Page 12

“Complete bullshit,” Duke muttered, but even his perpetual scowl had softened slightly, his massive frame angled toward the story despite himself.

“The best part?” Felix’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Two days later, the local paper ran a front-page story about ‘Sasquatch sightings’ in the national forest. Apparently, multiple campers reported a ‘shimmering, humanoid figure’ moving through the trees after dark.”

The laugh escaped before I could contain it—a real one that I felt in my chest. Felix’s gaze caught mine across the table, and he shot me a wink that felt like fingers trailing down my spine. Something hot and unfamiliar coiled low in my belly.

Just the whiskey. Definitely just the whiskey.

The front door slammed open, a gust of cold spring air cutting through the bar’s warmth like a warning.

Five males stalked in with the casual arrogance of wolves entering a henhouse.

Their scents hit me before they’d cleared the threshold—cedar smoke, top-shelf bourbon, and designer cologne so strong it was practically a declaration of war on everyone’s senses.

My fingers found the hilt of my knife beneath the table, a reflex so ingrained I’d moved before conscious thought kicked in.

The energy radiating off them was unmistakable—all five carrying the same Pack markers, their collective presence like a weighted blanket settling over the room.

Around us, conversations died mid-sentence.

Patrons hunched over their drinks, shoulders curved inward, eyes down.

Classic prey response: make yourself smaller, less noticeable, less challenging.

Welcome to life in a conclave city, where “peaceful coexistence” meant one thing under fluorescent office lights and something entirely different after sunset.

During business hours, humans and Shifters played at equality in downtown high-rises with their diversity initiatives and inclusion committees.

But after dark, the ancient hierarchies reasserted themselves.

Businesses paid “security fees” to local Packs, residents consulted territory apps before venturing out, and wolves like these collected debts that weren’t always measured in dollars.

Perfect. Just what I needed to complete my evening: amateur-hour bigotry with a side of violence.

I recognized the leader immediately: Cole Bright, Beta of the self-proclaimed Westport Pack, though “organized crime syndicate” would be more accurate.

Mid-twenties, six-two, with a meticulously maintained undercut and the kind of sharp jawline that featured prominently in women’s fantasies and men’s insecurities.

Behind him marched the Murphy twins, identical down to their matching buzz cuts and dead eyes—the Pack’s favored debt collectors known for breaking exactly one bone for each day a payment was late.

They flanked a barrel-chested enforcer whose leather jacket strained across shoulders that looked too wide for doorways.

Bringing up the rear was their newest recruit, barely out of his teens, practically vibrating with the eagerness to prove himself that made young wolves so dangerous and so predictable.

The bartender’s pulse jumped—I could see it fluttering at his throat—but he kept his expression neutral as they approached.

“Five beers,” Cole ordered, the words clipped and cold. Not a request, a command.

The bartender slid five beers across the scarred mahogany without making eye contact, movements efficient and careful—the body language of someone who’d learned exactly how to avoid becoming a target.

The group paid and fanned out through the room, their deliberate positioning a calculated hunting formation.

Patrons who moments ago had been laughing and talking now developed intense fascination with their drinks, shoulders hunched, heartbeats accelerating.

That’s when I spotted him: a solitary figure at the far end of the bar, trying desperately to disappear.

Young, maybe nineteen, with overgrown brown hair that fell into his eyes and clothes that hung from his thin frame like hand-me-downs.

His knuckles were white around his glass, gaze fixed downward, but the fear rolling off him hit me from across the room—sharp and acrid, like burned copper.

A lone wolf in a city where that status was practically a criminal offense.

Cole caught the scent a moment later. His head cocked, nostrils flaring as his lips pulled back just enough to reveal the edge of canines.

A smile crawled across his face that had nothing to do with humor and everything to do with the joy of finding prey.

One jerk of his chin toward the kid and his Packmates pivoted with practiced synchronization.

My throat tightened as a memory surged up like bile. Five teenagers circling me by my school locker. My books scattered across hallway. Their laughter as they shoved me to the ground. Lucas pressing his boot against my cheek, forcing my face against the floor. “Witch-bitch trash.”

