1. Harley
Harley
There comes a point where you have to decide whether you’re completely batshit crazy or whether reality isn’t what you always thought it was.
I’m still trying to figure out which one applies to me.
Lately, I’m leaning toward reality being wrong, and honestly?
I think I’d rather just be insane. Somehow that feels less terrifying than accepting that supernatural shit actually exists.
Like werewolves.
They’re freakish. They change from people, bones contorting and snapping, skin rippling as it stretches over something else entirely, until they’re beasts.
I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count since I was abducted from my crappy little apartment in Sedona weeks ago.
Men grabbing me, dragging me out, and then—God—shifting right in front of me.
My own fault, I guess. For being a total slut.
I was lonely. I get lonely a lot. When that happens, I go out and bring someone home, hoping for a few hours where I won’t feel like I’m nothing in the world. That someone will chase off the isolation long enough for me to pretend I matter.
What a fucking idiot.
I smack my palm against my forehead. Again. There should be a dent in my skull by now. Maybe if I hit it enough times, I’ll knock some hidden stash of common sense loose. I’ve been warned before that bringing strangers home is stupid and dangerous.
Hadn’t one of the people who warned me been a fucking werewolf himself?
Not that I knew that at the time.
A month or so ago, Alex just seemed like a hot guy.
And a little lost. Like me. He fucked me like a dream.
Then he left the next morning, and I went on with my life.
I didn’t pine after him, but I remembered the sex pretty fondly.
He didn’t do anything to drag me into this mess.
Nothing to expose me to a version of reality that almost cost me my sanity.
Maybe it still will.
Sometimes I want to curl into a ball and rock and cry.
Like—
“No.” I wrap my arms around myself and hunch forward in the chair.
I will not give up. I will not let the monsters win.
They want me to believe they’re the good monsters, the opposite of the ones who took me in the first place.
But as far as I’m concerned, they’re all psychotic.
Unnatural creatures that are neither man nor beast, but something horrifyingly in between.
As if thinking about them summons them, there’s a sharp rap on my door.
My fear spikes, and right behind it comes my temper. Being scared makes me angry. It always has.
I shove up from the chair hard enough that it tips over. For a second I feel bad—it’s a nice chair. Everything here is nice. Warm, homey, tastefully decorated. If my Sedona apartment had looked like this, I’d never have left it. Or at least not often.
Unfortunately, the comfort has nothing to do with why I don’t leave.
That reason is the jackass still knocking on my door. Whichever jackass it is. I don’t discriminate. All of the werewolves are scary—and jackasses.
They’re even scarier when they act so fucking human.
I grip the doorknob and lean my shoulder against the wall. “Who is it?”
It’s not lunch time. Breakfast was less than an hour ago, so it’s not Anya. Not laundry day either, so not Craig.
“Marcus.”
I close my eyes and sag against the wall.
Of course it’s Marcus. And probably Nathan too.
They never visit separately. Marcus especially makes me nervous.
I hate being nervous almost as much as I hate being scared, so when they show up I either go completely silent or turn into a bitch.
I don’t know how else to handle the emotions or the waves of power that roll off Marcus.
Even if I hadn’t heard him described as the Alpha Anax—the Alpha of all Alphas in North America—I’d know he’s The Boss. The man radiates authority like heat off asphalt.
Which is why he intimidates me.
Which is why I get angrier around him.
“What do you want?” I grumble, hoping they’ll just go away. One day I’ll let one of them in and end up torn into pieces. What use do they have for me? I’m just a stupid, puny human with a head full of fucked up.
“Harley, open the door, please.”
He says please, but it’s practically a growl. Goose bumps explode across my skin. Do I really want two pissed-off werewolves anywhere near me? Because I can hear Nathan muttering on the other side.
“We need to discuss your return to Sedona.”
I straighten up and stare at the door like it’s the one that spoke.
Return?
They’re letting me go home? After weeks in their weird wolf compound?
It’s what I want, isn’t it? That twist in my gut is just gas. Not regret. Why wouldn’t I want to go back to the normal world?
My apartment will never feel safe again. But it’s cheap. And I’ll never find anything else that cheap. First and last month’s rent somewhere new? Impossible. If I’m lucky, I’ll find a job fast and catch up on what I owe.
“When?” I ask.
“When what?” Marcus snaps. “Open the damn—open the door so we can talk like reasonable adults, Harley.”
“Reasonable?” Nathan mutters. “Really, Marcus? If you didn’t growl and snarl, maybe Harley would act reasonably too. Perhaps you should set the example, being the Alpha Anax and all.”
They know I can hear them.
It irritates the hell out of me.
But Nathan’s needling works.
I unlock the door and open it, then hurry back to the kitchen table. The second Marcus steps inside, the room shrinks. It’s not just that he’s tall and broad and blond—though yeah, he’s all of that—it’s the power. I can feel it pressing against me.
I want to drop to the floor and whimper.
The urge pisses me off.
I back up until my hip hits the marble countertop. My hand settles casually on it. A knife block sits inches away, full of sharp blades. I always stand here when they come in. It’s routine. And I doubt knives would help if one of them decided to attack me.
But I like the illusion.
Marcus sighs and reaches for Nathan’s hand. Nathan pulls out a chair and sits. Marcus does the same. I stay standing.
I hate them.
An image of the wounded man flashes through my mind. I bite my tongue so I don’t ask about him. I haven’t asked once in weeks. I’m afraid he might be dead.
Which makes my chest ache.
Which is dumb.
I don’t care about these monsters.
Even Alex.
Sometimes especially Alex.
If I hadn’t hooked up with him, Joshua Dobson wouldn’t have hunted me down and used me as leverage in some twisted power struggle.
I don’t even fully understand what it was about, except that Joshua wanted to kill Alex.
