CHAPTER 1

Stable, Claw Mansion

Woodward County, Oklahoma

He said he loved me. He said we’d always be together; that he’d build me a swing under a big weeping willow and we’d sit there every night. That we’d watch the sunset.

Why the hell did I believe him?

I gritted my teeth, jaw aching. Tipping my head to one side, I spit some of the blood still slowly pooling in my mouth. None of my teeth felt loose as I prodded my mouth with my tongue, but I wouldn’t be confident in my assessment until I could look in a mirror — or at least touch my mouth. Instead, I was forced to watch as my saliva slipped through the golden strands of hay at my feet, disappearing onto the wooden stable floor.

I shifted again, rattling the chains that bound me to one of the large beams holding up the barn. I stared at the beam directly across from me, looking for anything that might be of some use…but it was just a plain, ordinary beam. I could practically imagine it still being a tree, it was so large and tall. It was even still circular; whoever raised this barn hadn’t taken the time to plane four straight sides. Why bother? It was perfectly strong as it was.

Which was great, if you were worried about barn construction.

Not so great if someone had bound you to said beam with the tractor chains a person might use to tow a truck out of a ditch. I shifted again, and the cold steel bit into my arms and clutched against my ribs like an overtight hug. The pain blossoming on my left side made me gasp, spots forming before my eyes. The barn seemed to swim around me, like I was looking at it through a film of water. My exhale turned into a whimper and I bit the inside of my lip, trying to keep quiet. The links weren’t going to give. The hooks were arranged properly, too; I couldn’t hear anything that would suggest they were so much as slipping, much less sliding free.

My shoulders dropped and my gaze fell back to the prickly hay beneath me. I was running out of ideas. The side of my face still throbbed. My ribs were complaining with every inhale and moaning with every exhale — but that wasn’t the worst of it. In the middle of my chest, my heart lay in ten thousand tiny shards and slivers. It was a glass trinket dropped from a hundred stories, exploding upon impact.

My eyes burned and my vision went watery again. I sucked in a shaky breath and shook my head. A few hours ago, only a few hours ago, I had thought everything was perfectly fine. I’d still thought I would be getting married — maybe the end of this year, but most certainly by the end of next. I’d thought he was my one and only…and I’d thought he’d felt the same about me. I sniffled and tried to fight back the well of tears. He wasn’t going to make me cry. I wasn’t going to cry, I couldn’t let him make me cry…I racked my mind for anything other than the hurt. Any thought or memory or wish, anything that wasn’t focusing on this.

“Soon, baby, I promise. Soon you’ll be all mine, for the rest of our lives. Nothing will change that.”

I smiled softly as I traced my fingernail over Dave’s broad chest, drawing lines like constellations between his sparse freckles. His chest rose and fell slowly, rhythmically, already settled despite what we had been doing not even five minutes ago. My heart still felt like it was stuttering, trying to figure out how to beat normally after all the attention he had just given me. The thought of it made heat well up in my gut, even if I was nowhere near ready to go again.

I must have twitched, because Dave chuckled underneath me, tucking me beneath one of his arms. His large hand spread across my spine, fingers warm and anchoring as he leaned in to press a kiss to the top of my head. My heart soared and my eyes flickered downwards as I tried to hide my smile.

“How long?” I murmured, finally settling down, my cheek resting against his pec. I splayed my hand across one shoulder, comfortable as I used the man as my pillow.

Dave huffed and I could feel the pillow depress as he lay back. His fingers drummed against my skin. “I don’t have a date or anything picked. I told you, it has to be an organic moment. It takes away from it if you know it’s coming, Luna.”

I smiled at the familiar argument. It was sweet that the man thought he was going to surprise me somehow, but he was my mate. I’d known for the past three years; he’d known for just as long. We had sensed the bond at the exact same moment, after all. Still, there was something endearing about the fact that he wanted to make it somehow more special than it already was. I squeezed him a little closer, feeling affection bubble up in my chest. I felt like a bottle full of soda, ready to burst and fizz over the lid. “You’re so cute,” I murmured. I could practically see him scrunching his nose at the word and giggled, unable to help myself.

“Not cute,” he protested, half-hearted. “Just doing things the right way. I still have to get permission from my father anyways. The alpha has to approve anything, bond or fate or…I dunno. Whatever anyone else does.”

“Dave…”

He shrugged. “Protocol, Luna. And I’m not going to ask my father to do something that might cause strife because it looks like he’s favoring his child.”

