The storm had been stalking the city all day. By the time night fell, the sky looked like a battlefield, raging with bright lightning and loud thunder. Glass towers shuddering under wind, lightening kept striking.
On the forty-fifth floor of Lycaon Global, a boardroom full of men in suits pretended they weren't afraid. They whispered about quarterly losses, mergers, hostile takeovers, magazines and the growth of the company. They spoke the language of money.
Until the doors opened.
Damian Blackthorne walked in unannounced with no assistant trailing behind him, no unnecessary noise. Just the sound of his slow steps made from his black shiny Chelsea boots. He wore an expensive Armani suit with a Rolex watch and held a high chin. Well, only that his clothes were soaked. He dragged his eyes across all corners of the room but somehow kept a fixated gaze at the table of boardmen. He was confident.
He didn't speak at first. He didn't need to. He shrugged off the storm-soaked coat that clung to his shoulders, laid it across the chair at the head of the table, and looked at them with eyes that seemed almost too sharp. Eyes that caught the light wrong, as if something inside them gleamed gold.
"Gentlemen," he said, voice quiet but heavy, a blade laid flat on a table. "You've been circling like vultures. Consider this your reminder: I am not dead."
One of the suits — Mr. Forbes, regional director, smug and nervous — cleared his throat. "The reports, Mr. Blackthorne. Market downturn. Investors demanding answers. If Lycaon Global can't deliver—"
Damian's gaze cut across him. A silence dropped into the room like lead. The storm cracked outside the glass, and for a moment the reflection on the windows showed something that wasn't human at all. Broad shoulders, a shadow with fur and teeth behind the glass. Then lightning flashed, and it was gone.
Forbes swallowed the rest of his sentence.
Damian allowed himself the faintest smile. "You think I built an empire to watch it fall because of numbers on paper? Lycaon is not a corporation. It is a kingdom. And kingdoms endure." He leaned forward, the stormlight sketching lines of menace across his jaw. "If anyone here doubts that, I will accept your resignation tonight. But understand this—" his voice lowered, dangerous, intimate, "—once you walk away, there is no coming back."
No one moved. No one breathed, not even a cough. One could easily pick up the sound of a falling pin.
Damian straightened. "Good." He adjusted his cufflinks, turned, and walked out. The boardroom exhaled as though they'd all been holding breath too long.
He left them rattled. That was the point. Fear was cheaper than loyalty, and far more reliable.
The elevator doors closed behind him with a soft chime. The storm outside pressed harder against the glass. And deep in his chest, under the perfect suit and sculpted control, the wolf stirred — restless, impatient, hungry.
Not for blood. Not tonight.
For her.
---
Selene Armitage hated late trains. They had a way of turning an already-long day into a slow form of torture. Everywhere was stuffy and the storm wasn't making things better.
She was tucked into a corner seat, one hand clutching her overstuffed messenger bag, the other wrapped around a paper cup of coffee that had gone cold two stops ago. The carriage rattled and squealed, neon ads flickering overhead, passengers hunched in with tired faces from their days jobs.
She could still hear her boss's voice ringing in her ears: "Draft the revisions. Triple-check the numbers. Have them on my desk before sunrise." She was exhausted, unpaid, overtime aches, all this fr a mere human.
The train jerked, and Selene's bag tumbled into the aisle. Papers spilled everywhere — budgets, forecasts, pie charts in neat black-and-white. She muttered under her breath, scrambling to gather them before the tide of shoes could trample them flat.
That's when it happened.
The carriage lights flickered once. Twice. And then cut out entirely, plunging the train into black.
Someone gasped. A phone screen flared blue. The air shifted, charged, like everyone in the city were holding their breathes.
Then she felt it — a weight in the dark. Not a person. Something else. A pressure crawling over her skin, primal and sharp, like being watched by eyes she couldn't see but knew were there.
The lights snapped back on. Everyone blinked, uneasy. The train squealed to a halt at the next station. Selene gathered her papers, heart pounding too fast for no reason she could explain.
She told herself it was nothing. Just nerves, exhaustion, a long day catching up to her. She didn't notice the figure standing on the platform as she stepped off — tall, sharp suit, storm-dark eyes that followed her like a predator tracking prey.
She didn't notice that those eyes glinted faintly gold in the neon light.
---
The city seemed restless. The storm gathered. And the wolves could already smell the change in the air.
The elevator hummed downward, forty-five floors of steel. Damian stood motionless, but inside, the wolf pressed at his ribs like fists on a locked door.
