Chapter 1
“We can’t take you with us,” Dorian said quietly. “We don’t know what will happen if we are discovered. We will not have the pack to call upon if we run into trouble. We will be lone-wolves, Harper. We can’t ask you to leave your mother, to possibly never see her again. And that is before we even discuss the complications of two mate-bonds, and the fact that we are your step-brothers…”
He closed his eyes again. “I reject you, Harper. I reject the mate-bond between us. I reject you as my mate.”
She felt as if he had struck her in the stomach, her breath exploding from her lungs, leaving them unable to draw in air.
“F-k Dorian,” Gwyn groaned his complaint. “It is wrong to reject a bond.”
“Gwyn,” Dorian turned his head to look at his cousin by blood and brother by adoption. “You know that it’s the right thing to do.”
Gwyn swallowed hard, their eyes locked, true-blue and grey-blue. For a moment Harper thought that Gwyn would rebel, and so did Dorian, she realised, a muscle working in the corner of his jaw and his expression becoming more distraught the longer that Gwyn hesitated.
And then Gwyn sighed. “I reject you, Harper. I reject the mate-bond between us. I reject you as my mate,” he said so quietly and yet the words carried.
“I…” Harper’s throat closed on the words. She should say that she accepted their rejection, and that she rejected them in turn, and yet… “I refuse,” she whispered, and both their faces jerked her way.
Five years Later…
Every table in the club was filled with humans in expensive suits drinking 18-year-old scotch on the rocks and laughing as they relaxed their tie knots.
The men were too busy talking to themselves to really notice the dancers. Being there was a demonstration of masculinity for other men, and not about sexual gratification, however as Harper lifted into the half-moon pose, she saw the first notice her collar and watched the ripple spread out.
Suddenly every male eye was on her, their faces ecstatic as they threw credit coins onto the table and followed them with ribald comments. She saw several catch the manager in passing asking whether she was for sale.
Many human males held a fetish over werewolf slaves and sexual assaults against werewolf women was rife as a result. The werewolf women had quickly learnt that the police did not care to pursue crimes against werewolves, and their own packs tended to be unsympathetic.
There were estates where werewolves lived, and busses that would take them from the estate to the factory district, therefore there was no reason, in most of the pack’s opinion, for a she-wolf to be away from her pack and in a position that a human male could assault her. If she chose to place herself in a vulnerable situation, it was her own fault.
It was unusual as a result for a werewolf to pole dance – most packs in the area were intolerant to that sort of promiscuity and would cast out any she-wolf found to be engaged in it. Harper’s pack was no different, and she kept her workplace secret even from her parents, but she had no fear of being cast out. Her pack needed her too much.
She loved to dance, and the money was good, and so she risked the ire that discovering her employment would raise and did it anyway. A small act of secret defiance.
As she began a shoulder mount spin into a back hook, she saw them enter and felt the shock pass through her as if a current ran into the pole that she grasped. Dorian Hemming and Gwyn Randal in the flesh, she thought as she continued through her routine hoping that the swish of her hair and the lighting somehow hid her face from them, or that time and makeup made her unrecognisable.
They could still pass as brothers, she thought, watching them from the corner of her eye. In fact, when she had first joined the Hemming pack, she had thought that they were. Gwyn, an orphan, had been taken in by Dorian’s pack-leader father, Connery, at a young age and the two boys had been raised together.
Both men were black haired and blue eyed. Gwyn’s eyes were a darker, more steely grey-blue, compared to Dorian’s sky blue. Strong jawed, high cheek-boned, and both dressed in complimenting suits, they could have been twins, were it not for subtle differences in nose and brows. Half brother’s was the theory in the pack to explain Connery’s generous adoption. Very few people knew that they were actually second cousins, as the cousin that had sired Gwyn denied it.
It was a mark of Connery’s nature that, despite the strict and often judgemental morals of the pack, he had exposed himself to speculation and rumour in order to show mercy for the young son of a cousin who would not claim his wrong-doing.
