Kyre (The Wilds #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

Nevermind death and taxes.

The only true constant in life is that LA traffic will always be terrible.

Always.

Born and raised in this sprawling city of endless stoplights and asphalt, I’d been running at least ten minutes late all my life.

There was no way around it. No matter who you are, how well you planned, or how early you left, everyone was destined to get stuck in the same sea of bright red brake lights.

The whole city accounted for it. Twenty minutes late was on time. And showing up somewhere truly on time? Well, that was downright rude.

It seemed the only person in the whole city who didn’t accept this unfortunate reality was my boss, Philip. As the front desk manager at the world-famous Whitebrook Hotel in Beverly Hills, the man somehow expected all his staff to do the impossible and arrive ten to fifteen minutes early.

That’s right—early.

Trust me, the concept is about as foreign as you can get in Los Angeles. Right up there with snowy winters and smog-free skies. Sure, maybe those things are technically possible, but no one raised west of the San Gabriel Mountains had ever experienced them.

But this is just the long way of explaining why, even though I was only a mile from my stop and still had twenty minutes until my shift started at nine o’clock, I was starting to worry.

At this point, it was impossible to guess which would be faster—stay on the bus and pray we hit every green light down Santa Monica Boulevard, or get off now and speedwalk all the way to Wilshire.

Even after three years working behind the front desk at the Whitebrook, I’d only been written up twice for tardiness. In LA, that was a minor miracle. Employee of the year level commitment.

But of course, Philip didn’t see it that way. The hotel had a strict three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy. No excuses and no exceptions.

We serve the best people in the world at the Whitebrook, Philip liked to say. And they deserve only the very best.

But trust me when I tell you, every word of that was bullshit.

While there was no doubt that the people who stayed at the Whitebrook were some of the wealthiest and most famous people in the world, I’d yet to meet one I’d consider among the best. And as for what they deserved? Well, let’s just say Philip and I disagreed about that, too.

Especially, when it came to that one infamous producer who promised to make me a star if I’d come up to his room after my shift and give him a “massage.” I’d had to scrub myself raw every day in the shower for a week before I felt clean after that.

But even though I spent every day stuffing down my anger and swallowing my pride just to keep the guests happy, I still needed the job. Dignity and self-esteem were fine and all, but those things didn’t pay the rent or stock the pantry.

So with fifteen minutes left and ten blocks left to travel, I grabbed my bag and hopped off the bus. Arms swinging at my side, I chugged down the sidewalk, already feeling the beads of sweat forming on my brow and running down my temples.

Oh, Philip wasn’t going to like that.

Even though October was technically autumn, Los Angeles hadn’t received the memo. The mid-morning temperature was already pushing eighty, which meant I was bound to show up to work soaked.

But at least I’d be showing up on time.

Jogging and jaywalking, I managed to stay a block or two ahead of the bus...until the very end, when the damned thing hit the perfect string of green lights and surged to my usual stop about five seconds before I could get there.

So it was going to be that kind of day, was it?

I let out a sigh as the bus rolled past me, puffing out a massive plume of diesel smoke that felt like a middle finger as it accelerated away.

Great. Now I was running late and sweat-soaked. All I needed to do was break a heel as I scurried the last half block around the back of the hotel to the employee entrance, and I’d win the crappy day trifecta.

But that didn’t happen. Because I couldn’t move...not after my gaze shifted from the back of the now speeding bus to the new advertisement plastered over the back of the bus stop.

Usually, there wasn’t any reason for me to pay attention to the larger-than-life posters for luxury handbags and designer watches that decorated the plexiglass shelter. Those ads were meant for the guests of the Whitebrook Hotel, not the staff.

But not this time.

For the first time ever, it felt like the ad I was staring at wasn’t just meant for someone like me—but for me specifically, Sophia Torres of East Hollywood. It was as if someone had broken into my subconscious and printed out one of my dreams.

Which was ridiculous. Impossible, even. And yet, there it was in all its giant four-by-six-foot glory—a snapshot from the dream I’d had last night.

The actual dream.

The same dream I’d been having for over a month now.

Every night, I’d fall asleep and find myself walking through a lush, verdant forest. A place so overflowing with life that it couldn’t possibly be real.

Surrounded by trees so tall I couldn’t crane my neck back far enough to see their tops.

It was a landscape of soft, curling palm fronds, moss-covered cliffs, and gently moving streams.

As fantasy dreamworlds went, it was magnificent. So perfect that, from the first night, my unconscious mind was forced to admit the scenery was too gorgeous to actually exist. I had to be dreaming.

For the first twenty-three years of my life, I’d never experienced a single lucid dream, but now, all of a sudden, they were all I was having.

And they were wonderful. Peaceful and calm in a way that an Angeleno like me had never known was possible.

Well…at least the first couple of dreams had been calm. Then he’d shown up.

The man of my dreams...quite literally.