She's close.
He ignored it. He'd been ignoring it for weeks. The mate bond was a leash he didn't ask for, one fate thought it funny to slap on his neck. He didn't need it. Didn't want it. A human mate would only make him weaker in the eyes of the Council.
But the wolf didn't care about politics or appearances. It cared about heat, scent, blood. It cared about her.
The elevator dinged. Damian stepped into the lobby of Lycaon Global. Gleaming marble floors, black glass walls, a reception desk manned by humans who didn't know the empire they worked for was ruled by monsters. The storm outside pressed against the windows, rain streaking down relentlessly.
"Mr. Blackthorne," the receptionist said with a nervous smile, pushing her glasses higher. "Your car's waiting."
He nodded once, already walking. His stride cut the lobby in half, people parting instinctively, as if some animal instinct warned them he was not to be touched.
Outside, the city greeted him like a beast. Neon lights bled into the wet pavement. Thunder rolled overhead. His driver stood at the curb, his umbrella was ready, so was his black sedan gleaming under rain.
And then he froze.
The wolf surged against his chest, nearly cracking his control. His head turned sharply. Across the street, through the blur of rain and headlights, a figure hurried along the sidewalk. Small. Fragile. Human.
Selene Armitage.
He didn't know her name yet. Didn't know her story. But he knew her. Every cell in his body screamed it. His heart hammered once, hard. The bond snapped taut like a wire, pulling him forward.
She glanced up at that exact moment. Their eyes met across the chaos of the street.
And everything stilled.
The storm fell silent. The city lights seemed to fade. For one second, there was nothing but her wide, startled eyes, and the wolf in him howling recognition.
Then a horn blared. A taxi roared between the and he moment shattered.
When the street cleared, she was gone.
Damian stood in the rain, curled his fists fists and the wolf snarling inside. He wanted to chase her. Wanted to drag her back, mark her, make the bond permanent. Instead, he turned away, climbing into the waiting car.
"Home," he told the driver, voice rougher than he liked.
The sedan pulled into traffic. Damian watched the city roll past, but his reflection in the glass wasn't human anymore. Yellow eyes stared back at him, burning.
She's close and she's mine.
He shut his eyes. "Not yet," he whispered.
---
Selene fumbled her apartment keys with shaking fingers, finally shoving the door open and stumbling inside. She kicked the door shut, dropped her bag on the floor, and leaned back against the wall, heart hammering.
What was that? That man on the other side of the street. His eyes. She'd never seen anything like them — glowing, impossible, terrifying and magnetic all at once. For a second she thought she'd imagined it. But her body didn't feel like imagination. It felt like she'd stood too close to lightning.
She pressed a hand to her chest, trying to steady herself. "Get a grip, Selene," she muttered. "You're tired. Overtime's melting your brain. That's all."
Her apartment was small, barely more than a box — secondhand furniture, thrift-store curtains, an old radiator, her little but comfortable bed and other crappy items. She moved to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of water, and stared out the rain-streaked window.
Somewhere out there, in the storm, he was still moving. She didn't know who he was, but she knew with a certainty that shook her — this wasn't the last time their paths would cross.
Selene drank the water. The glass trembled slightly in her hand. For the first time in years, she felt like prey.
---
Damian didn't sleep that night.
The penthouse was quiet, dead quiet. He stood on the balcony, rain soaking his shirt, the wolf restless under his skin. Every instinct screamed at him to hunt. To find her. To end the waiting.
He lit a cigar instead, smoke curling into the storm. His kingdom stretched out below him — skyscrapers, bridges,money and sin. He had fought for all of it. Killed for it. He would kill again.
But the bond had changed the game. Fate had tied him to a human girl who didn't even know what he was. And sooner or later, she would.
The storm cracked open above him, lightning splitting the sky. Damian bared his teeth. The war was already circling him, rivals testing his borders, the Council waiting for weakness.
And now, he had one.
Her.
—-
The storm passed sometime after midnight, leaving the city washed and raw. Streets glistened under sodium lamps, drains gurgled with runoff, and steam curled from subway grates like the breath of something sleeping beneath.
Selene was still awake.
Her laptop glowed on the kitchen table, surrounded by papers spread like battlefield maps. The numbers blurred if she looked at them too long, but she couldn't stop. That was the curse of being good at her job — the company always asked for more. Always expected her to bleed hours into work that no one would thank her for.
