Chapter One

RAYA

I had been watching the house for a while when the boom of thunder echoed over the dark rims of the overcast sky.

“Shit,” I swore under my breath, hefting the rucksack of groceries from the flea market higher over my shoulder and jerking the leather hood of my father’s old trench coat over my face.

I must not have been quick enough, because the whoosh of wind whipping back the hood as I darted across the garbage-strewn streets on my tiptoes had me letting out an embarrassing scream.

I clamped a hand over my mouth, my eyes wide as I glanced at the house again, feeling for all the world like I had sung a bad rendition of donkey kong.

Had he heard me? Images of the stout beefcake of a man and the imposing deep V of his eyebrows flashed before my eyes as I fiddled with the back door lock on the cottage house as the patter of rain pounded noisily behind me.

My heart beat a frantic rhythm in my chest when I realized the tapping noise I’d heard earlier was the sound of footsteps. Someone was coming around the side of our house!

It couldn’t have been the beefcake of a man with angry eyebrows! I’d seen him stumble into the house with a bottle in hand! I’d made sure he was asleep!

“Shit!” I cursed again, loud enough this time, that I could hear myself over the din of rain as I burgled into my father’s house, snapping the door shut beside me and waiting for my eyes to adjust to the yellow halo of the hurricane lamp that was dying on the mantle sill of the furnace.

The plates from last night’s dinner were still stacked in greasy piles on top of the small wooden cube of the dinner table.

I sighed, the weighty knee of exhaustion ground against my spine as I tossed the rucksack to the side, turning to glance at the side of the house through the dirt-streaked mirror before occurring back when a man’s broad face stared back at me.

“Saints!” I shrieked, aware of the sharp rise and fall of my chest as I watched the man’s fat hand shoot up to motion to the door, a nagging feeling started in the pit of my stomach as I hesitated.

What to do? I couldn't very well let him in to barrel through the house. Not when I was hiding from the man snoring away in the other room.

I felt my tongue dart out to lick my lips as I cracked the door open a notch, still careful to leave the safety latch hooked, not that he couldn't break through it easily.

The tree trunk of the man’s knee was bigger than the size of my head, the stranger looking even taller as he darkened our doorway, looking into the house over my head before I cleared my throat questioningly and his eyes snapped back to me.

“Raya Banks?” The stranger growled, the ominous rumble of his voice sounding exactly how I thought it would. Foreboding. I felt a shiver run through the length of my spine.

How did he know my name? I let my head fall in a nod, watching him shift his stance so that it was almost suffocating standing so close to him.

”Where is your father?” The question was so harsh it surprised me.

Could he hear the bear-sized man snoring inside? I let my gaze rake over the man once more. He didn't look like one of the traditional werewolves, but they were so advanced these days that it was impossible to say for sure.

I could see the clean skin of his head was tatted, and so was the open v-line of his manly chest.

I swallowed a curse under my breath. What had my father dragged us into now?

“H-he's not in, hasn't been around these here parts for a week now.” I sang, flinging my hand behind me as though he could see. I watched the piercing gray of his gaze roam through the crack in the door before they settled unnervingly on me.

“Is that right?” He drawled, and the chill was back in my spine.

I nodded disjointedly, making to close the door before I watched with horror as the man’s foot stuck out to brace the opening so that for a moment, I thought he meant to push the door open after all.

“You tell him to call this number when he comes in,” The bald man with tattoos on his skinhead grunted, holding out a surprisingly glossy call card that I snatched up gratefully, allowing myself a small exhale.

“You have a good night ma’am,” He whispered, taking one last sweeping glance above my head before he put the black cotton of a face cap back on and disappeared out of sight into the grey darkness.

I let my shoulders sag, slapping the door shut and latching it only to turn around and catch the fuzzy oblong of my father’s head peeking from the corner of the hallway.

“Christ,” I grated, swallowing another scream.

“What did he say? Has he left?” He rasped, and I jolted when I realized how close his voice sounded, turning to see the large bulk of my father’s frame was hunched over, the bottle rim now pinched loosely in his hands.

“Yes, father, what have you done now? The Alpha father? Really?” I needled, the spike of bitterness surging in my heart curdled when I watched his head snap toward me, recognition staining his beady eyes until the swollen skin around his sockets tightened and puckered.

“You, how dare you talk to me like that?” My father grated, baring the yellowed squares of his teeth at me so that I stumbled back a step, whimpering raising my hands to brace against the ceramic plate he threw at me.

“Useless! That’s what you are!” He bellowed, and I could see in his beady eyes, the moment he snapped. The grey pallor of his face darkened into a mask of hate as he towered over me.

“Father, please,” I whispered, gulping reflexively as the bulk of his arm came swinging down and I squeezed my eyes shut, letting out a scream when it connected with the side of my head, sending a blinding pain bouncing between my temples.

I gasped, my mouth dry as I heaved frantic breaths, scrambling away as he stalked toward me, the honeyed green of his hazel eyes blazing.

“You are a disgrace, Raya, get out of my sight.” He sneered, the tight pinch of his lips turned down around the corners as he started down his nose at me making something vile and bitter twist in my heart before I nodded, getting up to stumble up the narrow staircase to my room.

“Goddamn bastard can't do anything right! I should have had your whore of a mother abort you while I still had the chance!” He roared, and I choked back a strangled sob, groping blindly for the doorknob of my room door before my fingers caught on the cool steel and I turned it with a soft click.

I could still hear the muted growl of his baritone through the wooden floorboards, but it was distant now, I was tucking myself away, into the box, into the darkness, the quiet place in my mind where nothing could hurt me.

Not anymore.