Seven feet tall and as broad-shouldered as an ox, he was every bit as breathtaking as the lush, green woods where he lived. From my first glance, I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off him. And not just because of his size and obvious strength.

But because he was so damned gorgeous.

I’m talking ridiculously hot.

And as someone who’d worked face-to-face with the rich and famous every day for the past three years, I knew hot.

I spent my days behind a counter, greeting heartthrobs and handing movie stars their room keys.

I’d flashed my best customer service smile to nearly every living recipient of the Sexiest Man of the Year title.

Pretty faces usually don’t fluster me.

Not that I’d ever describe the man from dreams as pretty.

His features were almost brutal in their masculinity—his brows heavy and chin square, his beard thick and his eyes sharp and piercing beneath his prominent brow. Everything about him, from his face to his form, projected a fierce kind of wildness.

From the first moment I saw him, I knew what he was.

A ferus. An alpha. A line of humanity that resisted the taming forces of civilization and retained their animal natures. Sure, my dream man might look human enough, but just beneath the surface of his skin, he was hiding vicious fangs and razor-sharp claws.

Or, at least, he would be if he were real.

Which, thankfully, he wasn’t.

And not just because there were few things more taboo than harboring an attraction to a ferus, but because everyone knew they were the most deadly creatures on the planet.

Their nature went beyond predatory. Wild animals killed out of fear and hunger, but the ferus?

They slaughtered for the fun of it. For the thrill and perverse satisfaction of bathing themselves in blood.

They were death machines, without reason, without morals, driven by an overpowering instinct to destroy anything in front of them. That was why we, as a civilized society, had built a giant wall to contain them in the Wilds, to protect ourselves from danger.

And here I was having recurring dirty dreams about one of these guys…and I do mean dirty. Because I did more than just look at that alpha in my dreams. Way more.

How fucked up was that?

So messed up that I didn’t dare tell a soul about my late-night fantasies. Not even my roommate, Felicity. And we told each other everything. But not this.

Even best friends had limits, and these dreams were just too far over the line. I couldn’t expect Felicity to understand or sympathize. I couldn’t even hope she’d laugh it off.

How could she when I could barely stand the embarrassment? Even though these bizarre sexual fantasies were probably nothing more than the by-product of reading too many spicy novels right before bedtime, they were still shameful as hell.

But at least dreams were easy secrets to keep. Neatly contained in my head, there was no way they could accidentally sneak out into the waking world.

At least, that’s what I’d thought.

Until I found myself standing slack-jawed on Santa Monica Boulevard, looking at a giant photo of my dream man’s cabin.

Not a photo of a similar cabin. But the actual one.

I’d seen those rough wood walls countless times. He’d carried me up that small set of stairs, smooth valleys worn down in the middle from years of bearing his weight. There was even that distinctive knot in the right-hand corner of the top step.

And it wasn’t just the stairs that convinced me. There were other familiar details. The woodpile to the left of the stairs. The axe with the intricately carved handle. The redwood door that he’d always kick open before tossing me on the giant bed that was just inside.

There wasn’t a single doubt in my mind. This was a picture of my dream man’s house.

But how was that possible?

Everything, from the woods to the cabin to the alpha, was a fantasy. There was no way any of it could be real.

And yet here I was standing on the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica staring at the glossy, full-color proof that every shameful thing I’d been dreaming hadn’t been fiction after all.

My knees locked as my stomach flipped over.

My heart hammered so hard I thought it might break straight through my breastbone.

Time froze as my mind struggled to process the idea.

It took nearly a minute for me to be able to draw in a full breath.

And another minute after that for my head to clear enough to check what the impossible picture was actually advertising.

The Howard & Somerset Gallery is proud to present

A World’s First

Beyond the Wall of the Wilds

A Groundbreaking Photo Exhibition

By Hannah Carter

Opening Gala October 16th

Holy crap.

My mind spun, desperate for a logical answer.

The gala opening was only a few days away, so maybe I’d seen this poster before.

Not at this bus stop, of course. I would have remembered it.

But maybe there were others along my bus route that I’d caught a glimpse of out of the corner of my eye.

And maybe the image had wormed its way into my subconscious, popping up again in my dreams.

Sure, that was a lot of maybes, but I couldn’t think of any other answer. Not a rational one anyway. And since we lived in a world ruled by scientific laws and not dream magic, it had to be the right one.

Even so, I couldn’t resist the urge to pull out my phone and snap a picture of the gala’s details.

Not that I had any chance of going. The opening was this Friday night, and I was scheduled to work the late shift. Even if I somehow managed to switch shifts, I doubted a hotel clerk like me would be welcome at a fancy gallery party.

Or that I would ever be able to afford the ticket in the first place.

But maybe after the gala, I could rope someone into checking out the showing with me.

Someone like Felicity—she was usually up for anything.

I started to text her… then saw the time at the top of my phone screen.

9:03 a.m.

Shit!

There it was. Strike three.

Son of a bitch! This really was turning out to be a crap day after all.