CHAPTER ONE
Boston, Massachusetts
Present Day
–Naya–
I GASPED AND bolted awake, my heart slamming into my throat, thankful I hadn’t cried out in terror or even desire from my Nightmare Turned Wet Dream when I spied Niall standing nearby, wearing similar clothes to the ones he'd worn the night I just dreamt about. He braced his hands on the deck railing of my sky-high penthouse and stared out over the glittering city lights below.
“How many times did we dream about a view like this when we were poor Southie kids?”
he wondered, clearly aware I had woken from where I’d been lying on the chaise lounge, eager to soak up the chilly autumn wind before I dozed off. “And now look at how far we’ve come. You’ve come.”
He turned, leaned against the railing, crossed his arms over his chest, and narrowed his eyes at me.
“I don’t like when you keep your dreams from me, Naya.”
His eyebrows swept up. “Especially when they make you wake up like that.”
I became acutely aware of the throbbing between my thighs and how sensitive my nipples felt against my black silky gown, thanks to the man who haunted my dreams, my midnight stranger. Even worse, I became aware of the scent of arousal I put off in front of Niall. Although he didn’t know it, he had gone from being a friend to my mortal enemy. After all, he’d turned me into a damn werewolf of all things. A fucking monster.
And I would never, not for a second, forgive him for it.
I had spent nearly my whole life trying to climb out of the poor trenches of my youth, only to be thrust back into the darkness against my will when Niall bit me at the club. He didn't ask first or wonder if I wanted to be cursed. Nope. He just bit me and smoothly recruited me into a beastly faction of the Irish mafia that would use me for all I was worth. Unfortunately, they had the bite to back up their bark, too. Pun intended because they were a lethal lot, starting with their boss.
Ah, yes, I skipped that part, didn’t I? It turns out the asshat who had bitten me was none other than the mob boss of the Boston faction of the Irish Wolf Mafia, as they called themselves. Not very original, in my opinion, but then what did I care?
I had no intention of remaining a permanent member.
“Who were you dreaming about?”
Niall inhaled deeply as if he couldn’t get enough of my scent, and his eyes darkened, telling me I had better answer correctly. “I can only hope it was me.”
I did my best to even my breathing when he closed the distance, sat on the edge of my chaise, and ran the pad of his thumb along my jawline. “It better have been me.”
“Who else would it be?”
I forced myself to relax and lean into his traitorous touch. “You know I belong to you now.”
“Do I?”
he said softly, a dangerous edge to his voice. “It’s hard to tell sometimes. Especially when I can’t follow your thoughts despite being your maker.”
His hand left my jaw and caressed my neck. Strangers would think it a romantic gesture, but I knew better. Anyone who knew Niall would know he had strangled his fair share to death and loved every minute of it. So, how could I ever have considered him a friend? Mainly because I was foolish when I was younger but also because I was an opportunist who appreciated his real estate connections.
“Of course, I belong to you,”
I said, sure to make my voice sound husky. I shifted my leg just enough to allow my dress to fall away and expose my flesh, cupped his cheek, and looked at him seductively. A look I’d always been good at but had perfected since I was bitten five weeks ago. “Rest assured, only you pleasure my dreams.”
As I knew it would, his gaze fell to my exposed thigh, and his breathing hitched, telling me I would have to suffer him inside me one last time before I finally got the hell out of here. Or so I thought until, luckily for me, his cell rang, and he had to go.
“This can’t wait,”
he grunted when I pouted and showed a little more leg, pretending to tempt him. “See you at the gala.”
Before I had a chance to respond, he yanked my head close and kissed me like the night he’d bitten me. The sort of kiss I had come to hate, not just because I hated him but because he sucked at it. It had only done anything for me that night because he was baiting me with some kind of werewolf allure. Either way, I played along, groaning with appreciation, before he’d had his fill and left.
Only after he was gone—as it had been after every time we were together since he’d turned me—I allowed myself to shake. A little trick I’d learned over the years when dealing with shady characters. I buried my fear and emotions deep down in the sinking boat I’d lost my parents in and only let them bubble back up when the coast was clear.
Miraculously enough, it was a coping mechanism that still worked post-bite.
Giving into my emotions, I trembled all over because Niall scared the living crap out of me. Not just because he’d bitten me but my cousins, too, for the sole purpose of making his mob faction stronger, whether by utilizing our various skill sets or, worse yet, breeding us with his pack. It had been one thing biting me. We had been friends for years, and he had always wanted to sleep with me. But turning my cousins too? Women he’d grown up with and treated him like family? Hell, no.
