Chapter 1 Riley #2
“Your money?” I laughed, but it came out bitter. “I wrote that book, Damien. Eight months of my life went into it. You just cash checks and complain.”
“Without me, you’d be nothing.” He was in my space now, close enough that I could smell his cologne, the same cologne he wore when he made me believe I was special.
“I made you, Riley. Everything you have exists because I let it exist. I got you that first publishing deal. I built your career from scratch.”
God, I was tired. So tired of this speech, this manipulation, this constant reminder that I owed him everything. The worst part? Part of me still believed it. Part of me was still that twenty-four-year-old girl who thought he hung the moon.
But another part of me, a newer part that had been growing through concrete, was done.
“You got me to sign a contract I didn’t understand when I was twenty-four and desperate.” I shoved off the shelf, refusing to let him corner me. “Forty percent, Damien. You take double the industry rate. You show up at my events to steal money I earn.”
“Steal?” His jaw tightened. “You signed it willingly.”
“I signed it because you were my boyfriend and I trusted you.”
“And whose fault is that?”
Touché. Silly me. Trusting my boyfriend not to screw me over. How naive.
“You have no right...” I started, but he interrupted.
“I have every right.” His voice dropped. “Read your contract. I own you, and I will make you regret this.”
I should have backed down. He had power. Connections. The kind of influence that could make a midlist author disappear. One phone call to the right people and my career was over.
But Emma’s face, lit up with joy over two free books, was burned into my brain.
And I was just so goddamn tired.
“Go fuck yourself, Damien.” The words came out calm, almost pleasant. “You want to know what I regret? The nine dollars I spent buying a magnifying glass back when I was still trying to find your dick with it. Biggest waste of money of my life.”
He slapped me.
Not hard, more shock than pain, but the sound echoed through the storage room. We stood there, frozen, his hand still raised, my cheek stinging.
This wasn’t the first time he’d put his hands on me. Probably wouldn’t be the last.
But the signing, the sweet girl, the first time I’d felt good about my writing in months... all of it crashed together in my chest. I stared at him. He was already composing his face, probably preparing his apology, his “you made me do this” speech.
I didn’t give him the chance. I felt the last thread inside me snap.
Holding eye contact, I raised my hand to my cheek and rubbed. Hard, then harder, until the skin burned, until it was flaming red and looked way worse than his pathetic slap could have managed.
His eyes went wide. “What are you... stop that. Riley...”
I didn’t stop, not until I was satisfied.
“Wait.” He stepped toward the door, blocking it. “Don’t you dare...”
I shoved past him, yanked the door open, and walked out back to my signing table. Back to the public. Head high, cheek blazing, making sure everyone got a good look at me.
“Sorry about that,” I said, settling into my chair with a serene smile that probably didn’t reach my eyes. “Where were we?”
The audience stared at my cheek and then at Damien, who was slowly walking out from the storage room, his face pale. The whispers started immediately, spreading through the crowd.
Good. Let them talk.
I won the battle. But my hands were trembling under the table where no one could see them.
***
The line had dwindled to almost nothing by the time I stopped shaking. A few more signatures, a few more polite conversations, a few more stolen glances at my red cheek and Damien’s pale face.
Sloane caught my eye from across the room before she walked out of the door, making a throat-slitting gesture toward Damien, her eyebrows raised in question.
I shook my head slightly. Not yet. Soon, hopefully. But not yet.
My hand was cramping and my face hurt from smiling, but I was running on spite and adrenaline now. I could crash later. Cry in the shower, stress eat an entire sleeve of Oreos, maybe write a villain based on Damien and kill him off in chapter three.
The line finally emptied and I slumped in my chair. Almost done. Almost free.
That’s when the bookstore door chimed and a blonde woman walked in.
She was around my age, maybe younger. Pretty in a chaotic way, the kind of person who could definitely start a bar fight and look adorable doing it.
Her outfit was interesting. Not bad, just slightly…
Off. The kind of clothes you’d pick when you’re playing dress-up with your mother’s wardrobe. My godmother’s wardrobe, in my case.
She scanned the room with bright, curious eyes, spotted my signing table, and made a beeline toward me.
“Hi!” Her smile was blinding. “You’re the author, right? The wolf book lady?”