I sighed and bit my tongue. This entire song and dance I knew well. I knew Dave was right, that our alpha needed to give his blessing before any sort of official anything were to take place, but it felt like Dave had been dragging this out. I wondered if he was afraid his father might deny us, but I couldn’t see why he would, unless… I bit my lower lip.

There was the illegitimacy of my birth. But I’d lived with my father and our pack since I was twelve years old; even if my parents hadn’t been married or mated or… I don’t know, hand-fasted or whatever, I had been nothing but a loyal, well-behaved member of the pack. (Or I tried my best to be, anyways. I thought I was. I was, wasn’t I?)

“Luna, you’re thinking too loudly.”

I startled, lifting my head to look at Dave. He’d tucked his other hand behind his head, propping himself up to watch me. I opened my mouth to apologize and he laughed, shaking his head. He squeezed me a little closer with the hand settled on the small of my back. “That was a joke, Luna. Seriously, though. I told you I would take care of everything. You trust me, don’t you?”

I couldn’t help myself — I smiled. I just loved when he looked at me like that, his green eyes as warm as the grass on a sunny hill in early summer. That expression made me feel like the only woman in the room — no, the only woman in the world. I cuddled up a little closer, snuggling back against his chest. “Of course I do, babe.” I tugged the blanket over us.

“Then why are you in such a hurry, sweet thing? We have all the time in the world.”

I believed him. For three years, I believed him. I should have been smarter than that. I was smarter than that, but when he smiled at me with those pretty green eyes and perfect white teeth… Hell, I was a damn fool, allowing Dave to string me along like that, but I really, truly had faith in him. In his promises. In our future together.

I opened my eyes as I exhaled and leaned against the column, staring up at the barn’s ceiling. As stupid as I felt now, how was I supposed to see it coming? The other fated mates I’d met in our pack accepted each other openly and publicly, even if they were otherwise private people. The same went for the wolves I’d encountered from other packs. A fated mate bond was just that — fated. I’d never heard of anyone rejecting their mate before, and I’d never heard of anyone being rejected, either. Fights? Sure, all couples fight sometimes. Falling out? Yep. Sometimes they lasted weeks, months even, but in the end, the mated pair always found their way back to each other. They found a way to heal. No ill will was permanent.

The chains jingled softly as I lifted my shoulders, as if to remind me they were still there. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Yeah, yeah, I know. Being chained up by the man you loved? I was pretty damn sure that was the sort of thing that fostered permanent ill will.

Three years ago, I’d thought things would never change.

“Hey, Dave?”

The man beneath me made a sleepy noise and my heart flip-flopped in my chest. I smiled, propping my chin up on his sternum as he murmured his response. “Hm? What’s up, Luna?”

“Would we…would we still be like this, if we hadn’t met when we did? On my eighteenth birthday, I mean.”

His emerald eyes blinked open, and his expression was still soft with sleep. He tipped his head to one side. “Well, yeah,” he said, and dropped his head back down. Clearly, he thought that was answer enough, but I wasn’t satisfied. I squirmed against his side.

Dave exhaled. “You aren’t going to let me sleep, are you, you little minx?”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “Humor me, okay?”

He sighed again, then slung a heavy arm around my middle and pulled me closer. “Don’t you think there’d be a lot fewer fated mates overall if they had to meet when she turned eighteen?” He raised a brow. “Because the bond doesn’t work when he turns eighteen, so that’s one single day across two lifetimes.”

I frowned a little, mouth turning down into a pout. “Well… I guess, but fate’s a pretty powerful thing, isn’t it?”

Dave shrugged one thick shoulder. “I guess? I dunno. It’s not like some hands reached down from the sky and smashed us together.”

“No…”

“I think, actually, some hands were smashing something else.” Dave turned his smirk on me.

I started to turn pink. “You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?” I asked, feeling the skin on the back of my neck prickle. It hadn’t been my best moment. His sister, Sophia, had been nasty to me since we were in elementary school. The conflict had come to a head during our senior year of high school, when I’d edged her out as salutatorian. I’d bumped her off some podium — there was only room for two. Why she didn’t feel robbed by the valedictorian too, I’d never been sure.

I had thought it would be over after we graduated. I hadn’t seen much of Sophia that summer, but on my birthday in late August, I was planning to meet some friends at a local diner for a celebratory dinner. It wasn’t much, but that was the best we had. Who did I run in to on the way but Sophia. She was dead set on humiliating me right there on the sidewalk, as if ruining my eighteenth birthday would somehow make up for the fact that she didn’t get to speak at our graduation.

