Prologue
They stumbled down the hall together, eager to get away from the company of the rest of the pack, and even more eager to get one another alone in the dark.
He’d lost his overshirt somewhere in the hallways, uncaring that it was left behind.
They were too wrapped up in holding each other so tightly, it was almost painful. When they reached a door, he didn’t even bother to check what room they were going into.
It was just the first one with a lock. He made sure to flip it closed as she yanked him in closer.
She smelled incredible. She had for days, and just the thought of having her to himself, finally, was enough to make his erection strain against the seam of his pants.
She was of much the same mind; despite her best efforts, she was drawn to him like water rolling downhill into the sea, and her desire felt as deep and powerful as the ocean.
She was drowning in it, and she was going to take him with her.
He would go with her willingly to their mutual destruction.
Bree Forrester’s left hand tangled in Kieran Alder’s dark hair, while her right raked fingernails down his side.
She could feel his musculature, the density of it, and he knew it. The two of them were pressed together in the darkness, but he could feel the lines of her body.
He could see her with his hands as they slid under her shirt.
Bree shuddered. Her thighs jerked open, then clamped closed. He laughed into her neck, and she bit at him with her little hybrid teeth.
“As though you could ever be Luna,” Kieran said, his breath hot on her neck.
He’d made short work of her overshirt, exposing her vulnerable throat and collarbones. The more layers he tore away from her, the more his head clouded and spun, just as hers did.
“You? A hybrid with a child out of wedlock? What respectable Alpha would even consider taking you?”
“Seems to me like you don’t care,” Bree panted, pressing her body up as she tightened her fist in his shirt and pulled hard enough that they could both feel the seams straining.
He laughed into her hair, and Bree loathed him, the arrogant bastard—but the smell of him, warm and spiced, was overwhelming. “Seems to me like you’ll settle for a hybrid with a bastard child.”
He dragged her away from the wall, hands moving from beneath her shirt to fist in her red hair. She grinned up at him as they made their way to the bed, biting and clawing at one another.
She hated him, but resisting him wasn’t worth it, not when they landed on the bed and his weight was solid and hot between her legs, pressing down on her thighs as no other man had ever done.
“You’d be lucky to be a whore,” he snarled, biting at her lip as she dug her nails into the back of his neck. “Is that what you were doing, out there with those filthy humans? Whoring yourself?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she snapped, even as she strained up toward his body. “Not that it’s any of your business—”
Kieran’s hands took both sides of her button-up and ripped it open. Bree nearly shouted, shoving at him so hard, she managed to get a thigh between their bodies and push him to one side.
He landed on his back on the mattress, and she leapt on top of him, whereupon he smirked at her, hands sliding around her trim waist.
“Just where I want you,” he said. She reached out to slap him, but he caught her wrist and pulled her down to his body. She went, teeth gritted.
He did not kiss her—he would never kiss her—but he fisted a hand in her hair and forced it back to give him her neck.
Her thighs tightened on either side of him, and he could feel how warm she was, how willing despite her words, despite how she shoved and pushed at him.
Bree smelled incredible, and Kieran had no intention of letting her leave this room before he could have her.
“You arrogant bastard,” she said, low and rasping at his attention to her throat. “Like I’d ever be your partner, like you’d ever deserve—”
“You don’t have to be my partner for me to fuck you,” he said. His teeth grazed across her neck even as her words filled him with a potent rage.
This hybrid thought she was above him? Him? More than just the Alpha, the Alpha King? Highest in their order, while she was little more than the lowest of the low?
“Just warm and willing. And you are willing, aren’t you, Bree Forrester?” he asked, sucking at her throat, one hand going down the back of her pants to squeeze at her backside. “I can smell it.”
Bree wanted to be able to say no. She wanted to tell him he was an arrogant, murderous prick, that she’d rather die than let him take her, but the words wouldn’t come.
They were washed out by her want for him, by how his touch set her skin off sparking.
“Like you’re any better,” she hissed, shifting her weight to press her hips down against the bulge in his pants. He grunted and bucked upwards, his shirt sliding up his body.
Bree forced her hands beneath it, pushed it further up his chest to expose his tanned skin, its complexion darkened with all the sunlight he got. She spread her fingers and felt his heart beating.
When she opened her eyes, he was staring at her, his eyes golden and flashing.
She glared at him, all ferocity and bared human teeth, but she didn’t stop him from pushing her upright and tearing her shirt over her head. She shook out her hair as she sat back, a wild mane of dark red curls hanging around her chest.
