Alpha of ashes

The cold didn't bother me anymore.

I'd walked through worse than this-blood, betrayal, frostbitten nights alone in the forest. A little winter wind brushing through downtown Manhattan? Child's play.

I adjusted the scarf around my neck and kept walking.

The city glowed beneath a steel-gray sky, all concrete and glass and people too busy to care who I was or what I'd survived. That's why I liked it here. You could disappear. Or rise again, if you had the guts.

And I'd had nothing but guts the past four years.

I paused at the revolving door of Blackthorn International, the towering glass headquarters of a man I swore I'd never see again.

Damian Blackthorn.

Alpha. Billionaire. Liar. Monster.

And my mate.

My fingers trembled as I reached for the door. Not from fear. From rage. From the ghosts that clung to my skin like frostbite.

The last time I saw him, I was half-dead in the snow, a silver collar burning into my throat while my pack turned their backs on me-on orders from him.

Now? I was about to walk through his front door, wearing heels and lipstick and a name that wasn't mine.

And he wouldn't recognize me.

That's the best part of being dead. You get to come back however the hell you want.

---

"Miss Kade?" the assistant said, glancing up from her iPad.

I smiled politely, clutching the fake resume in my hand. "That's me."

"Mr. Blackthorn will see you now."

She didn't look up again, just pressed a button and gestured toward the elevator.

As the doors slid shut, I let my shoulders drop. My reflection stared back at me in the mirrored walls-dark curls, sharp cheekbones, eyes like wildfire. I didn't look like the girl I'd been. I didn't feel like her either.

Zara D'Lune died four years ago.

Now I was Rielle Kade, consultant from London, MBA from Oxford, expert in market reconstruction. Total bullshit. But believable enough to pass for the position I'd "earned."

And to get close to the man who ruined my life.

I told myself this was just a job. A setup.

I told myself I didn't care if he remembered me.

But then the elevator dinged, and I stepped into his office...

...and the world tilted.

---

Damian

I smelled her before I saw her.

Moonlight. Ash. Something dark and forbidden buried beneath all that perfume and corporate polish.

It hit me in the gut-raw and hard-and my wolf growled before I could stop it.

What the hell-

She stepped inside. Tall. Graceful. Dangerous.

My wolf went still.

My soul? Shook.

She didn't flinch when she saw me, didn't do that nervous hair-tuck thing most new hires did. No giggles. No fake charm.

Just cool, unreadable eyes. Burning gold.

Familiar... but wrong.

No. Not wrong. Hidden.

"Mr. Blackthorn," she said, voice smooth as silk with a hint of something sharp underneath.

"Miss... Kade, was it?"

She nodded. "Pleasure to meet you."

Liar.

My wolf clawed against my ribs. Mate.

No. It couldn't be.

My mate died. I felt it. The bond snapped in the woods the night I sentenced her to exile.

But the scent...

The way her eyes pierced straight through me...

I stood slowly, walking around the desk. "Have we met before?"

She tilted her head, that dangerous smile still on her lips.

"No," she said. "But you'll remember me soon enough."