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Chapter one

Nick

Nick glared at the towering stack of reports like they had personally wronged him. Maybe they had. It felt like they were breeding when he wasn’t looking. He drummed his fingers against the desk, the staccato beat of a man teetering on the edge of an existential crisis. Overhead, the fluorescent lights buzzed like a judgmental aunt, casting a soul-sucking glow over the endless wasteland of cubicles.

"Hey Nick, got those quarterly numbers ready?" Sarah from accounting leaned against his cubicle wall, her smile way too bright for a Monday morning.

"Almost done." He flashed his signature smirk, a practiced shield that never quite reached his eyes. "Just putting the finishing touches on this riveting analysis of paper clip consumption."

"Always the comedian." She lingered, fidgeting with her pearl necklace. "Listen, a few of us are grabbing drinks after work…"

"Can't." The word came out sharper than intended. Nick softened his tone, maintaining the careful distance he'd cultivated. "Deadlines. You know how it is."

"Right. Of course." Her disappointment was palpable, but Nick kept his eyes fixed on his monitor.

Once she left, he slumped in his chair, the facade cracking just enough to reveal the exhaustion underneath.

Usually it would have been just a lie. Another invitation deflected, another potential connection severed before it could take root. Safer that way. Easier.

But tonight, he did have something planned. Something that had required a lot of long nights, deep in thought. Pros and cons columns. Risk and reward.

Nick had finally bet on risk, needing that reward.

Tonight, he'd find out if he'd chosen correctly.

The spreadsheet before him blurred into meaningless columns of data. Nick rubbed his temples. The office walls seemed to close in, suffocating in their beige mediocrity. Every keystroke felt like another nail in his professional coffin.

"Meeting in five, everyone!" His supervisor's voice carried across the floor.

Nick's jaw clenched. Another hour of nodding and pretending to care about market projections while his soul died a little more. He straightened his tie—a noose by any other name—and gathered his materials. The mask slipped back into place, his features arranging themselves into practiced indifference.

"Ready to dazzle them with your insights?" Sarah asked as she passed.

"Always. Someone has to keep everyone awake during these things."

She smirked, tapping her pen against the file in her hand. "Good luck with that."

Nick exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulders as he stepped toward the glass-walled conference room. The low hum of conversation, the rhythmic tapping of keyboards, the occasional chime of an email notification—just another day in corporate purgatory. He adjusted his grip on his notes, mentally preparing for another hour of strategic boredom.

Then the air shifted.

The relentless buzz of the office faded as Viktor strode in, looking like he’d just stepped out of a high-end cologne ad—if cologne ads featured insufferable werewolves with stupidly perfect jawlines.

Nick’s breath hitched—probably just his body rebelling against the stale office air. Or maybe a delayed allergic reaction to corporate bullshit. It certainly wasn’t because Viktor had entered the room like he owned the place, all broad shoulders and calculated ease, his suit annoyingly well-fitted, as if even the fabric had given up resisting him.

The fluorescent lights, which always made Nick look half-dead, somehow decided to play favorites, casting sharp, dramatic shadows across Viktor’s face. Because of course they did. Even the damn lighting had fallen for his act.

Nick scowled. Fantastic. As if meetings weren’t painful enough without having to endure Viktor’s smug existence on top of everything else.

Viktor’s accent rolled through the room like distant thunder—deep, smooth, and just smug enough to be irritating. “We have much to discuss, yes?”

The words were crisp, each syllable wrapped in that rich Russian lilt that Nick definitely didn’t find distracting. And because the universe clearly hated him, Viktor’s suit only made things worse—sharp lines and expensive fabric doing absolutely nothing to disguise the raw power underneath. If anything, the whole civilized businessman look just made him seem more dangerous, like a wolf humoring the idea of wearing sheep’s clothing before tearing it off.

Nick exhaled slowly, forcing himself to relax his grip on his pen. It wasn’t like Viktor was about to lunge across the table and sink his teeth into him. Werewolves were civilized these days. Mostly. Their kind had their little rules, their polite smiles, their tightly leashed instincts, all carefully packaged to avoid scaring the fragile humans.