It tickled his skin as she bent forward, planted her hands on either side of his head, and grinned.
“Admit it. You want this rogue bitch just as much as any proper she-wolf. More,” she pressed her body to his here, “since I’m the one in your bed.”
“I’ll take whatever body I prefer,” he snapped. “You’re just the one laying here tonight.”
It was a lie, and they both knew it.
Their attempts to resist one another had only made the attraction worse, like trying to keep two magnets from coming together when only a thin piece of cloth was between them.
“I’m so honored,” she mocked, pushing herself up. She reached to unfasten her bra, and when she tossed it to one side, turning back to him, he was staring at her again.
His focus was all-encompassing. Bree shuddered at the feeling of power it gave her; this man, this Alpha, this Alpha King, was so hot, so hard, because he wanted her.
Because she was what he wanted, whether they admitted that or not.
“Do you like what you see, your majesty?” she asked, leaning back to offer a full view of her body. He took her in, head spinning with the scent of her.
Like summer. She smelled like summer, and he could almost taste it as he pulled her down by the waist. Their faces were so close.
He looked at her eyes, which were a brilliant and shining green, like birch leaves in the sun. Their lips were barely touching. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t kiss her.
She’d promised herself she wouldn’t let him.
Their mouths slid together, tongues slipping into each other’s mouths.
Bree couldn’t hold back the moan that forced itself up from her gut, her desire so overpowering, it made her dizzy. Kieran’s soft sound was a harmony to it, low and desperate.
When they parted, Kieran’s hands were down the back of her pants, and she was getting up onto her knees.
“Take them off,” she panted, planting her hand on his chest. “Take them off, damn you—”
Kieran didn’t bother to ask if she was sure, or if this was what she wanted. He could smell that it was, and if she was a whore, then he was little better for desiring her so deeply.
But he had to have her.
Her summer-wind smell only grew stronger as he pushed her pants down her body. She wriggled out of them, and he took the chance to shove her down onto the bed, forcing her up towards the headboard.
She fought him, but only for a moment.
He, on all fours above her, his body rolling hers up with her thighs spread around his clothed hips, leaned down to nip her jaw.
“Fuck,” she grunted, arching up. “Fuck.”
Kieran found a soft spot on her neck to suck while she squirmed. He let her get used to the sensation of her body under his, all open for him, nothing between them but a few layers of cloth.
She could feel him, the shape of him.
“You’ll never be Luna, Bree Forrester,” he whispered into her ear.
“Like I’d want to be tied to you,” she said, shivering. “You—”
‘Self-serving, murderous son of a bitch,’ she was going to say, but then his lips were on hers, and she forgot how to speak.
It wasn’t the first time he’d done that to her. Sometimes, he would look at her, and the air would leave her lungs, making her struggle to breathe under his golden gaze.
But he, too, knew the feeling of drowning. Bree was strong and angry, stubborn and fierce, and despite the fact that she was little more than dirt in their society, she butted heads with him.
She defied him, challenged him, and if nothing else, he had to possess her. She had to be his, even if she was never anything more than a bed warmer.
Kieran slowly rolled his hips. He watched the way Bree’s eyes rolled back, felt her moan heat his belly.
He took one of her hands and led it to his belt. She started to sit up, taking in a breath, surely to rage...
But they stared at one another.
There, in the dark, the Alpha King stared at the rogue hybrid.
She was a lone bitch that wasn’t even a member of any pack, who lived as a human, who was raising her bastard daughter as a human, who had denied her the heritage that was rightfully hers.
And for what? Her pride?
“Take them off,” he said.
Her face twisted with rage.
He wanted to mock her, to remind her that she was the one who had unclothed herself, so the least she could do was unclothe him, but her hands fumbled at his buckle, tugging and pulling.
She managed to get it open, shaking as her hands began to open up his pants.
He pushed up onto his knees and yanked his undershirt over his head, dropping it to the bed and watching her. She pushed his pants down and away.
“Those, too,” he said. “Those too, Bree.”
Bree looked up at him, summer eyes through autumn hair, and got up on her own knees in front of him.
She knew she would never be equal to him—he was huge, muscular and broad—but she faced him as she pushed down his underclothes.
She felt him on her hip, then closed her eyes.
He bent over to bite into her throat, and she dug her fingernails into his sides, hoping that before this was over, she would be able to make him bleed.
