The warehouse district looked like a graveyard of broken dreams. Empty loading docks stretched into darkness, and rusted chain-link fences rattled in the night wind. I checked the address on the black card for the third time. This was definitely the place.
My ribs still ached from last night's performance. The bruises on my face had darkened to an impressive purple, but I'd covered the worst of it with makeup. Can't show up to a job interview looking like roadkill.
The building matched the address—a converted warehouse with new windows and expensive security cameras. Someone had money to burn. I approached the main entrance, but before I could knock, the door swung open.
"You're early."
It wasn't the man from the fighting ring. This guy was younger, maybe mid-twenties, with sandy brown hair and nervous energy. He kept checking his watch like he was timing something.
"Ruby Martinez," I said. "I was invited."
"Yeah, I know. Come on, he's waiting."
He led me through a maze of corridors that still smelled like motor oil and old concrete. Our footsteps echoed in the empty space. Whatever this place used to be, it wasn't anymore.
"So what kind of work are we talking about?" I asked.
The kid glanced back at me. "The kind where asking too many questions gets you fired. Before you're hired."
Smart mouth. I liked him already.
We stopped in front of a steel door marked 'Private'. The kid knocked twice, paused, then knocked three more times.
"Enter."
The voice from the other side made my skin prickle. Low, controlled, with an accent I couldn't place. Not the guy from last night.
The kid pushed open the door and gestured for me to go first. "Good luck."
The room beyond was nothing like the industrial warehouse outside. Hardwood floors, expensive furniture, and a wall of windows overlooking the city. A man stood with his back to me, silhouetted against the night sky.
When he turned around, my world tilted.
He was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen, and the most dangerous. Tall and lean, with black hair that looked like he'd run his fingers through it and sharp features that belonged on a movie screen. But it was his eyes that stopped my heart.
Green. The same impossible green I'd seen in the fighting ring.
"You," I breathed.
"Me." His mouth curved in something that wasn't quite a smile. "Though I believe introductions are in order. I'm Kai."
Just Kai. No last name, no explanation of why he'd sent someone else to give me his card. I studied his face, looking for answers, but found only more questions.
"You were watching me fight."
"I was evaluating your potential." He moved away from the window, and I noticed he walked like a predator—silent and controlled. "My employer values certain skills."
"And what skills would those be?"
"The ability to take a beating without breaking. The intelligence to know when patience serves better than aggression. And most importantly—" He stopped directly in front of me, close enough that I could smell that forest scent again. "The capacity to lie convincingly."
My heart hammered against my ribs. "What makes you think I was lying?"
"Because no fighter with your training enters a ring planning to lose the first round. You're either military or law enforcement, and since you don't carry yourself like ex-military..."
Shit. He was good.
"You're fishing," I said, keeping my voice steady.
"Am I?" He reached into his jacket and pulled out a tablet. With a few taps, he brought up what looked like a personnel file. My personnel file.
Emma Carter. FBI Supernatural Crimes Division. Badge number 47291.
I went cold. "Where did you get that?"
"The same place I got this." He swiped to another screen showing surveillance footage of me entering FBI headquarters last week. "And this." Another swipe revealed photos of me with Sofia outside our apartment building.
I was blown. Completely, utterly blown.
But instead of panic, I felt something else rising in my chest. Anger. White-hot and clean.
"So what now?" I asked. "You kill me? Blackmail me? Turn me over to whoever's paying your bills?"
"Now you tell me why an FBI agent is infiltrating werewolf organizations."
Werewolf. He'd said it so casually, like discussing the weather. But the word hit me like a physical blow.
I'd suspected, of course. The enhanced senses, the territorial behavior, the way they moved like apex predators. But hearing it confirmed made my blood sing with recognition.
And that's when it happened.
The crescent birthmark on my wrist began to burn.
I gasped and clutched my arm, feeling heat spread up toward my elbow. The sensation was unlike anything I'd ever experienced—part pain, part electricity, part something I had no name for.
