Sloane's POV
The Ashford Gallery reeked of old money and older secrets.
I smoothed down the sleek black cocktail dress that cost more than my rent, it was borrowed of course, fighting the urge to tug at the neckline. The fabric clung like a second skin, making my ribs feel compressed with every breath. I felt so very exposed. Nevermind how my skin itched where the material touched bare shoulders, and the stupid heels pinched my toes until they went numb.
I hated these jobs.
"Champagne?" Offered a server passing by, .
I nodded my thanks as I took a glass I had no intention of drinking. My pulse hammered in my throat as I scanned the crowd, looking for my target, looking for threats, looking for exits.
Always looking for exits. And what to avoid.
The auction catalog trembled slightly in my free hand. Lot 47: Antiquities Collection, Origin Unknown. That was my target. The paper felt too smooth between my fingertips, too expensive, like everything else in this place. My chest tightened with that familiar pre-job adrenaline—the kind that made your fingers tingle and your vision sharpen.
This felt wrong from the beginning. I would have declined this job but the money was too good to refuse. My landlord had stopped accepting "I'm good for it" as payment three months ago.
I took a fake sip of champagne, barely wetting my lips, and tried to slow my breathing.
"Quite the collection tonight." A man sidled up beside me. In his fifties perhaps, expensive suit and a cologne that hit my nose like a physical blow.
Definitely wrong. Not bad, exactly. But the scent twisted in my sinuses, rotted and bitter, like spoiled fruit under expensive perfume. My stomach churned as the champagne glass nearly slipped from my suddenly sweaty palm.
My instincts screamed. That weird sixth sense I'd learned to trust made my skin prickle when someone was lying and that tightened my throat when danger was close.
"Mmm." I forced a polite smile even though my jaw ached from clenching. "Excuse me."
As I slipped through the crowd, my pulse thundered in my ears. The smell clung to my nostrils, making me slightly nauseous. I abandoned the champagne on a passing tray and headed for the back hallway, each step deliberate despite the tremor working its way up from my knees.
The hallway door was locked. Prepared, I pulled a hairpin from my updo, and my scalp sang with relief as the tight style loosened. Thirty seconds of careful work—feeling the pins in the lock click, one by one as the tiny vibrations travelled up through the metal to my fingertips. The door opened.
I slid off my heels and slid inside, each step hammering my heart rate higher. The floor was ice-cold against my bare feet causing goosebumps to race up my calves.
I looked around and felt my stomach drop. The security was too light. Every instinct I had was firing warning signals. The prickling at the base of my skull, the tightness in my chest, the way my breath came shallow and quick. My body was screaming at me to go. To leave.
I'd been doing this for five years. I knew when a job felt wrong. This is a necessary risk, I told myself. I needed that money. So I kept moving, even though my hands shook when I pulled out my stethoscope.
The vault combination fell into place too easily. Each click sent a little shock through the metal, making my teeth ache with tension as I fought the urge to leave.
I silently swung open the vault door and there, on a pedestal like it was waiting for me, sat the mirror frame. Black metal twisted into patterns that made my eyes hurt to follow. Just looking at it made my skin crawl and the hair on my arms stand straight up.
I reached for it anyway. This was it. This was the job. I inhaled deeply then exhaled slowly as I willed myself to relax. This job was almost over, I just had to get this thing to the buyer.
The metal burned as I touched it. Not hot but cold. So cold it seared like frostbite, but I couldn't let go. My fingers locked around it as light exploded through the frame. Violent. Purple. Light. Wrong.
Pain lanced through my eyes. My chest seized. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't scream as every shadow in the vault reached for me like living things, wrapping around my wrists, my throat, my racing heart.
The frame clattered to the floor as I finally broke my grip on it and stumbled backward, gasping. My lungs burned. My eyes burned. Everything burned.
I caught my reflection in a glass case.
My eyes glowed violet. Bright, impossible, terrifying."WRONG. WRONG. WRONG." Was the only thing that went through my mind.