He had gone too far.
Way too far.
I wasn't surprised when Uncle Connor arrived a few minutes later. He had a knack for showing up when I needed him. Like always, he had come in the back way so he wouldn’t be seen. He had been so young when he’d taken custody of my cousins and me, and now, even though he was only in his early forties, he was wise beyond his years and had a sixth sense when it came to us girls. Despite being one of Niall’s top guys, he’d kept a low enough profile lately that Niall had no clue he had been trying to smuggle me and my cousins out of the city for over a week now.
Kaia and Storm were long gone.
I had been biding my time.
“You okay, spitfire?”
Uncle Connor said gruffly, sniffing in disdain at Niall's lingering scent. Even though Niall wanted my uncle to dress in a suit to represent the more esteemed circles they frequented these days, Uncle Conner refused. He wore biker boots, jeans, and a black leather jacket. He refused a high-end haircut and kept his dark brown hair with its silver streaks longish and his five o'clock shadow intact.
Taking me in with his piercing blue eyes, he lit a cigarette and grunted, “He hurt you?”
Uncle Connor might seem rough around the edges, but my cousins and I knew it was just a front to hide how intelligent and perceptive he was. A boon, as it turned out, in organized crime.
“Yes, he hurt me five weeks ago,”
I muttered, but I knew what he meant, so I shook my head, finally able to stand without my legs giving out. “No, I’m fine.”
I joined him at the railing where Niall had stood moments before and stared at the twinkling lights below, enjoying the cold wind on my heated skin. Not heated because of my encounter with Niall but because the more lustful side of my never-ending nightmare was still with me. My midnight stranger was still right there in ways I didn't understand. “I got what we needed.”
“Yeah?”
My uncle sounded relieved but hesitant and frustrated, too. “So soon?”
“What can I say? I’m good at what I do.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, trying not to think about finally sleeping with Niall to get what I wanted. As it turned out, that wasn’t just his trust but access to an even dirtier side of his business. Something that might help my cousins and I get out of the hell we’d been thrust into against our will.
At least the organized crime side of it.
“So you’ll go to New Hampshire, now?”
Uncle Connor said after cursing at Niall under his breath for all he had put us through. He went to take a drag of his cigarette but snuffed it out because he was trying to quit. “You’ll finally get the hell out of here?”
“According to Adlin, I have no choice.”
As if I hadn’t been through enough already, a realtor turned Scottish wizard had shown up, letting me know I would be fleeing one war and heading straight into another. Even crazier? Of all places, it was taking place in medieval Ireland. Anyone who knew me knew any era outside this one seriously wasn’t my jam, but I had no choice.
Time travel was real, and Kaia was already there.
If that weren’t enough, apparently, she had mated with another damn wolf. A fated mate, whatever that meant, because I didn’t buy into souls destined for each other. Worse yet, it sounded like she hooked up with her own mob boss, just medieval style, because her mate was the alpha.
And it only got more insane from there.
Their enemy was none other than Niall’s ancestor, an even worse sort than Niall. Evil to the core.
I sighed and shook my head. “Whether I believe Adlin or not, we both know I can’t stay here. I got what we needed, so I’m heading to New Hampshire tonight.”
Headed toward everything I hated, mainly because it was too quiet. I liked the city for a reason. It was busy and noisy and gave me no time to think. The only time I allowed my mind to quiet was when I had no choice but to sleep, usually under the influence of sleeping pills.
“What’d you do with the information you found on Niall?”
Uncle Connor asked, clearly relieved because I was leaving.
Referring to my excellent memory, I tapped my temple. “Right up here.”
Giving him a look, I frowned. “Not sure what good it will do us now, though, if what Adlin said is true.”
I shrugged. “From the sound of things, Niall’s about to become the least of our worries.”
“I don’t know about all that, only what I can and will handle.”
Uncle Connor shoved his snubbed butt back into his cigarette pack. “Niall might think your cousins are vacationing in New Hampshire, but he won’t buy you going anywhere woodsy to relax, so he’ll follow. Shit, anywhere you go, he’ll follow.”
His wolven eyes flared with anger and anticipation. “And when he does, I’ll be waiting.”
He tossed me a reassuring look. “Then I’ll take the information you got from him and use it to make his pack mine, ensuring you and your cousins are never bothered by the mafia or any organized crime affiliate again.”