Kai went rigid. His eyes widened, and for the first time since I'd met him, he looked genuinely surprised.
"What the hell?" I whispered, staring at my wrist. Through my shirt sleeve, I could see a faint blue glow emanating from my skin.
Kai stepped closer, his nostrils flaring like he was scenting the air. "Show me."
"What?"
"Your wrist. Show me."
My instincts screamed danger, but something deeper overrode them. I rolled up my sleeve, revealing the crescent-shaped birthmark that had been with me since birth.
It was glowing. Actually glowing, pulsing with soft blue light in rhythm with my heartbeat.
Kai stared at it like he'd seen a ghost. Then, slowly, he pulled off his black leather gloves.
On the back of his right hand was a mark that perfectly mirrored mine. Same crescent shape, same size, but instead of blue, his glowed with warm golden light.
"This isn't possible," he said, but he didn't sound convinced.
I couldn't speak. Couldn't think. My mark was getting hotter, and the closer he moved, the more intense the sensation became. It wasn't painful anymore—it was something else entirely. Something that made my skin tight and my breath short.
"You're human," he said, like he was trying to convince himself.
"Last time I checked." But even as I said it, I wondered if that was still true. Normal humans didn't have glowing birthmarks that responded to mysterious men with forest-green eyes.
Kai took another step closer, and the marks flared brighter. I could feel something pulling between us, invisible but unmistakable. Like two magnets finding their match.
"This changes everything," he murmured.
"Changes what? I don't even know what this is."
He looked up from our marks to meet my eyes, and I saw something there that made my stomach drop. Not just surprise or confusion, but fear.
"It's a mate bond," he said quietly. "Something that's supposed to be impossible between..." He trailed off.
"Between what?"
He stepped back abruptly, the distance making both our marks dim. "This conversation never happened. You're going to walk out of here and forget you ever met me."
"Like hell I am."
"You don't understand what you're dealing with."
"Then explain it to me!"
"I can't." He pulled his gloves back on, hiding his mark. "This place isn't safe for you."
"And what makes you think anywhere is safe for me?" I rolled my sleeve back down, but I could still feel the mark pulsing against the fabric. "You said it yourself—I'm FBI. I don't exactly lead a sheltered life."
"This is different."
"How?"
He was quiet for a long moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper. "Because people like us aren't supposed to exist."
People like us. The same phrase the man from the fighting ring had used. The pieces were starting to come together, and I didn't like the picture they were forming.
"What are you?" I asked.
"Someone who just made the biggest mistake of his life by meeting you."
The door behind me opened before I could respond. Three men entered—built like linebackers and moving with predatory grace. Werewolves, my instincts whispered. All of them.
"Boss wants to see you," one of them said to Kai. "Now."
Kai's jaw tightened. "Tell Marcus I'll be there in five minutes."
"He said now."
The tension in the room ratcheted up several notches. I could practically taste the dominance games playing out, all testosterone and barely contained violence.
"Go," I said to Kai. "We can finish this conversation later."
He looked at me like I'd suggested we jump off a cliff together. "There won't be a later. You're leaving Los Angeles tonight."
"No, I'm not."
"Yes, you are. Because if Marcus finds out what just happened in this room, we're both dead."
One of the enforcers cleared his throat impatiently. Kai gave me one last look—part warning, part regret—and headed for the door.
"This isn't over," I called after him.
He paused in the doorway without turning around. "It has to be."
Then he was gone, leaving me alone with questions that burned worse than the mark on my wrist.
I waited a full minute before following them out. The warehouse felt different now, charged with possibility and danger in equal measure. My mark had stopped glowing, but I could still feel it humming beneath my skin like a tuning fork struck against bone.
Whatever had just happened between Kai and me, it wasn't natural. Wasn't human.
And it definitely wasn't over.
As I made my way back through the maze of corridors, one thought echoed in my mind: I came here to infiltrate a werewolf organization. Instead, I'd found something that defied every law of biology I knew.
The question was—what the hell was I going to do about it?
End of Chapter 2