Chapter 2
Mikey
I woke up with violence in my blood.
It was a familiar sensation, a dark, viscous tide that rose with the sun, pounding against the back of my skull. But this morning, the violence was tangled with something else. Something stickier. Something hotter.
I was hard. Painfully, terrifyingly hard.
The thick, heavy duvet was kicked to the floor, leaving me shivering in the sub-zero temperature I kept my basement bedroom at, but my skin felt like it was on fire. I lay there for a moment, staring at the exposed wooden beams of the ceiling, listening to the silence of the Hive.
Usually, the silence was my friend. I had paid thousands of dollars to soundproof this room—installing acoustic foam, reinforcing the drywall, sealing the gaps—so that I wouldn't hear the breathing of the six other shifters who lived upstairs. I needed the quiet. The Wolf needed the quiet.
But today, the silence was filled with a ghost.
Vanilla. Lavender. Rain.
The scent wasn't physically there—I knew that. I had scrubbed my skin raw in the shower last night after leaving the training room. I had burned sage. I had opened the window to let the Michigan winter scour the room clean.
But the smell was branded on the inside of my nose.
Mine, the Wolf whispered. It was a low, purring growl that vibrated in my chest cavity. Go find. Go claim. Go keep.
"Shut up," I grated out, my voice wrecked with sleep.
I sat up, the movement causing the ache in my groin to throb.
I looked down. The tent in my boxers was undeniable proof that my subconscious had spent the last eight hours betraying me.
I had dreamed of her. Not the terrifying, fragile reality of her, but a version where she didn't say no.
A version where she didn't look at me with wide, fearful eyes, but with heavy, lidded want.
In the dream, she hadn't stitched my leg. She had licked the blood off.
A curse ripped from my throat. I swung my legs out of bed, my bare feet hitting the concrete floor. The cold bite was grounding. It was real.
I was Michael Holt. I was twenty-two years old. I was a Defensive Enforcer for the North Ridge Direwolves. I was a monster with a genetic expiration date stamped on my DNA.
I was not a mate.
I walked to the en-suite bathroom, catching my reflection in the mirror. The face looking back at me was haggard. Dark circles bruised the skin under my eyes. My stubble was coming in thick and black, hiding the jagged scar that ran down my jawline, but I knew it was there.
The mark of the beast.
My father had given me that scar during his first break. He hadn't meant to. He had just... lost the line between son and rival. He had looked at me and seen a threat to his dominance. I was fourteen. He was a rabid animal wearing a human’s skin.
I gripped the edges of the sink, squeezing until the porcelain groaned under the pressure.
"Control," I whispered to the mirror. "Discipline."
I turned the shower handle all the way to the right. Cold. Freezing.
I stepped under the spray, gasping as the icy water hit my overheated skin. I stood there until my teeth chattered, until the erection withered, until the Wolf curled up in the back of my mind, shivering and subdued.
I was in control. I had to be. Because if I wasn't, people got hurt. And Lydia Cross... she looked like she would break if the wind blew too hard.
The kitchen of the Hive smelled like a slaughterhouse mixed with a locker room.
It was 8:00 AM, which meant the feeding frenzy had begun. The Hive was a massive log cabin off-campus, sanctioned by the University for "Pack Housing," which was basically a legal way to say Quarantine the Predators.
When I walked into the kitchen, Jagger was already there, shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth like he hadn't eaten in a week. Two freshmen wolves, Miller and Davis, were fighting over a box of cereal in the corner, growling low in their throats.
The noise hit me like a physical slap. The clinking of forks, the chewing, the low-frequency hum of aggression that always simmered when Alphas ate together.
"Morning, Sunshine," Jagger mumbled around a mouthful of toast. He was wearing nothing but sweatpants, his hair a chaotic mess of blonde spikes. "You look like shit."
I ignored him, walking straight to the fridge. I grabbed a carton of raw eggs and a jug of protein shake.
"Bad night?" Jagger pressed, his coyote eyes gleaming with mischief. "Or just frustrated?"
I slammed the fridge door. The sound made the freshmen jump. Miller dropped the cereal box. Cocoa Puffs scattered across the linoleum.
"Clean it up," I snapped at them without looking.
"Yes, Holt," Miller squeaked, scrambling to his knees.
I turned my attention back to Jagger. He was the only one on the team who didn't flinch when I got like this. Coyotes were scavengers, tricksters. They didn't challenge Alphas directly; they annoyed them to death.
"I slept fine," I lied, cracking six eggs into a glass and drinking them raw. It was gross, but efficient. I needed the protein to repair the muscle fibers in my leg.