Not that Nick considered himself fragile. He got by just fine in a world where he’d always be a few steps lower on the food chain. He was quick, clever, and had perfected the art of looking unimpressed, which was basically a survival skill when surrounded by creatures who could bench-press a sedan.

Sure, he lacked the raw presence, the ridiculous strength, the way they moved like their bodies had been custom-built for the hunt—but who needed that? Nick had wit, charm, and a distinct lack of fleas. He was doing just fine, thanks.

And yet, despite all the careful self-reassurances, his pulse still kicked up when Viktor claimed the chair directly across from him. The wolf’s scent filled the air: pine needles and winter storms and something wild that Nick absolutely refused to acknowledge on any level. Dark hair fell across Viktor’s forehead in a deliberate mess, as if he’d just rolled out of bed or finished a fight. Both possibilities seemed equally likely.

Viktor's green eyes locked onto Nick's, a flash of something wild and untamed beneath the corporate veneer. His lips curled into something too sharp to be called a smile, revealing teeth that seemed just a touch too pointed for his human form.

There was something off about Viktor today—something more than his usual assholishness. Some kind of energy. A tension in the way he carried himself, those broad shoulders set higher than usual, his muscles wound tight like he was holding something back.

Nick knew why.

Of course he did. He knew the date. Knew exactly what was clawing at Viktor from the inside out. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to think about it.

Because he didn't care.

"Working hard, or hardly working, Nick?" Viktor's deep voice carried across the meeting room table.

Nick's fingers tightened around his pen. "Some of us actually earn our paychecks, instead of relying on animal magnetism."

It was a weak jab, but with Viktor's strange irritation, it seemed to hit home. "Is that what you call that little spreadsheet fortress you've built?" Viktor leaned over, invading his space with casual dominance. The scent of pine and leather wrapped around Nick. "Hiding behind numbers?"

"Better than marking my territory like some overgrown puppy." Nick's heart raced as Viktor's eyes darkened. "You're full of piss and vinegar today, buddy. What's wrong? Did someone steal your favorite chew toy?"

Viktor narrowed his eyes. He planted his hands on the desk, bringing his face inches from Nick's. "Keep running that mouth, human. See where it gets you."

"Promises, promises." The tension crackled between them like static before a storm. "But we both know you're all bark, no bite."

Viktor's growl was too low for human ears, but Nick felt it vibrate through his chest. The werewolf's pupils dilated, a ring of gold bleeding into the green.

Nick hated working with werewolves. They were too much, too intense, too physical, too damn primal in a way humans weren’t. A regular coworker might argue, maybe even throw in some passive-aggressive emails, but werewolves? They got in your space, in your head, like confrontation was a sport.

And Viktor was the worst of them all—always pushing, always testing, like he was waiting for Nick to snap. It was infuriating. And, okay, fine, maybe there was something distracting about the way Viktor smelled like pine and leather, or how his voice could send an involuntary shiver down Nick’s spine. But that was just a biological response. A very annoying biological response. Nothing more.

"Back off, Fido." The words came out rougher than intended, betraying the tremor in his voice. "Some of us have actual work to do."

Viktor’s smile deepened, full of smug satisfaction, and Nick was this close to saying something totally cutting and witty—

“Alright, let’s get this circus started,” boomed their boss, Greg, as he strolled into the room, a coffee in one hand and a half-eaten protein bar in the other. “Hope everyone brought their listening ears today.”

Nick all but flung himself backward into his chair, desperately trying to look like he hadn’t just been locked in a weird, definitely not sexually charged, stare-down with Viktor. Viktor, the smug bastard, took his sweet time moving away, lingering just long enough to make it clear he knew exactly what effect he had.

Greg plopped into his seat at the head of the table and flipped open his laptop. “Alright, first up: Q3 projections. Nick, you wanna take us through it?”

