Merciless Vow (Merciless Alphas #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

VIDAR

The candlelight at Ambrosia was designed to hide flaws, but all I could see were the inefficiencies.

The waiter was three minutes late with the wine service.

The air filtration system was humming at a frequency that set my canines on edge.

Across the table, the human woman I’d chosen to ease my irritation for the night leaned so far forward her silk dress was slipping its post as thoroughly as the restaurant’s security.

"You know, Vidar…" Her voice was a syrupy rasp that was supposed to be provocative. She reached across the linen, her fingers grazing the cuff of my bespoke suit. "I’ve heard that Blackwood men are... thorough. That you don't stop until every detail has been handled. I’m hoping you’re feeling particularly detail-oriented tonight. "

She tilted her head, giving me a look that promised a very specific kind of physical surrender.

It was a practiced invitation, the kind I usually accepted without a second thought.

I needed the release. My wolf had been pacing beneath my skin all day, and a few hours of mindless friction in a high-end hotel suite was the standard prescription.

But I wasn't thinking about her lips wrapped around my cock. I was thinking about the 0.4 percent. My thumb scrolled down the glowing screen of my phone. The digital manifest for the Shanghai-New York Cold Chain flickered in the low light.

0.4 percent spoilage.

In a vacuum, it was a rounding error. In my family's empire, it was a puncture wound. Blackwoods didn't run ships that leaked. I didn't run logistics that failed. For three weeks, the spoilage reports from the central hub had been ticking upward by fractions of a degree.

My date was right. I was detail-oriented. I have never error’d by a degree. Maybe a fraction, but I would catch it before it could ever grow to a whole number. It would never creep. Not past me.

"Vidar? Are you in there?" My date's voice sharpened, the syrupy playfulness curdling into irritation. "I’m sitting here in a four-thousand-dollar dress, and you’re looking at your phone. I think I should be insulted."

I didn't look up. I didn't care if she was insulted.

She was beautiful in the way a magazine intended; sunken edges, rounded corners, and everything else contoured with powders and creams. She was mostly skin and bones, a fragile human frame that wouldn't offer much to hold on to when I eventually got her behind closed doors.

She was picking at a salad that was nothing more than a pile of expensive weeds with a French name.

I’d ordered the ribeye, seared rare. It arrived grey and exhausted.

They’d left it on the heat for at least ninety seconds too long.

It was sacrilege. A far cry from the Fang Dynasty, where the meat was treated with the reverence of a religious relic and the "Blue Rooms" hummed with the energy of real predators. This place was a playground for humans who wanted to feel powerful. My family’s restaurant was an altar for those who actually were.

"I’m staying at the Vanguard," my date was saying. Her tone was clipped now, as though she was trying to regain her dignity. "If you’re finished with your phone… "

"The Vanguard," I repeated.

A Vane pack hotel. It was a crumbling fortress of wolves that had forgotten how to hunt. They were the Blackwoods' primary rivals, though "rival" was a generous term for a family that was currently bleeding market share.

The predator in me was restless, agitated by the 0.4 percent and the smell of overcooked fat. I stood up, sliding my phone into my breast pocket. I wasn't going to solve this problem tonight. I could at least clear my head by emptying my balls.

The valet at Ambrosia didn’t move fast enough.

I didn't snap. I just stared through him until he fumbled the keys to my Aventador and practically ran for the driver’s side door.

The moment the door sealed us into the quiet, leather-scented cabin, she was on me.

She didn't wait for me to pull out of the lot.

Her hands were frantic; her scent a sharp spike of artificial jasmine.

She crawled over the center console, her skirt hiking up to her hips, her mouth finding the sensitive cord of my neck.

"God, Vidar," she breathed against my skin. "You’re like a block of ice. I want to see you melt."

I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles white against the carbon fiber.

Shifting the car into gear, the engine let out a low, predatory purr that mirrored the pacing of my wolf.

I reached down, my hand finding the back of her head, my fingers tangling in her hair to pull her back just enough so I could see the road.

She took it as a sign of encouragement. Her hand slid down my chest, bypassing my belt and diving straight into my trousers. Her fingers were cold, but her intent was unmistakable.

