chapter 2

Anna

Three years later

It was the third time in an hour that Danny’s hands accidentally brushed across my ass.

There was no point in glaring at him or pushing his hand away. He’d just give me a sleazy grin and mouth sorry. It was just a show for the customers, or at least those customers who didn’t know who I was. When we were alone, he didn’t even bother with the fake apology.

He didn’t have to apologize to me. I didn’t deserve it.

So I ignored him as I pulled the wine out of the cooler beneath the bar and smiled at the customer in front of me. “Our chicken caprese sliders would go great with this wine,” I said as I pulled the cork. After pouring his glass, I nudge the menu in front of him.

“Caprese, huh,” he grunted as he eyed me, the gleam of his wolf front and center. I didn’t need my own wolf to tell me that he was more powerful than me. Everyone was more powerful than me, but he wouldn’t touch me. This wasn’t his territory, and he had no idea who I was.

Shifter politics aside, he was a customer, and I was his bartender. “This used to be a simple cheeseburger joint.”

“Yup. That was also when we just served beer.” I tapped one manicured red nail against the wine glass. “But here you are, enjoying our expanded menu. Our new cook can do some amazing things with chicken.” Although he was also a complete and utter asshole. “If you’re worried that the meal is a little too fancy, we can always add a basket of our amazingly greasy fries.”

Snorting, he nodded. “Alright. Sounds good, sweetheart. I don’t think I’ve seen you here before. What’s your name?”

“Anna.” I moved to the computer to ring in his order. “I’ve been here for three years.”

“Three years, huh? I guess it’s been a while since I’ve swung back by here. You one of Jax’s?”

My hand slipped, and I hit the wrong key. Cursing under my breath, I fixed it and took a deep breath. “I sure am.”

Jax Bishop. Owner of The Fanged Smiles bar. Alpha of the Black Diamond Valley wolf shifters.

Alpha of me.

Most wolves were loyal to their alphas. Submissive. Protective. Proud. Black Diamond was no different. They acted like Jax was a god. The males wanted to be his right-hand man.

The females wanted to fuck him.

Scratch that. If rumors were to be believed, most of the females had fucked him. They wanted to mate with him.

Too freaking bad for them. Jax Bishop already had a mate. Me. Much to both of our dismays.

“Hard to believe he’d hide a pretty little thing like you in this little corner of his world,” the customer continued. “I don’t smell a wolf on you.”

It was all I could do to not roll my eyes. He was just another idiot who thought a female was only good for taking cock. “I like my little corner of the world,” I lied and shifted to avoid Danny’s wandering hands.

Truth be told, the bar wasn’t so bad. It sure beat the hell I’d been living with most of my life. Problem was that the bar had been run by a decent man. When Parker Hewitt was manager, he’d done the least decent thing a male wolf could do around a girl like me.

He’d kept his hands off me and made sure everyone else had done the same.

Unfortunately, Parker was dead. Two weeks now. I hadn’t even had time to mourn him properly. I was too busy fighting off Danny and the other assholes in the restaurant.

Instead of letting me go, Danny moved with me toward the beer taps and snaked a hand around my waist to pull me up against him.

“She’s Dirk Kipling’s daughter,” Danny said.

Cold slithered through me at the sound of my father’s name. The customer’s eyes widened, and he leaned forward, fascinated. “Is she now?”

Ah, even three years later, my father still held onto his reputation as the monster of Shadowed Moon Mountains. Kidnapping and murdering his way through his own pack. Failure after failure. Until he took three children.

And kidnapped the wrong female.

Everyone still hated him. Everyone still hated me.

Of course, most knew why he hadn’t killed me. I was his mate. The wolf his wolf had chosen to be faithful and loyal to.

Bullshit, if you ask me. Jax let me live because he liked having me as a prisoner.

He’d set me up here. At the time, it had been a dirty hole in the wall where even shit-faced drunks didn’t sit down without sliming sanitizer all over their hands. The night Jax had all but thrown me into the bar, Parker met him out front. He was an old and grizzled man even then.

Jax said a few words to Parker and walked away without a second glance back. I figured he was giving me to Parker. Like, literally. Instead, Parker set me up in the small apartment above the bar and left me alone.

After about six months of not knowing what the hell I was supposed to do, I figured I’d focus on the bar. A year later, I’d really turned the place around.

It became a hub for shifters passing through, whether they were Black Diamond wolves or not. We even started getting some of our own as regulars, although most came to enjoy the good food and harass me.

“I’d heard that Jax let her live. You working off your father’s crimes, little girl?”

My wolf threatened to surface, but I shoved her down. When he reached for me, I snagged the knife next to him and embedded it into the wood, right next to his pinky finger. With a gasp, he jerked his hand back. “First of all,” I said calmly. “I’m no little girl. If that’s your fantasy, you let me know, and I’ll show you just how much of my father I have in me. Secondly, there is nothing that would make me spread my legs for you. Do you understand?”

“Anna,” Danny growled and pulled me away. “Is that any way to treat the customers?”

His hand curved over my hip, and I turned and slammed the palm of his hand against his nose. Blood spurted out, and his growl turned feral. When he turned to me, his eyes glowed gold.

“On your knees,” he howled. “Now.”

I couldn’t control her anymore. I’d gone too far, and now my wolf, always prickling just below my skin, rushed forward. Her fear overwhelmed me, and I hit my knees and exposed my neck.

Luckily, I didn’t let her out. I never let her out. She was just as trapped as I was.

“Bitch. Beg for my mercy.”

I tried to will the wolf away, to ignore her submissive behavior, but tears pricked my eyes. “Forgive me. Please,” I whimpered.

He was my superior when it counted the most, and like everyone else, he could order my wolf. When she was this close, there was nothing that I could do to stop it.

Dirk had broken her to the point that she couldn’t stand up to anyone, and I was at her mercy.

The front door opened, and Danny looked up. I couldn’t see over the counter, but I knew exactly who had walked in. Not because Danny and the customer both bowed their heads in reverence. Not because I recognized his scent or the sound of his voice.

But because of the way my wolf shivered inside of me, keened with want and desire. It was all I could do to keep myself from launching over the counter and wrapping my body around him.

Can’t stand a man’s touch but his, and the man hated me with every bone in his body.

Really, my life was the stuff of dreams.

Sitting at the bar, Jax plucked the knife out of the wood and rubbed his finger over the gash. “Hello, Anna. I see you’ve settled right in.”