And Marcus. And Nathan. And pretty much everyone. And he wanted his brother Sean back.
Obsessed freak.
“I’ve decided you can return to your apartment as soon as you want to.”
I flinch.
My mouth drops open. I snap it shut.
Marcus looks at Nathan like he needs help.
I look at my toes instead. At least they’re tidy. Unlike my brother Ryder’s long monkey toes. Why am I thinking about toes?
Because it’s easier than looking at them.
“Harley.”
I glance up at Nathan.
He’s pretty. Pale skin. Long red hair. Greenish eyes.
Why the fuck does that matter?
He twitches his nose, then stands and walks toward me slowly, watching me the whole time.
“Has anyone from our pack hurt you since you’ve been here, Harley?”
He stops close enough that I can smell him. We’re almost the same height, but I still feel like I’m looking up.
I drop my gaze back to my toes.
“Harley—”
“I know my damned name!” I snap.
Nathan steps back, surprised. A growl rumbles somewhere behind him and I immediately regret it, but I’m still furious.
“Don’t kill me! It’s not my fault I’m going nuts here! You—” I point at Nathan. “And you—” I try to glare at Marcus but can’t quite manage eye contact. “All of you are monsters! I can’t—I—Argh!”
I throw my hands up and yell just to release some of the chaos in my head.
Then someone touches my hand.
I yelp and jump sideways, banging my hip on an open drawer. “Don’t!”
Nathan catches my hand again. “Calm down, Harley. Look at me. Look. At. Me.”
I don’t want to. My heart is pounding. My stomach is churning. I want this to be a nightmare.
Please, God.
No one answers.
I crack my eyes open enough to see Nathan frowning at me.
“Marcus, maybe you should let me and Harley talk alone.”
Oh fuck. He can read my mind. That has to be it.
Marcus mutters something I can’t make out and leaves.
“Better?” Nathan asks.
I almost say no. Instead I breathe. The room feels…bigger. Less pressure.
Nathan chuckles. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
He leads me to the couch, still holding my hand. I sit because he basically makes me. He tips my chin up until I look at him.
For a second I want to cry. To let someone hold me and lie and say everything will be okay.
But nothing has ever been okay.
And I don’t trust him.
It’s hard to think of Nathan as anything but a person right now. He doesn’t look like a monster. But then again, what monster does?
Stop it. Stop humanising them.
They’re vicious, I tell myself silently. Sadistic bastards.
I pull my hand back and scoot away. “What do you want? I don’t understand why I’m here.”
Nathan blushes slightly and fiddles with his hair. “Can you try to see our side? We didn’t know what else to do. You’re not like us, and we don’t exactly want our existence exposed.”
He shudders. “Very few humans know shifters exist. My father does—the man I consider my father. Thank God for that, because I used it as an argument against turning you.”
My stomach drops.
“Turning me?” My voice cracks. “Into one of you?”
Nathan shrugs lightly. “What are our alternatives? Trust you. Turn you. Or kill you.”
I swallow.
“I vetoed the killing and changing,” he adds quickly. “No one actually wanted to kill you. It was mentioned more for shock value.”
Shock value.
Great.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I tend to babble.”
“Don’t bring Marcus back,” I blurt.
He huffs out a laugh. “Okay.”
I breathe again. “One night I hook up with a hot guy. He fucks like a machine. He warns me about bringing home strays. I ignore it. I do it again. I get kidnapped. Beaten. Abused.” My throat tightens. “Do you know how many times Joshua Dobson threatened to kill me?”
Nathan’s face goes tight.
“He had one of his guards shift and snap at me. Nip me. Once he even had one—”
I clamp my mouth shut.
I will not tell him about the wolf mounting me while everyone laughed. I passed out. When I woke up, I was still clothed. Not physically raped.
Mentally?
Yeah.
“Harley,” Nathan says quietly. “What did he have the guard do?”
“Not that,” I whisper. “He didn’t.”
Nathan looks…angry. Not at me.
“Every minute was hell,” I continue, staring at the clock. “I never knew if I’d live to the next hour. Who can blame me for hating every single one of you?”
It’s not fair.
But it’s how I feel.
“Who can blame me for being scared?”
That slips out before I can stop it.
Nathan sighs. “Pointing out that none of us have hurt you probably won’t help, will it?”
I don’t answer.
“We’re people too,” he says softly. “More human than not.”
I almost nod.
“There are bad shifters and good shifters. Just like humans. We want to live. To love. To enjoy our lives. We can’t do that if we’re hunted, experimented on. There are shifters who’d kill to protect our secret. Aren’t there humans who’d do the same?”
I grind my teeth. He’s not wrong.
“But we’re not animals, Harley.”
“Why do you keep saying my name?” I snap. “I’m the only other person here.”
Nathan glares back. “I like your name. And when Marcus was held captive for six months by Joshua Dobson, the only thing that kept him sane was hearing his name. You don’t exactly seem all there, so I’m trying to help.”
I stare at him. Then I start laughing.
He looks ridiculous—flushed, growly, snapping eyes—and it’s funny.
“It’s not funny,” he says. “Have you snapped?”
That sets me off worse.
“What have we done to you?” he mutters.
“Just let me go home.”
Even if I fall apart afterward.
“Okay,” Nathan says slowly. “We just want your word that you won’t tell anyone.”
“You have it,” I snap. “Who would believe me anyway? Werewolves—”
“Shifters.”
“What the fuck ever. No one would believe me.”
“You know what happens to people who talk?”
“I’ve seen TV,” I shoot back.
He studies me. “What do you know?”
“Nothing,” I lie. “Just let me leave.”
I head for the kitchen again.
“How soon can I go?”
However soon it is, it won’t be soon enough.