“Well, well,” Cole’s voice cut through the bar’s sudden silence as he clapped a heavy hand on the kid’s shoulder, sending amber liquid sloshing across the counter. “What’s this? Packless garbage stinking up our territory?”

The kid’s shoulders curled inward, making himself smaller, a submission display as old as our kind. “Just passing through,” he mumbled, eyes still down. “I’ll be gone by morning.”

“You’ll be gone now,” one of the twins snarled, shoving the kid with enough force that he had to grab the bar to keep from crashing to the floor.

I’d seen this script play out a dozen times before.

Kansas City, like every conclave city, operated under a system of “managed integration” that amounted to legalized discrimination.

Lone wolves were required to register with local Pack authorities within twelve hours of crossing into claimed territory.

They had to document their purpose, planned departure date, and put down a “behavior bond.” Essentially, protection money that guaranteed you wouldn’t cause trouble.

In theory, this protected established territories and maintained order.

In practice, it was a perfect machine for exploiting the vulnerable.

Registration offices kept limited, unpublished hours.

Forms required multiple Pack references that lone wolves, by definition, didn’t have.

Fees started at five hundred dollars and climbed with every imagined infraction.

For kids like this one, registration wasn’t an option.

They moved between territories like ghosts, picking up under-the-table work, sleeping in shelters or abandoned buildings, saving every dollar for bus fare to the next city that would inevitably treat them the same way.

When caught—and they always got caught—the standard punishment served as both entertainment for the Pack and warning to others: a public beating just severe enough to require healing time but not enough to attract police attention.

The terror saturating the kid’s scent had the unmistakable layered quality of someone who’d been through this cycle before—not just afraid of what might happen, but certain of what would happen.

One of the twins grabbed the kid’s collar, lifting him until his feet barely touched the floor. “You know what happens to Packless garbage who disrespect our boundaries?”

“Please.” The kid’s voice cracked, eyes wide with panic. “I don’t want trouble. I just needed somewhere warm to—”

That “please” was a mistake. These types fed on submission. The more you begged, the more they enjoyed drawing out your suffering. Vulnerability didn’t inspire mercy in predators; it triggered the instinct to tear open the soft underbelly.

Duke’s massive hand closed around my wrist under the table. “Annabella,” he warned, voice low and hard. “Not our problem. Not our mission.”

Logically, he was right. We weren’t here to play vigilante. We had larger goals—dismantling the Wolf Council, creating a world where witches and werewolves could coexist again, stopping the ripple epidemic. One lone wolf’s beating in a backwater bar didn’t factor into that equation.

But looking at that kid—thin wrists, secondhand clothes, eyes darting for exits that weren’t there—all I could see was myself at fifteen.

Surrounded in the school bathroom. Lucas and his Pack cronies circling while I backed against cold tile, begging them to just let me pass.

The hot shame of tears while they mocked my “witch stink” and debated which bones to break first.

“Seriously?” Felix’s voice cut through my memory. When I met his gaze, his green eyes were sharp with challenge. “We’re just going to sit here while they use that kid as a chew toy?”

Duke’s jaw tightened. “It’s not our business.”

Felix turned to look at me, those green eyes holding mine with an intensity that made my pulse skip. There was no judgment in his expression, just a quiet question: Who are you when no one is forcing your hand? What is it that you stand for?

Then he grinned, wide and reckless. “So, let’s make it our business.”

Something hardened in my chest—a crystallization of rage and purpose that had been forming for twenty-two years.

Conclave cities were sold as utopias of integration, shining beacons of what could be.

The reality? Segregated neighborhoods with prettier names.

Wolves addicted to ripple attacking humans in record numbers.

Humans protesting for “containment measures” outside city hall.

And kids like this—kids like I had been—crushed between worlds that had no place for them.

I’d stopped trying to find a seat at their table years ago. Now I was here to burn the whole fucking thing down.

I drained my whiskey. “Fuck it.” The glass hit the table with a decisive thunk. “What did you have in mind?”

Felix’s smile turned predatory—dangerous, reckless, and completely infectious. “Something memorable.” His eyes glittered with a promise of beautiful violence. “Something fun.”