“That’s me.” I gestured at the banner behind me. “Riley Hawkins. Wolf book lady extraordinaire.”
“I’m Thessa.” She plopped into the chair across from me with absolutely no hesitation and made herself at home. “I just found out about this event three minutes ago. I was walking by and saw the poster. You write about werewolves?”
“Werewolf romance, specifically. The sexy kind.”
Her eyes went huge, sparkling with genuine delight. “There’s a sexy kind?”
“Oh, honey.” I slid a book toward her. “There’s a whole genre.”
She grabbed the book and started flipping through it, scanning pages with an intensity that seemed almost academic. “Wolves... mating... claiming...” Her head snapped up. “This reads very authentic to actual wolf culture. How do you know this stuff?”
Weird question. “Research? Imagination? A deeply unhinged Pinterest board?”
Thessa laughed, loud and delighted, the kind of laugh that made people turn and look. “I love you. What’s your favorite chapter?”
We ended up chatting for way longer than I expected, and I found myself genuinely enjoying it.
Thessa was a lot. Enthusiastic, weird, asking oddly specific questions no one had ever asked before.
But she was charming in an unpolished way, all golden retriever energy and zero filter.
Talking to her felt easy in a way that talking to most people didn’t.
“So when the wolf bites her neck,” she asked, completely serious, “is that a permanent thing, or...?”
“Permanent. It’s a claiming mark. Very important in the lore.”
“Fascinating.” She said it the way a scientist would. “And the... heat cycles?”
“Very popular trope, very spicy. You want me to recommend some authors?”
“Yes. All of them. Every single one.”
Damien cleared his throat behind me.
I felt him there, impatience radiating off him. He wanted to leave. Wanted to get me alone and maybe finish what we started in the storage room.
“Closing time,” he announced. “Riley needs to rest.”
Thessa glanced at him, frowned slightly, then turned back to me and ignored him completely. I could have kissed her for that.
“Can I buy a copy?” she asked. “I want you to sign it.”
“Of course.” I reached for a book.
“That’ll be thirty dollars,” Damien cut in.
Thessa didn’t look at him. Just pulled out cash, tossed it on the table, and focused entirely on me. “Can you write a special message about wolves? A cool one?”
I grinned. I loved this girl. “How about ‘May your enemies fear your bite’?”
“Perfect.”
We were laughing together when the bookstore door opened again.
I glanced up out of habit, expecting another late customer or maybe Sloane coming to check on me.
It wasn’t Sloane.
A man stood in the doorway.
He was tall, so tall he had to duck under the frame. Six-foot-seven easy, maybe taller. Broad shoulders, lean build, the kind of body that suggested he did physical things for a living. Fighting bears, climbing mountains, posing for those calendars I definitely didn’t own but absolutely would.
His hair was dark blonde, slightly disheveled. His clothes were expensive and clearly tailored, but there was an energy about him that felt off. Not in a bad way, just different. He didn’t belong in a Lysmont bookstore on a Tuesday afternoon.
But it was his eyes that got me.
Gray. Pale gray, the color of storm clouds right before lightning. They swept the room once, twice, and then locked on me. Everything else in the room ceased to exist.
His entire body went still. His hands curled into fists at his sides, his chest expanded with a breath that seemed to rattle through him.
I swallowed. Hard.
“Ky!” Thessa waved enthusiastically beside me. “Over here!”
The man didn’t look at her or acknowledge her wave. Hell, he didn’t seem to hear her voice at all. His entire being was focused on me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. Not with fear, not exactly. I didn’t know what it was.
He moved toward me. Not walked. Moved. Each step deliberate, predatory, unstoppable.
And then his eyes changed.
I blinked. For a split second, I could have sworn his gray eyes shifted, glowing amber in the bookstore lighting.
Inhuman.
No. That was insane. Eyes didn’t do that. I’d been writing too many werewolf books and my brain had finally broken. But he was still coming, staring, and there was a sound building in his chest, low and rumbling.
Almost like a growl.
He stopped in front of my table and towered over me. His breathing was ragged, his jaw was clenched and he was looking at me in a way that no one had ever looked at me before.
“Mate.”
The word ripped out of him, guttural, dragged from a place that was deep and ancient.
I froze.
What the actual fuck?