I should have been harder. I should have been focused on the way her palm cupped me or the wet heat of her breath on my collarbone. But as I navigated the New York grid, the red taillights of the cars ahead of me looked like digital markers on a spreadsheet.

0.4 percent.

Every time she stroked me, I saw the fluctuation in the Shanghai manifest. Every time she moaned, I heard the phantom sound of a thermal seal breaking in a warehouse that should have been locked tight.

"Vidar..." she whimpered, her thumb grazing the tip of my cock.

I forced my eyes shut for a second, pushing the numbers back into the dark recesses of my mind. I needed to shut my brain up and let the beast take the wheel. I let my hand slide from her hair to her throat, not squeezing, just reminding her who owned the space we were in.

Leaning into the sensation of her hand, I forced my body to respond to the biological demand.

It was a chore—a necessary maintenance of the flesh to keep the mind from fracturing.

I drove with one hand, letting her work, letting the friction dull the sharp edges of my irritation.

By the time I pulled into the circular drive of the Vanguard, I was close enough to the edge to believe I might actually forget the logistics for an hour.

The Vanguard tried too hard. Gold leaf peeling at the corners. Velvet that had seen too many decades of human sweat. A scent that hung in the air like a dying breath. It was the smell of a pack that had traded their claws for property deeds they couldn't afford to keep.

Weakness. It was thick enough to taste.

As we crossed the marble floor, the two Vane enforcers at the security desk stood a little straighter.

Their heart rates spiked, a frantic thump-thump-thump that I heard from twenty feet away.

Their hackles were up, their pupils blown wide as they tracked me.

They were not Alphas, probably mid-tier betas at best, playing dress-up in cheap suits.

I didn't give them the satisfaction of a glance. I didn't need to assert dominance over dogs that were already whimpering in their heads.

"My room is on the penthouse level." Her voice was a husky whisper as she shoved me towards the elevator, molding her body against mine. "We don't even have to wait for the elevator to stop. I can start right here."

She leaned in, her lips grazing the line of my jaw, but my head snapped to the left. My nose twitched.

The smell of stale tobacco and floor wax was suddenly cut by something sharp.

It was the heavy, iron-rich scent of Miyazaki Wagyu—the specific, high-marbling profile that my mother secured through an exclusive contract with a farm in the Kyushu highlands.

It was meat that was never sold to third parties.

It was meat that was strictly destined for the Fang Dynasty.

And it was here. In a Vane kitchen.

"Vidar?" Her voice was a distant annoyance as I stepped out of the elevator.

I didn't move toward the gold-plated doors. I followed the scent, the hand-stitched soles of my Berluti loafers striking the marble with a heavy, rhythmic finality.

"Vidar? Where are you going?"

I headed straight for the service corridor. A Vane wolf stepped into my path, his chest puffed out, his eyes flashing a dull, pathetic amber. "This is a private area—"

I didn't slow down. I grabbed him by the throat, my fingers sinking into the soft tissue above his collarbone. I leaned in, my voice a low, vibrating growl that came from the base of my spine. "Move. Before I decide your hide is better suited for a rug."

He choked, his feet nearly leaving the floor as his instinct finally overrode his ego. He scrambled back, tripping over his own heels. I kicked the double stainless-steel doors open.

The kitchen was a frantic, humid mess. Humans in white coats scurrying like rats under the fluorescent lights. I zeroed in on the central prep station.

There, on a bed of crushed ice, sat a pristine, vacuum-sealed crate. The thermal seal had been hacked, but the digital serial number was still visible on the corner of the heavy-duty plastic.

Batch 904-Alpha.

My spoilage. My missing 0.4 percent. It wasn't rotten. It wasn't destroyed. It was sitting in a rival’s kitchen, being prepped for a food service that no Blackwood had authorized.

The logic of my world shattered. This wasn't a mistake. This was an elegant, calculated theft.

A low, guttural growl ripped from my throat, vibrating through the metal tables until the hanging copper pots began to hum. Every human in the room froze, their faces turning the color of curdled milk. They saw an angry man in a suit. They had no idea a bloodthirsty predator lurked beneath my skin.

The 0.4 percent wasn't a rounding error. It was a declaration of war.