught. I refused to let that happen.
Besides, I wasn’t entirely defenseless. My eyes skimmed the crowd on the opposite side of the street and landed on a round man in a gray suit. A cigar dangled from the corner of his mouth, the smoke coiling around his large sunglasses.
Yeah. It was close to midnight, yet this man, one of our family’s “consultants,” would wear those freaking Gucci shades in the planet’s darkest cave. The custom frames featured a leopard pattern in yellow and black diamonds. That eyewear alone cost more than a suburban home.
That man was Dad’s wingman and the Black Syndicate’s Beta, Fat Tony. I had no idea why he was here, but as I scanned the sea of leather and tattoos, more familiar faces emerged from the shadows. The Syndicate was out in force tonight.
As if feeling the weight of my stare, Fat Tony turned his head. His gaze locked onto mine, and he gave a single, curt nod.
Okay, so when I said I wouldn’t get caught, I was referring to the rival packs, not my own. There was no doubt Fat Tony would rat me out to my father by sunrise.
I flashed him a cheesy, innocent grin, but something soft and fluffy smacked against my cheek. A ball of hot pink fluff landed at my feet. I peered around, but the crowd was too fixated on the starting line to notice. I shrugged and snatched up the pompom.
I straightened just as a gunshot cracked through the air. On the rooftops, the wolves went ballistic, their howling drowned out by the roar of the crowd. The bikers took off in a blur of smoke and chrome. I shot one final, hungry look at the Ducati beneath the Savage and sighed. “It was good knowing you,” I whispered.
In a matter of minutes, that gorgeous machine would be scrap metal. That was the draw of werewolf racing—it started on two wheels and ended on four paws. At the halfway mark, the riders shifted mid-motion, shredding their clothes and smashing their bikes to smithereens for extra points. It was a brutal display of power, witnessing beasts that size crush a machine of equal mass.
The pack rounded the track, the thunder of engines vibrating in my teeth as they screamed back toward our side. The moment they hit the transition line, the shift began. Lucas was screaming bloody murder beside me, but my world narrowed down to the Savage.
His hands released the handlebars. The Ducati shot upward, ghosting beneath him as his body surged and expanded. Fur sprouted, bones cracked and reset, and a massive, silver wolf exploded from the shell of the man.
I thrust my arm into the air, waving the pink pompom and bouncing with the twins and the rest of the cheering fans. This was the peak. This was why I had risked my father’s wrath.
My scream of encouragement joined the roar of the crowd, and then, the world slowed. The giant silver wolf twisted his head in my direction. His large, mint-blue eyes found me.
A ripple of electricity jolted through my spine. My hand dropped to my side, the pompom forgotten. The asphalt seemed to shift beneath my feet. In that pocket of silence, our gazes remained locked.
Inside me, my wolf stirred, perking her ears with a sudden, violent clarity. It’s him.
A second later, the Savage crashed snout-first into the asphalt. His Ducati landed beside him with an ear-splitting screech of twisting metal and shattered glass. The street fell into a stunned silence, broken only by the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of the other wolves’ paws as they tore past him to finish the race.
“No, no, no! My five hundred bucks!” Lucas wailed beside me, clutching his hair.
“Well, shit. That’s a first,” a man near him muttered. A bell chimed, and the announcer’s voice crackled over the speakers, declaring a fallen wolf.
The Savage. The unbeatable favorite.
I couldn’t process it. My wolf was frantic, howling in the back of my mind, celebrating a victory I didn’t yet understand.
The crowd parted like a physical wave as a man—completely naked and covered in road grit by the way—pushed himself up from the street. It was the Savage, back in human form, stalking straight toward me.
My body flushed with heat. My heart hammered against my ribs. Beside me, Loren and Lucas finally went dead silent, their cocky, excited expressions completely vanishing as they instinctively took a half-step back.
He stopped inches away, a deep scowl etched into his blood-streaked face. In that proximity, the message from my wolf finally clicked into place.
The Savage was my chosen mate.
A wild, dizzying excitement pulsed through my veins. I managed a slight, shaky smile. I had spent years dreaming of the man the moon would choose for me. Never once had I imagined—
His hand shot out. His fingers locked around my throat, the grip firm and bruising. He surged forward, dragging me flush against his naked, sweating chest until our noses touched.
“I fucking lost because of you,” he snarled.
