Chapter One - Alpha’s Claim
Paloma
The moment the deadbolt to my bedroom door clicks into place, I dash for the closet.
Black clothes, so I won’t be seen against the building at night. Flexible toe socks, so my toes can grip the rough-hewn stone of the mansion.
I quickly strip out of my “work” dress and into my escape gear.
I have an estimated three to eight minutes until they figure out how to get power back up, and in that time, I need to be out to the balcony, down the wall, and into the ocean where the security cameras won’t pick me up and thermoscans won’t see my heat signature.
“You got this, you got this, you got this,” I whisper-chant to myself as my trembling fingers draw the lock-picking tools out of the pouch.
I’d stowed them in the pocket of these black yoga pants weeks ago after I caught the gardener’s thirteen-year-old son picking a lock to the garage during one of my rare unguarded moments in the garden.
He’d told me he hadn’t meant any harm and was just practicing his lock-picking skills.
He’d shown me the instruction book and tool kit he ordered online.
I said I would keep it between us, but I had to confiscate his instruction book and tools.
I drop to my knees in front of the French doors to the balcony.
Slipping the slender tension wrench into the lock, I apply pressure to its plug.
Then I slide in the pin. I close my eyes to concentrate.
I’ve practiced this at least a hundred times.
I already know how to find and set each pin, one at a time, until the lock fully disengages.
With a little more pressure on the tension wrench, I turn the plug.
Click.
This is as far as I’ve ever gotten. I couldn’t open the doors before because the electronic monitor at the top would notify Thom’s security team that a door had been breached. Now, with the power cut to the property, I have a moment.
I let out an exhale, stow the tools in my pocket, and use both hands to pull the doors open.
They don’t budge.
I scan the door frame. Did I miss something? A second lock? A physical bar or barrier? I don’t see anything.
“Come on,” I growl in an undertone. I pull harder.
It’s not moving.
“Juepucha,” I mutter. “Come on, you bitch.” I yank with all my strength. The doors fly open, and a gust of ocean breeze fills the room, making the curtains flap.
Yes!
My days as the girl in the tower are over. I slip out and silently shut the doors behind me.
You’ve heard the stories about girls in towers, right? Some of them are supposedly fair maidens. Some princesses. Some have long hair that can be used as a climbing rope to save them.
Me? I guess I’m a mage of sorts. I can see the future of a company, just by looking at its numbers.
Hence, my usefulness as a day trader.
I am also technically a maiden if that means virgin. The jury’s out on the fair part. Does that mean good-looking or pale-skinned? I was never sure. Whatever. I’m Latinx, so I identify as BIPOC if you were wondering.
I throw a leg over the carved marble railing that brackets the balcony to straddle it, then the other, balancing my weight on the one-inch ledge that rims the outside.
Don’t look down, I whisper.
My particular fairytale lacks the trellis for me to climb down, but metal wires run horizontally along the building to support the ivy. I lean out, wrap my toes around one of them, and test it with my weight. It holds.
Holding my breath, I transfer one hand to another wire. It cuts into my hands but serves. I leave the safety of the ledge and feel with my free foot for a wire below. It’s farther than I expect, but I eventually catch it. Then I realize some of the ivy boughs might be thick enough to hold me.
That works better. I scale down, seeking the wires with my feet but sliding my hands along the thicker ivy cords. I’m three floors up, a distance that feels far higher and longer to scale now that I’m doing it. And I’ve already wasted too much time.
The lights could come back on any second now.
One of the branches I’m holding is too thin, and it breaks. I plunge downward, my fingers grasping for something else to hold and finally catching. My skin is torn, and my fingers burn, but I barely notice. All my focus is on getting down.
I jump before I should, jarring my ankle and smacking my knee on the earth below. But it doesn’t matter–I’m out. I take off running for the ocean as fast as I can.
I’ve been training for this, too. Every day, I race on my treadmill that faces the ocean, whispering to my body that the day will come when we can make a break for it. My illness was a small setback, but the medicine seems to be working.
I wasn’t ready for it to be tonight. I wanted to locate Wren and make a plan to get her to safety before I escaped.
I also need to figure out how to access the medicine keeping me alive.
Last time I tried to escape, I collapsed before I could get far.