My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought they'd crack. Cold sweat broke out across my back, between my shoulder blades, along my hairline.
"What the hell—"
The vault door exploded open. Guards poured in, and the sheer number of them sent my pulse into overdrive. My mouth went dry. My knees threatened to buckle.
I raised my hands, fingers trembling. "Look, I can explain—"
"Don't move." Someone across the room ordered while another person roughly pulled my arms back and roughly zip-tied my wrists together. The makeshift handcuffs cut into my skin and flesh hard enough to make my fingers tingle and numb. As they hauled me up, I had to bite my tongue to keep from crying out in pain as my shoulders were wrenched backward.
They marched me through the hallway and into the main gallery.
That's when the real terror hit.
The things standing between me and the exit looked like men. But they moved wrong—too fluid, too fast. And when they looked at me, every instinct I had screamed predator.
My knees threatened to collapsed vision tunneled.
One of them stepped forward. The one in charge.
He was beautiful in a way that made my mouth go dry and my pulse stutter. But it was the eyes that stopped my heart. Green-hazel eyes that tracked me like a wolf watching prey, and when they locked onto mine, the world exploded.
Heat suddenly bloomed in my chest. It was scorching and overwhelming as it stole the breath from my lungs. Not painful. Worse than painful. Necessary. Like my body recognized him, needed him, would die without him.
My knees gave out, but that person, or rather thing, still had a firm grip on me, preventing me from falling. A sound escaped my throat. Half gasp, half whimper.
What the hell was happening to me?
He moved like liquid violence, crossing the space in a blur that made my head spin. His hand locked around my arm—burning hot, impossibly strong—and hauled me away from the crowd. My feet barely touched the ground. His scent hit me like a drug—pine and winter storms and something wild that made my head swim and my core clench.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Could only feel the heat of his hand, the way my whole body leaned toward him despite the terror. I wanted, no needed to fell his body against mine.
"Listen very carefully." His voice was rough, low, meant only for me. The sound of it vibrated through my chest. "You're my mate."
Mate. The word settled into my bones like it belonged there.
"I'm your what?"
"And I reject you." Those four words cut through me like a knife. "For both our sakes."
The bond shattered.
I didn't know it existed until it broke, and then it was agony. White-hot, soul-deep agony that ripped through my chest and left me hollow. My knees hit the floor. I couldn't scream. I couldn't breathe. I could only shake as tears poured down my face and my heart tried to beat around the gaping wound in my chest.
Empty. I felt so empty.
He released me like I'd burned him. I caught his scent one more time—pine and winter and want, desire—before he stepped back.
Through my tears, I saw his jaw clenched so tight it looked painful. His hands fisted at his sides, knuckles white.
But his eyes held something that looked like anguish.
"Take her." His voice was flat. Dead. He turned and walked away. He did not look back.
The guards grabbed me again, but I barely felt it. The pain in my chest drowned everything else. My whole body shook. My lungs wouldn't fill properly. Each breath felt like swallowing glass.
I caught movement in my peripheral vision. A mirror on the wall.
In it, I saw myself. Yet again or was it still? My eyes glowed violet, even brighter now as shadows writhed around me like smoke. Face bone-white and streaked with tears.
"Heretic." Someone in the crowd whispered it.
The word rippled through the gallery, and my stomach dropped. More guards closed in. My heart hammered so hard and my stout clenched so tight I thought I'd vomit.
I tried to run.
My legs were rubber. My vision blurred. I made it three steps before something hit me from behind—not physical, something else—and slammed me to the floor.
Pain exploded through my shoulder, my hip. And once again, the air was punched from my lungs.
The last thing I saw before darkness swallowed me was the man in the expensive suit.
Standing perfectly still.
Watching me with an expression like he'd just condemned us both.
And feeling, even through the agony, that horrible pull toward him. That need. That recognition.
That impossible, terrifying rightness.