Nick cleared his throat, willing his heartbeat to calm the hell down. “Uh, yeah. Right.” He tapped at his keyboard, but he could feel Viktor’s gaze still on him, warm and heavy, like a wolf watching its prey just for fun.

As the presentation loaded, Nick risked a glance to the side. Viktor smirked, slow and knowing.

The absolute menace.

Nick scowled back. He clicked to the first slide. “Yeah, so… Q3 projections.”

Viktor chuckled under his breath.

It was almost like he knew what Nick was going to do that night.

Hours later, Nick's shoes clicked against the parking garage floor, echoing through the cavernous space like a reminder of his life’s crushing monotony. Work, sleep, repeat. The corporate hamster wheel spun on, and Nick was one missed deadline away from gnawing off his own leg just to escape.

The sight of his car should’ve brought some comfort, but at this point, it was just another symbol of his financial suffering. Car payments, rent, overpriced groceries—being a responsible adult was a scam.

Nick tossed his bag into the passenger seat and gripped the steering wheel, staring blankly at the road ahead. On any other day, he'd turn left, go home, microwave something depressingly beige for dinner, and collapse onto his couch while binge-watching a show he’d already seen six times.

But tonight, he turned right. Toward the woods.

Toward them .

“This is just about the money,” he muttered, adjusting the rear view mirror.

His registration for the annual mating run sat in the glove compartment, filled out weeks ago during a moment of financial panic. A full year of free housing—utilities included. No more rent. No more job stress. No more wanting to chew his leg off rather than go in to work.

He'd be able to reset. Leave his crappy job. Take a breath. Find a job that he wanted to do. Something that would make him happy, rather than drain him like a beige vampire.

The trees thickened as he neared the entrance to the woods. Other cars already filled the gravel lot—other volunteers, other desperate souls willing to trade a night of dignity for financial security.

Nick parked and leaned back in his seat, exhaling slowly. His hands trembled slightly as he cut the engine, but he forced them still against the steering wheel.

"Get it together," he told his reflection in the rear view mirror. "It's just one night. One run. Then you're free. It's just good sense, really."

Outside, other volunteers milled around, mostly wearing expressions that said why am I here ? Some looked as nervous as he felt, shifting their weight and glancing at the forest like it might lunge at them.

But others had the kind of giddy anticipation that made his stomach churn. We are not the same, Nick thought grimly, eyeing one guy who looked way too excited about the prospect of being tackled by horny werewolves.

“Think of it as just… another corporate team-building exercise,” he muttered, but the words felt about as solid as his retirement plan. The forest loomed around them, vast and ancient, like it knew what was happening and was judging them all accordingly.

Nick inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with crisp mountain air. Earthy, pine-scented, wild. His brain made the mistake of linking it to something familiar—some one familiar. He was not about to dwell on that.

This was about money. About freedom. Not about… workplace distractions.

Statistically, it wasn’t even a concern. Hundreds of wolves attended these things. The odds of actually knowing the one who caught him? Practically non-existent. They’d take what they came for, and he’d never see them again. One night. One chase. Simple risk-reward analysis: financial stability in exchange for a few hours of potential discomfort.

Clean. Efficient. Simple. Nick exhaled and squared his shoulders. He could handle simple.

The werewolves might be intense, but they weren’t actually dangerous. No-one ever died during these wild nights. Too much legal red tape.

His analytical mind kicked in, running through the numbers. He’d memorized the terrain maps, identified the best escape routes. He'd been running five miles every morning—his cardio was solid. He had a plan, and he could outrun some dumb dogs all night long.

“It’s just a game,” he told himself, rolling his shoulders back. The words steadied him, like a familiar suit of armor.

He was good at games. Especially the ones where winning meant outsmarting his opponents.

Even if, this time, his opponents were supernatural predators with enhanced senses and raw animal instinct.

No pressure.

He let his mask of confident indifference settle into place. Whatever primal fear tried to crawl up his spine, he buried it beneath layers of rational thought and careful planning.

He was going to do this, and he was going to win.