Chapter 1

Nyra

There are no windows on the staff level. No clocks, either. Just gray tile, muted lights, and the steady hum of air circulation through the ducts. But I still know it’s sunset. You can feel it—the way the air thickens, the way the walls seem to hold their breath. Redveil breathes differently at night. I swipe my badge and sign in without looking at the camera above the door. I never do. You’re not supposed to. Eye contact suggests awareness, and awareness suggests questions. Questions are dangerous here. The wall behind the reception desk reads:

PREMIUM DISCRETION. PERMANENT CONFIDENTIALITY. NO RE-ENTRY WITHOUT INVITATION.

A polished, corporate way of saying: You belong to us while you’re inside. And if you speak at the wrong time, or to the wrong person, you disappear.

I don’t speak. Not here. I’m assigned Linen Track C tonight. Safe. Quiet. Towel runs, bedding rotation, chute inspections. I like Linen C. It keeps me out of the handler lounges and off the premium levels when the wolves are brought in for sessions. I pull my cart from the wall and push it toward the elevator. Another cleaner—Jana, maybe—passes me on her way out. She doesn’t meet my eyes. Her collar is crooked, and there’s fading marks behind her ear and neck that her ponytail doesn’t quite hide. I don’t ask. No one ever asks.

When I first applied, the job posting called Redveil a private wellness facility. Off-grid. High-paying. No reference check. No resume. No questions. Just an ID check, a blood test, an NDA, and a fingerprint. They didn’t even ask about your life outside. That was the whole point. I came here to vanish. I wasn’t looking for a future—I was running from a past. Redveil offered me silence. And silence is safer than freedom. At first, I didn’t understand what kind of place this was.Then I learned the truth.This isn’t a hospital. It’s a club.

A place where elite humans pay obscene amounts of money to get close to werewolves during a heat cycle—those short, brutal windows when instinct overrides identity, when the body turns against itself, begging for touch or release or blood. But the wolves don’t volunteer. They’re forced into it. Over and over again. Dosed with suppression cocktails that trigger artificial heats—too frequent, too long, too brutal. Until they’re left writhing in their own scent, scraping their claws bloody against steel, howling for mercy they won’t receive.

And then the clients are brought in. To use them. To fuck them. To pretend it’s mutual. The wolves aren’t rare because they’re protected. They’re rare because they’ve been hunted nearly to extinction. Most of the ones left are damaged—rescued from illegal fights or taken young. No rank. No structure. Just bodies that still shift. That’s all the club needs. Ranked wolves—betas, gammas, deltas? They’re almost extinct.

Alphas? Those are myths. Ghosts. Legends.

At least, that’s what I thought.

I don’t know what happens when they stop performing. And I don’t ask. There are rules here.

Staff don’t ask questions.

Staff don’t look at handlers.

Staff don’t enter bonded rooms without an escort.

Staff never, ever look the wolves in the eye.

And if you hear something behind a door, you keep walking.

I used to be the kind of girl who asked questions. But that girl is gone. Now I clean. I’m halfway through my cart when I hit Corridor 12. It’s not usually occupied—just auxiliary storage and unused staff dorms. But tonight, the air feels different. Still. Dense. Like something invisible is pushing down on my shoulders. There’s a hum beneath my feet. Subtle. Not mechanical. Not HVAC. This hum is too low. Too steady. Like something living. I pause. Turn in a slow circle. Nothing. But my pulse is racing. I push the feeling down and keep moving—until the comm at my hip crackles to life.

“Nyra?”

It’s Marcie. Night lead. Sounds half-asleep.

“There’s a manual chute jam in the lower hold. You’re the closest. Can you take it?”

I frown. “What level?”

“Sublevel Two.”

That can’t be right. “I’m not cleared for that.”

“You’ve been flagged for override,” she says flatly. “Badge should work. Just pull the blockage and log it.”

“Why me?”

A pause.

“Because you’re the one who won’t ask questions.”

Then silence. The access hall to Sublevel Two is colder than the rest of the building. The lights are dimmer. Red emergency strips line the baseboards. There’s no scent of bleach down here—just steel and concrete and something older beneath it. The hum from earlier is louder now. Still low, but constant. Like a warning no one else can hear. The door at the end of the corridor has no nameplate. Just a panel with a biometric lock and a small sign:

BIOHAZARD — LEVEL X CONTAINMENT

CODE R

I scan my badge. The light turns green. The door opens with a hiss like something exhaling. The room smells like heat. It hits me in the face—feral, sticky, raw. Not blood. Not musk. Need. My skin tightens. My lungs stutter. This isn’t a simulation. This is real. It’s not meant for humans. I step inside anyway.

The room is small. Windowless. Bare concrete walls. A single chute terminal in the far wall and a reinforced viewing panel opposite it, half-covered by blackout cloth. The hum is coming from behind that glass. I force myself to the chute first. The hatch is jammed. I unlatch it and pull. A torn sheet comes free—shredded, soaked through with something dark. It smells… wrong. I drop it in the bin and turn to leave. That’s when I hear it. A breath. Not mine. Wet. Heavy. Close.

I turn back to the glass. I shouldn’t. I know what they say about this level. But I step closer anyway. The blackout cloth flutters—like it’s been touched from the other side. I raise my hand. My fingers tremble as I pull it back just enough to see—Eyes. Gold. Burning. Not human. Not tame. Locked on mine like they’ve been waiting. They don’t blink. They don’t threaten. They just… know.

Then I hear it. Not loud. Not rough. Just certain.

“Nyra.”