She stretched, wincing at the tight pull in her shoulders, and checked the time. Nearly two in the morning. Her boss wanted the revisions delivered to Lycaon Global headquarters before sunrise. Of course he did. Because why not send the lowest-ranked analyst on an errand designed for humiliation?
She groaned, buried her face in her hands for a moment, then packed everything into her bag. If she left now, she could drop it off at reception, sneak home before dawn, and collapse for maybe three hours of sleep. It wasn't living. But it was surviving.
She didn't notice the shadows in the street outside her window. Didn't notice the way two pairs of eyes glowed faintly in the dark, watching her. Following her.
---
Across the city, Damian's phone buzzed. He answered without looking at the screen.
"What?"
A voice crackled through, low and sharp. "They're moving against you. Council's whispering. Rivals smell blood."
Damian exhaled smoke into the dim light of his study. The penthouse around him was more fortress than home — black stone, steel lines, windows that gave a predator's view of the city below. He had earned every inch of it through cunning and blood. And he intended to keep it.
"Let them whisper," Damian said.
"You don't understand. They know." The voice paused. "About her."
A stillness settled over the room. Damian set the cigar down, ash crumbling like snow. "Careful," he murmured.
"She's a weakness," the voice pressed. "A human mate? The bond will tear you in half. And the Council won't tolerate—"
The line went dead. Damian had ended the call.
Weakness. That was the word they loved to throw at him. But what they didn't understand — what they could never understand — was that a wolf did not run from weakness. A wolf consumed it. Made it into strength.
Still… the thought of Selene in the Council's crosshairs made his jaw tighten until it ached.
She doesn't even know what she is to me.
The wolf paced inside his chest, restless.
Not yet. But soon.
---
Selene tugged her coat tighter as she hurried down the wet streets, bag slung over her shoulder. The city felt different tonight — stranger. She caught her reflection in a shop window as she passed: pale face, tired eyes, hair sticking to her damp cheeks. Behind her reflection, for the briefest second, she thought she saw movement.
She spun around. Nothing. Just empty sidewalk, rain puddles, a flickering streetlamp.
Still, she walked faster.
The Lycaon Global tower loomed ahead, black glass cutting into the sky, its top swallowed by lingering storm clouds. Even at this hour, the lobby glowed with sterile light, security guards posted at the doors.
Selene swallowed her nerves and stepped inside.
The lobby was vast, marble floors gleaming like ice, the walls lined with steel sculptures that seemed to twist into animal shapes if you stared too long. The air smelled faintly of cedar and something darker she couldn't place.
A guard looked up from his desk. "Delivery?"
"Uh, yes." She held up her badge and the envelope with her boss's revisions. Her voice sounded too small in the cavernous space.
The guard checked, nodded, and buzzed her through to the reception desk.
Selene exhaled, relieved. Just drop it off and leave. Easy. She crossed the polished floor, heels clicking. The silence felt too heavy, the way libraries feel when everyone's watching you.
And then the elevator doors opened behind her.
She didn't turn. She didn't need to. She felt it. That same weight from the train, that same charge in the air, pressing against her skin like claws.
Someone had entered the lobby.
---
Damian's shoes clicked against the marble, slow, deliberate. He had intended to leave the building through the private garage, but the wolf had pulled him down instead, step by step, until he found himself here.
And there she was.
Selene Armitage.
He knew her scent before he knew her face — clean, sharp, threaded with fear and defiance. The mate bond burned through his chest like a brand, and for a moment he almost let the wolf take over. Almost let it push him forward, seize her, claim her.
But no. Not yet.
Damian adjusted his cuffs, every movement controlled, and crossed the lobby. She was only a few steps ahead, waiting at the desk, oblivious to the storm of attention bearing down on her.
The receptionist looked up, startled. "Mr. Blackthorne."
Selene turned.
And their eyes met.
This time, there was no taxi, no crowd, no storm to hide it. Just her wide, startled gaze and his burning gold eyes locking together across a space suddenly too small for both of them.
The world seemed to hold its breath.
The bond snapped tight.
Selene's fingers slackened, the envelope almost slipping from her hand. Her lips parted, a soundless question caught in her throat. Damian felt the wolf roar inside him, demanding the mark, the claim, the kiss that would end the waiting.
Instead, he said nothing. He simply looked at her, eyes unreadable, and then stepped past, the storm following in his wake.
The doors closed behind him.
Selene blinked, breathless, trembling. She didn't know who he was. But she knew one thing with absolute certainty: nothing in her life would ever be the same.
---