Her number ended and she slid forward onto her knees, scooping up the credits and avoiding the grasping hands, until she could retreat backstage. She deposited her tips into the box, watching the credits creep up, closer to her limit.
Werewolves could only earn a certain amount before their earnings became capped, the amount calculated precisely to ensure that they remained in indebted servitude throughout their lives, with earnings barely meeting cost of living, and the interest on their societal debt stripping that into destitution.
“Private box wants you,” Dwayne the manager stopped behind her.
“I don’t do private,” she protested.
He flicked his fingers against the collar that she wore. “This says otherwise. Good tippers, sweet cheeks. In cash.”
She chewed on her bottom lip, the cash earnings temptation, even if the price of them would be steep. “Dance only?” She checked.
He raised his eyebrows. “That’s all they’ve negotiated for. I know better than to contract you for sex,” he snorted his disdain. “Though for a f-king werewolf you are f-king selective about what the f-k you do for cash.”
“Which booth?” She decided to get it done quickly, so that she could catch the earlier bus before the drunks out for Friday jollies began to head for home. It was illegal to hide her collar, but displaying it made her a target for assault, so the bus journey was always fraught with danger, and she would huddle in the back hoping that no one would look her way. So far, she had been lucky to get away with no more than a few gropes, but she knew it was just a matter of time.
“Number one, of course. Nothing but the best for these two.”
She blew out her fringe. A sign of good cash tippers, she hoped. “Fine.”
She fixed her makeup in the mirror and sprayed herself to disguise the werewolf pheromones that would linger on her skin. Even humans weren’t immune to a werewolf in heat, and she was on the edge of ovulation, she judged, which meant that she would not be able to work for the next three days.
She crossed the club floor, picking a path that would carry her to box one without passing within reaching distance of any of the tables, and eased through the heavy curtains that screened off the interior.
Dorian Hemming and Gwyn Randal looked up at she entered, and she felt the mate bond flare into instant life.
When werewolves were “outed” and the humans had responded by stripping them of wealth, privileges, and collaring them to prevent them from shifting, Dorian and Gwyn had decided to abandon family and pack and masquerade as human, causing Connery to reject them, hurt by their decision.
For five years, they had vanished without a trace.
And now, here they were, in a private booth having booked her for a dance. Her step-brothers by marriage and adoption, and her mates by the taboo bond that bound them and that she refused to reject, although they both had done so.
Both were, if anything, better looking as men grown - their shoulders and arms straining the sleeves of their suits, their waists narrow, their thighs powerful. She imagined that bare they were breath taking.
She sneered at them. “Well, what will it be? I don’t f-k or suck, so don’t even think about it.”
“Harper,” It was Dorian that spoke, the more dominant of the two alpha werewolves. “We aren’t here for… that.”
She saw Gwyn slide him a glance and the slightest lift of the second man’s eyebrows. Gwyn, at least, wasn’t averse to a dance, she thought, with a hint of amusement… and a shadow of fascination. They had always fascinated her, even when she had been a child and they were long-limbed, coltish teens just beginning to fill out into manhood.
“Then what are you here for?” She demanded. “Because my time isn’t free Dorian.”
Gwyn reached into his breast pocket and laid a stack of paper notes out on the table. There had to be a thousand dollars there, she thought with a rush of excitement and dread. A thousand dollars would pay her, and her parent’s debt for the month, allowing them to have some excess from their wages towards essentials such as vitamins and shoes.
“Well, I, for one, am up for a dance,” Gwyn said, and his look to Dorian was challenging. “If it will smooth the way.”
“Gwyn,” Dorian murmured. “It’s…”
“It’s what?” Gwyn replied quietly, and they held eyes for a long moment. “Dorian would like a dance, too,” Gwyn turned his steely gaze back to Harper. “Please.”
Dorian reached into his breast pocket and emptied the clip onto the table.
Harper swallowed hard.