"Uh-huh," Jagger leaned back, balancing his chair on two legs. "Is that why I heard you pacing in the basement at 3:00 AM? Sounds like you were trying to wear a hole in the concrete."
I lowered the glass, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. "My leg was bothering me."
"Right. The leg." Jagger’s grin widened. "The leg that the little human fixed up. How is she, by the way? Did she faint when she saw all that..." He gestured vaguely at my size. "...Alpha intensity?"
My hand tightened around the empty glass. "Drop it, Jags."
"I’m just saying," he continued, oblivious to the danger zone he was skating into. "She’s the Coach’s niece.
Forbidden fruit. And she smells insane. I walked past the training room door after you left, and even the hallway smelled like her.
It’s weird, right? Humans usually smell like detergent and anxiety. She smells like..."
"Like a mate," I finished for him, the words tasting like ash.
The room went dead silent.
The freshmen stopped sweeping up cereal. Jagger’s chair slammed back onto all four legs. He stared at me, his playful demeanor vanishing instantly.
"Mikey," he said softly. "You serious?"
I turned away, rinsing the glass in the sink with aggressive force. "It doesn't matter. It’s just biology. Pheromones. It happens."
"It happens?" Jagger hissed, standing up and coming over to me. "Dude, it doesn't just happen. I’ve never smelled a human that made my wolf wake up. If you’re reacting to her... that’s big. That’s 'pack logic' big."
"It’s nothing," I growled, turning on him. I let a flash of amber bleed into my eyes. "She’s off-limits. Coach made that clear. I made that clear. I’m not going near her again."
"Does your wolf know that?" Jagger asked quietly.
I didn't answer. I couldn't.
Because my wolf was currently pacing circles in my head, howling her name.
"I have class," I muttered, grabbing my backpack from the counter.
"Mikey," Jagger called out as I reached the door. I paused, hand on the frame. "You know what happens if you fight a bond like that, right? If it is a bond? You get volatile. Unstable."
"I'm already unstable, Jagger," I said, not looking back. "That’s the family legacy."
I walked out into the biting cold, hoping the wind would freeze the heat that flared every time I thought of her.
It didn't.
Campus was a gauntlet.
North Ridge Academy was designed for shifters, which meant the architecture was brutalist and heavy—stone, iron, timber. But it was also filled with humans on scholarship, faculty members, and noise. So much noise.
I kept my head down, hoodie pulled up, noise-canceling headphones on. I wasn't listening to music. I was listening to white noise. Static. Anything to drown out the heartbeat of the world.
I walked to the Science Building for my Advanced Anatomy & Physiology lecture. It was a requirement for my Kinesiology degree, but it was also a torture chamber.
The lecture hall was packed. Three hundred students. The air was thick with the smell of damp wool, coffee, and stress.
I took a seat in the back row, as far away from everyone else as possible. I pulled my notebook out, staring at the blank page.
Focus. The skeletal system. The articulation of the femur.
But my pen hovered over the paper, refusing to move.
All I could see was her hands.
Lydia’s hands. Small, pale, with short, clean nails. I remembered the way her wrist had felt in my grip—fragile bird bones wrapped in soft skin. I remembered the heat of her palm on my thigh.
It had burned. It had felt like branding iron.
Most humans flinched when they touched me. My skin ran hot, my muscles were too dense, my energy was too abrasive. But she hadn't flinched. She had leaned in. She had scolded me.
Sit down, Number 14.
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth before I could crush it. She had ordered an apex predator to sit, and the crazy thing was... I had wanted to do it.
For a split second, the heavy burden of being in charge, of being the Alpha, of constantly holding back the madness... it had lifted. She had taken the reins. And the relief of submission—just for a moment—had been intoxicating.
SNAP.
I looked down. I had snapped my pen in half. Ink exploded over my hand, staining my fingers black.
"Mr. Holt?"
My head snapped up. The professor, Dr. Aris (a pretentious Owl shifter), was staring at me from the podium. The entire lecture hall had turned to look.
"Is there a problem?" Dr. Aris asked, adjusting his glasses.
"No," I grunted, hiding my ink-stained hand under the desk.
"Then perhaps you can tell me the primary insertion point of the vastus medialis?"
My mind went blank.
I knew this. I knew the human body inside and out. I knew how to break it, and I knew how to build it. But right now, my brain was a static-filled void.
"I..." I cleared my throat. "I don't know."
Dr. Aris sighed, a sound of profound disappointment. "See me after class, Mr. Holt. Again."