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The kitchen in the alpha’s house is a dream, even if the rest of the job isn’t. It gleams, every surface polished by the cleaners. A sparkling chandelier hangs over the butcher block counter, and the fridge is always bursting with fresh ingredients. The alpha even had an herb garden installed upon my request.

Now, I close my fingers around a sprig of rosemary, sliding down the stalk and watching as the needles of the herb fall into the bowl. I’m making another batch of herb-infused butter, which I’ll use throughout the week in dishes for the alpha and his family.

Humming under my breath, I finish mixing the butter, roll it into a log, and wrap it up in waxy brown paper. Just as I’m sliding it into the fridge, the timer on the oven lets out a little ding , and I turn, pulling the roast out, lips pulling up at the corners when I see that it’s come out perfectly, the vegetables around the meat glistening, caramelized, a poke to the center of the roast showing it’s tender, but fully cooked.

After prepping the plates, I take a breath and prepare for the part of this job I like the least—interacting with the alpha.

I roll the food into the dining room on a little metal cart, stopping when I realize there are three fewer people in the room than I expected. Instead of the alpha, his wife, and his two children, it’s just him, sitting alone at the head of the table, his boots kicked up on the fine linen, a scowl dug deep into his features.

“Kira!” he calls the moment he sees me, his deep voice booming through the room. I fight hard not to flinch—he doesn’t take kindly to negative reactions.

“Sir.” When I approach him with the cart, I cast my eyes downward. It’s an automatic reaction—to be an omega in the presence of an alpha is to constantly feel the pressure of obedience in the back of your mind. Even if I didn’t have the natural instinct, I’d never look him in the eye.

I’m lucky enough that his pack agreed to take me in. Despite the less-than-perfect situation, the last thing I want to do is jeopardize my position. Give him a reason to cast me out.

“Mrs. Blacklock is out this evening with the kids,” he says, waving his hand dismissively over the cart when he sees the additional servings.

“Sorry, I didn’t know.”

When I lean over him to set his plate down, I don’t miss the way he leans in, breathing. It makes my body shake, as I know already that my heat is on the horizon, my scent changing already to indicate as much.

As I’m pulling back, ready to return to the kitchen and beyond grateful that his cleaning staff will take care of the rest, he grabs my wrist, halting me.

“Stay.” It’s a command, and my body has already stopped moving in compliance with it. “Let’s not put all this food to waste. Set yourself a seat here.”

I swallow through the lump in my throat. Sitting here, eating dinner with him, is the last thing I want to do. But Jarred Blacklock is not an alpha you want to defy.

“Of course,” I choke out, picking up one of the plates, removing the cloche, and carefully sitting next to him. I’m wearing a dress today, and I suddenly wish I’d gone for anything else, hating the way the hem draws up as I sit, getting dangerously close to my knees.

Jarred slices through the roast and I glance over at his plate, secretly pleased that the inside is exactly how I wanted it—slightly red, tender, juicy, but cooked through. Hands shaking slightly, I raise my knife and fork, slicing through the meat.

I’ve made this at home, tested the recipe, but this is the first time I’ll get to try something I’ve made for the Blacklocks at their home, in their fancy kitchen, with the organic ingredients and Japanese knives.

“So,” he says, talking through the meat in his mouth. “Tell me about your little premonitions this week, Kira.”

Shame, hot and thick, pools through me at the sound of his words. Little premonitions .

Nobody has ever truly believed that I have my gift. Sometimes, the constant skepticism over it has even made me question it. Clairaudience. The ability to hear things when I’m not present, to hear things, sounds, sentences that haven’t been spoken yet. A form of telling the future.

“Well?” Jarred is holding a carrot on his fork, staring at me intently, and I catch something dangerous glinting behind his dark eyes.

Objectively, he’s a handsome man. Most alphas—and especially pack leaders—are. With his sharp cheekbones, dark hair, and roman nose, you can’t argue that he’s ugly.

But there’s something about him that makes him repulsive to me. The way his gaze moves over my body. How he picks at his teeth with his knife, the way his boots track through this house—he never stops to thank or think about the maids on their hands and knees, wiping away the mud before he can turn around and accuse them of not keeping a clean house.

It’s in the way he talks to his pack members, filling up the room with his presence, never allowing another voice to break in.

Something in the back of my mind reminds me, rather unhelpfully, that there’s another reason I find this man, and all others, repulsive. It has nothing to do with them, and everything to do with the fact that my body has already decided there’s only one man on this planet it wants.

Roughly, I push the thought from my head before the grief and despair can follow. That chapter of my life is already closed, firmly shut against the past. Thinking about it just makes me feel like I’m losing my mind.

“Sorry.” My cheeks flush further when I realize he’s been waiting, impatience etching into lines on his forehead. “Uh—one came to me last night.”

“Oh,” he says, tone salacious, joking. “Do tell.”

Clearing my throat, eyes locked firmly on the food I no longer want to eat, I mutter, “It was a man’s voice. He was angry, and he said: It’s gone. It’s all gone .”

“Hmm,” Jarred says, mock thoughtful. “Perhaps a man who’s gambled too much?”

“Perhaps,” I agree, quietly, twisting my fork in my hand and forcing myself to take another bite when I feel his gaze on me, heavy. I wish, more than anything, that one of the cleaning staff would come in, just so I wouldn’t be alone with him in this massive room.

“Well,” Jarred lets out a satisfied burp, leans back in his chair, and crosses his hands over his stomach, his eyes settling on me with a predatory glint. “What’s for dessert, then?”

***

I stare down at the pancake in the pan in front of me. No matter how much my cooking skills improve, I always cave and flip it too early. Reaching over to the other side of the stove, I jostle the bananas bubbling merrily in a foam of caramel, mouth already watering at the thought of laying them over the pancakes, pairing the whole thing with a salted caramel latte and an ice-cold glass of water.

When I’m plating up the food—pancakes saved from my impatience, thankfully—I glance down and realize the hem on my apron is fraying. I should repair it, but my mind is already racing with ideas for a brand new apron. What fabric do I have again?

I crack open the window and sit at the table. There’s some left over from the nightgown I’m wearing, but would it be enough to make an apron? The silky material would be better suited for something else, like a scrunchie or a pillowcase.

A bird chirps, and when I look through the window, I see one landing on the scraggly tree just outside my window. Beyond the tree and the bird is the vast, dry landscape, a sea of red and brown. The sun washes over it, bright and unfiltered, and for the first time in a long time, I feel a flicker of joy at the bottom of my heart.

This place might not be perfect, but it’s mine.

And it’s with that full irony that the first knock on the door comes, quick and sharp, sending that flicker of joy back into the darkest, most secret parts of me.

When I open the door, one of Jerrod’s right-hand men is standing there, his huge, bulky frame filling the doorway, a scowl on his face.

“Kira.” He looks me up and down, even more disgust than usual on his face. He’s tall and bald, his biceps straining against the fabric of his shirt, pale blue veins popping out, making me sick when I glance at them.

“What—”

Without preamble or justification, he reaches out, grabs me by the arm, and starts to drag me to his car. He may not be the alpha—the leader of the pack—but he is an alpha, and my body complies with his directives, not fighting against me as he throws me into the passenger seat of his vehicle.

Before he slams the door, he leans in close, his breath rank and hot against my cheek.

“You really fucked up this time, bitch.”