Chapter 1

In the iron cage of an underground fighting pit, my heat cycle hit without any warning.

Up on the high platform, my so-called fated mate — the uncrowned king of the Night Faction, Maximilian Cross — covered his nose in disgust and pulled his beloved Tiffany into his arms.

"A defective little runt who can't even shift, and she thinks she has the right to smell like that? Let the beasts tear her apart in that cage."

The whole crowd burst out laughing. The half-shifted beasts, eyes blazing red, drooled as they lunged toward me.

Just when I'd given up all hope, a pair of blood-soaked combat boots came crashing through the iron bars.

Jax — Maximilian Cross's illegitimate brother, the one they called the Mad Dog — stepped in front of me, putting himself between me and those half-shifted beasts.

He wrapped his oversized coat tight around my naked, trembling body. His burning breath spilled against the curve of my neck.

"Why are you shaking? If he doesn't want you — I do."

Inside the underground fighting pit, my hands were bound behind my back. They'd thrown me into the center of an iron cage caked in mud and dried blood.

Riiip—

The wire mesh tore through the back of my shirt, leaving a wide strip of bare skin exposed to the freezing air.

I was shaking from the cold — but deep inside my body, a strange, feverish heat was running wild.

So hot.

It felt like ten thousand ants were crawling through my bones.

This was the scent of a mate bond awakening.

In the world of the Night Shifters, every adult female released her own unique pheromones on the night of her awakening — a signal meant to draw in her fated mate.

I tilted my head back, my vision blurring as I looked up at the VIP platform ten meters above me.

That was where Maximilian Cross sat.

The new ruler of the Night Alliance. The black wolf alpha with the purest bloodline. The man my family had promised me to since before I was born.

Right now, he was staring down at me from above. He held a glass of deep crimson liquor in his hand, his eyes as cold as if he were looking at a pile of garbage.

My pheromones drifted upward through the ventilation system.

It was an unbearably sweet scent — intoxicating, almost sinful.

I watched Maximilian's brow snap into a hard frown. Even the guards standing beside him had their breathing go ragged from the smell.

"Maximilian…" I forced his name out of my throat, my fingernails digging hard into the mud. "Save me…"

Maximilian didn't move.

But the woman beside him — Tiffany — let out a coy little laugh and pressed her hand over her nose, using the moment to melt against Maximilian's chest.

"Max, that smell is disgusting. Has Serena lost her mind? She's a half-blood who can't even shift, and she's seriously trying to force her pheromones out in a place like this? Is she trying to seduce those filthy pit beasts?"

Maximilian let out a cold laugh and slowly tipped his glass.

The red liquid poured down and splashed into the mud right in front of me.

"Serena. You make me sick."

Maximilian's voice came through the speakers and filled every corner of the underground arena. "Did you really think pulling a cheap stunt like this — throwing your scent around — would force me to claim you as my mate? A defective reject like you isn't even worth the dirt on my shoes."

A sharp, ugly wave of laughter exploded through the crowd.

Maximilian's younger brother Dante was standing just outside the cage. He smashed an iron rod against the bars with a cocky grin, the clanging ringing straight through my skull.

"You hear that, you worthless little freak?! My brother thinks you're filthy! Stay in that cage and let those wild beasts have their fun with you!"

Dante hit the switch. The gate at the far end of the cage began to grind open.

Three half-beasts crawled out — eyes burning red, minds long gone from months of rage-serum injections. Ropes of foul-smelling drool hung from their jaws as they locked onto me.

To them, my pheromones were the most potent aphrodisiac in existence.

I stumbled backward in desperation until my back hit the cold iron mesh.

Nowhere left to go.

"Maximilian!" I screamed until my throat tore. "You felt it! I am your fated mate!"

Rejecting a fated mate bond had consequences — the bloodline would turn on itself, punishing the one who refused.

I saw the tendons in Maximilian's hand go taut against his glass. For just one second, the color drained from his face.

But he held it back.

He would rather endure the agony of the bond's backlash than take a single step down from that platform for me.

"Open the gate." Maximilian's voice was ice.

All three half-beasts roared and charged.

A rough hand clamped around my ankle and yanked — hard. I screamed as my whole body was dragged through the mud. Another hand clawed at what was left of my shredded clothes.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I gave up.

And then —

BOOM——!!

A deafening blast.

Every light in the underground fighting pit went dark at once. Only the emergency lights remained, blazing red and strobing wildly through the black.

From ten meters up, a dark figure dropped from the stands like a phantom — a crushing, devastating force that slammed straight down onto the top of the iron cage.

The cage was built from reinforced steel. He caved it in with a single stomp.

The man landed in front of me like a true predator.

I hadn't even gotten a clear look at his face before I heard it — a sickening crack of shattering bone.

The half-beast that had been gripping my ankle never got the chance to scream. He stomped its skull into nothing. Blood and brain matter splattered across my body.

The other two half-beasts froze, instinct screaming at them to run.

He didn't give them the chance.

His black combat knife swept through the air in a single fluid arc. Two heads hit the ground at the same time.

Silence.

The entire arena went dead quiet.

Through the thick stench of blood, a scent hit me — aggressive, sharp, like cold pine and gunpowder smoke. His pheromones wrapped around me like a wave crashing over everything.

The burning fever raging inside me stilled for just a moment the instant I caught that scent. Then it shifted into something deeper. Something that made my legs go weak.

He turned around.

The dark red lights caught the sharp angles of his face. His narrow eyes burned with something raw and unrestrained — madness and possession, all at once.

Jax.

Maximilian's unspeakable half-brother—the most dreaded and bloodthirsty mad dog in the entire Alliance.

He shrugged off his blood-soaked black coat and wrapped it around my naked, trembling body.

His rough fingertips brushed across my cheek. I shivered.

"Why are you shaking?"

Jax scooped me up out of the mud with one arm and pulled me tight against his chest. He lowered his head, his lips almost grazing my ear, his voice low and rough.

"They don't want you. I do."