“Assuming Kaia and Storm come back.”
I shook my head. “Doesn’t sound like Kaia will, and Storm?”
I rolled my eyes. “If she can travel back to a primitive, woodsy era, I don’t see her coming back either. That’s totally her thing.”
I patted his shoulder and mustered a thankful look, trying not to think about my two closest friends not being here anymore. “You’ll still have me, though, because I can’t think of any greater hell.”
I snorted. “Outside of being turned into a monster and sleeping with the enemy, that is.”
“Yet there might be a greater hell, still,”
my uncle said softly, eyeing me with concern. “And you know it.”
“You mean a greater monster,”
I said firmly rather than softly, willing to look that monster in the face because I knew her well. “Me.”
It was just one more thing that had gone wrong since Niall took it upon himself to turn me, claiming I would love it. Claiming I would become powerful in ways I never imagined. Even more powerful if I ran with him last week during my second shift. What I now knew to be my True Moon Shift.
“Shift and run with me, babe,”
he had said, ridiculously confident that I would become his. “You’ll become part of my pack and shoot to the top, becoming my mate and queen. The only bitch that’ll matter in this town.”
When I had looked at him curiously, he’d elaborated. If I ran with him during my second shift, I would be his for life. Don’t run with him, and I would be a Renegade. Doesn’t sound so bad, right? Sort of badass? Not so much. In werewolf terms, if I ran without him or others, I would eventually go crazy. Become violent, dark, or both. Horrible, for sure.
But not as horrible as being Niall’s for life.
So, I had a choice: head to New Hampshire and True Moon it with my cousins or stay and try to get the information to free us from Niall's grasp. I thought nothing of choosing the latter because my cousins would have done the same for me. With that in mind, I had told Niall I would run with him, then cooked up an elaborate scheme saying I couldn’t get out of a meeting with a client, and the full moon caught me unaware, and so on.
Then, I had shifted alone and stayed off everyone’s radar even though I’d suffered one of the worst nights of my life to achieve it. A night where I sank deep down in my own feelings, drowning in a sinking boat of my own making because I didn’t want Uncle Connor worrying about me any more than he already did.
“But there’s hope for you, spitfire,”
my uncle said gruffly, pulling me back to the present. “You’ve just gotta—”
“No,”
I snapped, shooting him a warning look before I spun on my heel and headed back inside, my high heels tapping on my expensive floor as I tossed over my shoulder, “See you in New Hampshire.”
The last thing I wanted to discuss was the barbarian from medieval Ireland Adlin claimed might be my fated mate and the only one who could save me from going full-on Renegade. Full-on monster in the worst way possible.
Yet, as I shouldered into my long, luxurious fur coat, dark, smoky gray eyes flashed in my mind. The same eyes that had been there the night Niall bit me. The same ones I’d seen in my dreams for longer than I could remember. Since childhood, when thrust into the horrific world that I eventually clawed my way out of. A midnight stranger who had only ever come to me under the cover of darkness. Had only ever been made from my dreams and nightmares until he became made of more.
Made of lust and desire and sin.
Of me waking up covered in sweat and drenched in desire.
I swallowed hard and tried to forget him when I lost the tail Niall constantly kept on me and hopped on the highway heading north. I did my damnedest to try and forget him as I gunned my black luxury sports car and sped away from the monster that had made me.
Yet there was no getting rid of my midnight stranger. Not ever. Sinking him deep into the murky waters of my mind had, time and time again, proven impossible.
And it had only gotten worse since I went Renegade.
He was all around me even though I couldn’t see him. Watching. Waiting. Even tonight, as I prepared for the gala, wrapping my thick, perfectly highlighted dark brown hair into an elegant twist, I felt he was close. Felt his wolven eyes all over me, taking in my long, silky, strappy black gown. Sensed rather than heard him pulling in the scent of my perfume.
“But not anymore,”
I growled, surprised by the animalistic sound in my voice as I swung into the left lane and pressed the gas pedal down even further, not running from him anymore. Instead, like all things conquered for the greater good, I raced right at him, determined to wipe him and Niall from my life, no matter what it took.
Even if it took going Renegade on him because although I had kept it from Uncle Conner, I was beginning to have a better understanding of what that meant, at least in my case, or so it seemed. For me, it felt like kick-ass strength and razor-sharp focus because I had a plan that would keep both men away. So Bain—as I now knew was my midnight stranger’s name—would never stand a chance.