But I’m feeling stronger now and don’t have a choice. I’m out of time.
Thom let me in on his disgusting plan tonight at dinner.
Tomorrow night, he arranged to auction me off to the highest bidder. It’s not enough that I make him billions. He must sell me to one of his buddies to cement a merger. His twisted version of an arranged marriage.
Sorry, no.
Not happening.
This time, my escape plan will work. It has to.
The mansion’s lights come back on in a sudden blaze.
Dammit.
Run, run, run. I put my head down and sprint as fast as I can. My feet hit sand.
An alarm goes off. It will still take them time to realize I’m gone, hopefully. So long as–
“Hold it right there!” A male voice shouts.
No! I’ve been spotted.
I could still make it. I’ll hide in the water. I reach the water and run in, diving into the cold water before it’s deep enough, so it’s more of a belly flop. I adjust my hands on the rocks below to propel me into the deeper water.
I don’t look behind me. I don’t want to see how close they are. Whether they’re coming for me. I squeeze my eyes closed and paddle hard, forgetting that I may not survive the ocean even if I’m not caught.
But I am caught.
A strong arm loops around my neck and shoves my head under, holding me down.
I struggle, kicking out, using my elbows, trying to duck out of his grasp. I need to take a breath.
Is this guy trying to kill me?
Clearly he doesn’t know that I’m the golden goose.
Everything’s muffled by the sound of water around me, but I hear shouts above. Lights blaze in the periphery of my vision. I’m starting to pass out.
And then I’m up. Held by my hair above water.
“What are you doing?” Thom rages from the shore.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Thompson. I thought she was an intruder.”
“Get my daughter back to shore.”
His daughter. Every time he calls me that I want to barf.
Two men grab me by the arms and drag me forward, out of the ocean, onto the beach where Thom slaps me hard across the face.
I figure this is my one chance. If there’s any man who works for Thom who has any conscience at all, I need to alert him. If he doesn’t disobey now, maybe he’ll raise a flag with the authorities.
“Let me go!” I scream. “You can’t auction me off. I’m not your property! You can’t keep me prisoner here forever!”
A needle jabs into the meaty part of my arm before I even see it coming. I stare into the eyes of the man who delivered it and detect a sadistic gleam of pleasure in them right before my vision goes dark and my legs forget how to hold me.
#
Darius
Billionaires have a certain sort of smell. Not just clean human skin, but the extra bouquet of expensive skin care products, rare perfumes, richer food.
That’s what my bear thinks, anyway. After years living in Manhattan, my poor animal’s nose has attuned to all sorts of city smells.
It’s a relief to helicopter to the Hamptons for the weekend.
I step onto the tarmac and breathe my first clean lungful in months.
The air tastes sweet with a tang of salt.
Across a half-mile of manicured lawn, sunlight flashes on the wind-whipped sea.
The richer you are, the more land you can afford. My host, Thom Thompson, owns a massive estate on the water between wildlife preserves.
Woods, my bear points out. Let me out! He wants to strip off my human skin and lumber into the wild.
Keeping him caged in has been the hardest part about living in Manhattan.
These woods are nothing like the wilderness of Bad Bear Mountain, where I grew up, but it’s enough to remind me of what I’m missing now that I’ve made New York City my home.
Later, I tell him. I can’t go romping around in a pine forest. I’m not here to relax. I’m here to network.
I check my collar and shoot my cuffs. I’m in my best off-hours blazer, designed to look casual while still perfectly tailored.
My loafers are handmade in a small village outside of Milan.
I’m groomed head to toe to fit in with the humans I’ll be rubbing elbows with all weekend, the one percent of the one percent.
My one unruly feature is my thick blond hair. I get it cut every week, but I swear my bear makes it grow faster to spite me. The wind tousles it as I stride from the helicopter.
“This way, sir.” An estate staff member in a navy blue uniform takes my suitcase and guides me towards a mansion that would make Great Gatsby turn green. I brace myself, expecting the place to smell old, like oiled wood and ancient horsehair furniture, but the inside is modern.
The owner and the man who invited me is waiting in the foyer to greet all his guests. “Darius, welcome.”
“Mr. Thompson,” I shake his hand, careful not to use too much pressure. A firm handshake from a bear shifter would crush a human’s bones.