The bloodstained note burned in Alessia's clutch as her town car sliced through Manhattan's midnight veins.

Sirens keened in the distance-urban wolves howling their static lullaby.

Graves' warning pulsed behind her ribs with every heartbeat:

Run, little wolf.

She should. Gods knew she should.

Instead, she pressed her thumb to the note's crimson scrawl and inhaled.

Copper. Salt. And beneath it-

Her wolf recoiled. Silver nitrate.

A trap. A beautifully baited one.

The car jerked to a stop outside her borrowed penthouse.

Alessia's reflection glared back from the tinted window-a too-thin woman in a stolen suit, her honey-blonde updo fraying at the edges.

No trace of the Alpha heir who once tore out a rival's throat under a blood moon.

Pathetic.

The elevator ride to the 72nd floor took eleven seconds. Eleven seconds to relive the Testing Grounds, Nero's unnatural stillness, the way his pupils had slit when the AI screamed ALPHA.

The doors hissed open.

She froze.

The penthouse reeked of bergamot and bourbon.

An old-school masculine scent, too refined for any of her aliases.

Nero King lounged on her ivory couch, legs spread in predator ease, his black fatigues an insult to the room's pristine design.

A dagger spun between his fingers, catching slivers of light like it fed on them.

"Miss Blackwood." His smile showed too many teeth. "Let's talk about your résumé."

[THREE HOURS EARLIER]

THE TESTING GROUNDS

King Corp's sublevel facility stank of sweat, gun oil, and fear thick enough to chew.

Alessia stood at parade rest beside seven other so-called "executive assistants"-all trembling under Graves' butcher-knife stare.

"Today's evaluation," the security chief growled, "separates prey from predators."

Mirrored walls reflected Alessia's carefully cultivated lie-lips parted just so, lashes fluttering with artificial fear. But beneath that mask, her wolf prowled.

She smelled the others' panic: adrenaline, cheap perfume, fear-urine. That one had cocaine. That one hadn't stopped shaking since the elevator.

Graves dropped eight dossiers on a steel table. "Your targets."

Alessia's file stared up at her: a grainy still of her mid-shift, gold eyes alight, teeth bared.

Oh fuck.

"You have sixty minutes." Graves cocked his pistol. "Find the wolf before it finds you."

The lights went out.

[PRESENT]

THE INTERROGATION

The dagger thunked into her coffee table, splitting her fake ID in half.

Lydia Blackwood. Born 1995. Dartmouth grad.

"Except," Nero drawled, "Dartmouth's records show she died in a skiing accident last winter.

Tragic, really."

Alessia edged toward the kitchen. Her fingers itched for the cleaver.

"You dug up a corpse to vet me?"

"I had Graves exhume her." Nero rose like a curtain of smoke. "The real Lydia had a mole on her left hip. You don't."

He's seen me naked. The realization made her skin crawl.

He closed the space between them like a pulled string. His scent was salt, smoke, and something else-something ancient and wrong that made her wolf bristle.

"Who sent you?" he murmured. "Yukon pack?

The Board?"

Her back hit the fridge. The cleaver handle kissed her palm.

"Last chance, Alessia."

Her name in his mouth was a lit match.

She swung.

Nero caught her wrist mid-arc, his grip vise-strong. The cleaver hit the marble with a dead clang.

"Disappointing." He yanked her closer. His fingers tangled in her hair, tilting her head to expose her throat.

"I expected more from the Blackmoon heir."

She froze. He knows.

Nero leaned in, his breath electric against her skin. "You smell like lies," he whispered, "and lightning." His teeth grazed her pulse. "Let's see what else you're hiding."

[TWENTY MINUTES LATER]

THE BARGAIN

Blood ran from her split lip. She spat onto Nero's boots anyway.

The silver-lined cuffs on her wrists hissed and sizzled, searing her skin, turning the interrogation room into a cauldron of burnt sugar and pain.

Across the table, Nero skimmed her personnel file like it bored him.

"Six corporate infiltrations in three years," he mused. "A bit ambitious for a dead Ivy grad."

"'Corporate espionage' sounds classier than 'wet work,'" she rasped.

Nero's phone buzzed. He barely looked at it before sliding it across the table.

Footage played. Cyrus Blackmoon-her father-stood amidst the gutted corpses of King Corp's Seattle team, claws dripping.

Alessia's stomach turned. This wasn't the plan. The mission had been intel-only. No casualties.

No signatures.

The footage zoomed. Cyrus's clawed hand pressed a carved Blackmoon sigil into a dead man's sternum.

"You're thorough," she muttered.

"I'm sentimental," Nero corrected. "Your father just declared war."

He leaned in, elbows on the table, a conspirator now. "Here's what happens next. You tell me everything Cyrus is planning. In return, I won't toss you to Graves."

"And if I refuse?"

Nero's smile was a scalpel. "Then I feed you to the AI."

He tapped the mirror.

"Lupus Lumen is hungry for data. And it doesn't distinguish between test subject and traitor."

A soft scritch echoed from behind the glass. Something shifted in the shadows. Watching. Recording.

THE OFFER

Alessia didn't flinch. "I want full immunity."

"Granted."

"Access to your labs."

"Within reason."

She wiped blood from her mouth and bared her teeth. "And you'll tell me what you really are."

Silence fell. Thick and dangerous.

Then Nero stood. Walked to the table. Picked up her cleaver.

He sliced his palm open without blinking.

Alessia flinched.

Not red. Not human. Gold welled from the wound like molten sunlight.

Her wolf went still. Silent. Reverent. Terrified.

"You're not Pack."

"No," he said, voice soft. "I'm what comes after."