I never fought in school, and I’d always done did my best to ignore Sophia. I don’t know what changed that day. I didn’t want to hear all the nasty things she had to say — I wasn’t going to hear the things she had to say. When Sophia swung at me, well, I swung right back.

It wasn’t a long fight, but I had gotten a few good punches in before someone hauled me back off Sophia. I’d been so upset, I hadn’t even realized Sophia wasn’t trying to fight back. Someone had hands on her too, separating us even as I continued to kick and swing. I still remember, clear as day, whirling around and coming face to face with those gorgeous green eyes. I’d met Dave before, of course, he’d only been two years ahead in school, but it felt like the first time I had really seen him. My heart skipped three beats and he caught my hand easily, looking more puzzled than any man breaking up a fight ought to.

“Earth to Luna.”

A singsong voice shook me out of the recollection. Dave was wearing a shit-eating grin, pleased as punch. “You’re never going to forget that day either, you know. Because that’s the day you met me.”

“I already knew you.”

“Did you, though?” His grin only widened as he tugged me back into his warm embrace. “C’mon, enough with this. Of course I would have found you. That’s what happens, that’s just what happens. There’s no other way. Now go back to sleep, Luna. I need at least a few damn minutes of shuteye.”

I jerked upright, as if standing could rid me of the memory. Even just this morning, I had considered it a tender moment; something special to treasure as we embarked on the rest of our lives together. Again, I jolted against the chains. They rattled against the wood and dug into my skin. No amount of wiggling seemed to change that.

My cheeks felt hot and my eyes started to prickle, blurring my vision as I sucked in a sharp, shuddering breath, trying to force my lungs to operate normally. Sadness was welling up in the back of my throat like something sticky sweet, something I couldn’t swallow back down no matter how hard I tried. I opened my mouth to yell, to scream, to howl — anything to get someone’s attention and get me out of this freaking barn — and instead a broken sob escaped.

Dave was going to kill me. He’d said I would be put to death, and I knew that would be his doing. He was the alpha. Pack wolves lived and died by the alpha’s whim.

Tears rolled down my cheeks, falling freely off my chin. I heard them drop softly against the hay in the moment of silence before I exhaled another wounded noise. My chest hurt as if someone had punched me, held me down, and beaten me. It was no such thing, but I was starting to believe a person could die of a broken heart. I couldn’t go on like this. I couldn’t live like this, with a Dave-sized hole burned into my chest, leaving me with an empty place and jagged edges.

My heart tripped and stumbled; it felt like my very soul lurched, then went another direction. Like I was on a path, and my feet decided we would all take another trail without my brain’s consent.

Anger joined the sorrow as I slid back down, gritting my teeth until my jaw ached. I had already spent hours crying over this man — over this relationship — hell, I had spent so much of my life crying. Dave was just another member of a long line of assholes who’d ripped my heart out of my chest only to crush it on the sidewalk under a heel. There was Dave’s sister, Sophia. Jared, my weasel of a high school boyfriend. My sophomore history teacher, my half- and step-siblings, my stepmom…even my dad. The last person on that list solicited a soft sigh.

I had thought Dave Claw was the answer to all that misery. I was freshly eighteen, a newly minted adult, and I was certain the world was at my feet. I could get out, and I wouldn’t even have to suffer to do it. I had found my mate. He would be my new family. My found family. My chosen family.

The pack wouldn’t harass me anymore, regardless of the fact that my father had, evidently, sired a daughter before taking a mate and rising to one of the senior positions within the Lupus Claw pack. I didn’t ever see him get bullied, and he was the one actually responsible for my existence.

But it wouldn’t matter. My mate was the future alpha. Even when his father died and Dave took over the pack, I knew it would only get better. Even when he had less and less time for me. Even when he was cold and distant when we met in public, like he hardly knew me. I just looked past it, so confident he would take me as his mate, and everything would be fine.

Shame on me, for swallowing down that lie like that. Shame on Dave, though, for underestimating me so thoroughly. The man didn’t know me at all, for all the time we spent together, and I knew so damn much about him. I’d believed he would save me, but he’d made it abundantly clear he was no savior at all.

He said he loved me. He said we’d always be together; that he’d build me a swing under a big weeping willow and we’d sit there every night. That we’d watch the sunset.

The memory bounced back to the forefront of my mind, but this time, it didn’t dampen my rage — it only stoked it. I wasn’t just going to save myself. “You’ll fucking pay for this, Dave Claw.”