CHAPTER 1

IZZY, FIVE YEARS AGO

“That low ranker is staring at you again,” Brynn says the same way she’d say that she just stepped in a wad of chewed gum.

My heart lurches as I whisper, “Where?”

“Over by his truck.”

I dart a glance over to the far end of the parking lot where the low ranks park, but I’m not quick enough. Our gazes catch, and my stomach swoops like I’m going to throw up. It’s been like this since last week when I looked up at the salad bar in the dining hall, and he was on the other side of the lettuce, and I knew instantly. Trevor Floyd is my mate.

His eyes are stormy blue, almost gray, and his eyebrows are so thick that even when his rowdy friends get him to smile, he looks serious.

His friends are nowhere to be seen now, and he’s not smiling. He’s watching me expectantly, leaning against his fender like he’s got all the time in the world, his idle hands shoved in the pockets of his canvas work pants. Doesn’t he need to be at his work placement?

There’s a breeze whipping off the lake, and his curly hair tangles, the wheat blonde streaks catching in the noon sun. He wouldn’t be allowed to wear it past his ears if he was interning at the High Rise like me, but he’s apprenticing with facility maintenance, and they’re much more relaxed about regulations.

I hike my chin and turn my back so that Brynn, Teagan, and I form a tight circle.

“It’s so creepy,” I say and instantly my skin prickles with guilt. I’m such a phony coward. My friends noticed him hanging around at a distance a few days ago, and Brynn called him a perverted, rank-grubbing stalker. I was too embarrassed to know what to say, and then somehow, it was too late to say anything.

“Do you want me to get Cadoc to kick his ass?” Brynn asks.

“No. He’s only looking.” I roll my eyes like it’s nothing.

I’m not so sure that Cadoc would beat someone up just because Brynn asked, but he’d definitely take Trevor aside and have a word with him. Then Trevor would spill the beans, and since no one can keep a secret in this pack, and Cadoc is never alone, by the end of the day, everyone would know.

I’m not ready.

Dad is going to lose his ever-loving mind. Mom will try to calm him down while simultaneously freaking out herself, and she’ll end up making it a hundred times worse. Then they’ll call Uncle Howell and Aunt Catrin to come down, and I’ll have to sit on the sofa like a misbehaved pup while they melt down because my mate lives on a low floor of the Tower.

My whole life, my parents’ dream has been to move from the teens to the twenties. If I mate a male from all the way down on the fifth floor, Mom will go moon mad. Dad very well might disinherit me and send me to live in the bog with the scavengers. He’s threatened to do it for less.

I sneak a peek over my shoulder. Trevor is still there. The corners of his mouth curve tentatively as he tracks me under his smoky, sweeping lashes. My belly fizzles. It’s never fizzled before.

He’s really pretty, prettier than me. I have a plain face, brown hair, brown eyes—nothing remarkable. He looks like a Renaissance sculpture. He seems sweet, though, not arrogant like most of the hot guys around here. His body is cut, but he doesn’t hold himself like a high-ranking male, like he needs to take up as much space as possible. He has an air that he doesn’t care if people are looking at him or not.

I wrap my goose-bumped arms around my waist and pretend I don’t see him. I can’t deal with this right now. My internship with Accounting begins today, and after the underwhelming debut I made during my rotation in Corporate Communications, Dad is expecting me to make an impression. I have no idea how to do that. I’m good at math—better than I am at communications, that’s for sure—but neither my wolf nor I are dominant or outgoing.

Honestly, my greatest ambition for today is to not screw up big enough that someone notices, and it doesn’t help that my body is going haywire. My stomach’s doing its weird fizzy thing, my boobs ache so much that I can hardly stand the sports bra I’m wearing, and I’m burning up.

Without thinking, I tug at my collar and huff the strands that’ve come loose from my professional updo away from my forehead. A bead of sweat trickles down my temple.

Brynn’s eyes narrow with sly suspicion. “Are you sick, Izzy? Your face is bright red.”

I shrug, and my cheeks blaze even hotter. “It’s warm.”

“Is it?” Brynn scans the clear sky and the Academy’s majestic oaks swaying in the gentle breeze. “I’d say the weather’s very mild today.”

She knows. I can hear it in her voice. My wolf leaves off her panting and lumbers to her feet as she becomes aware of the threat.

Even though Brynn’s a year younger than me, we don’t have a chance against her if she turns on us, and if I mate a male from the fifth floor, it won’t matter that we’re cousins. She won’t just drop me—she’ll dropkick me. I’ve watched her with the scavengers since we were pups. She’s not content to ignore females who rank lower than her. She gets off on making them show neck.

“I guess I’m just nervous about the new rotation,” I offer, praying she’ll show pity and let it go for now. I need to report to the High Rise, and she and Teagan need to get to third mod. We don’t have time for this.

“Really?” Brynn’s eyes light up. Oh, crap. “Hey, Seth!” she calls. “Come over here a minute.”

“Why?” He’s tossing his messenger bag into the back seat of his SUV. “I’ve got to pull around and pick up Cadoc.”

“It’ll just take a second. Come on,” Brynn wheedles and pops a hip, trying to look cute, but from the scowl on Seth’s face as he jogs over, he’s not impressed. Cadoc favors Brynn, though, so that means she ranks. Unless Seth’s got a good reason to tell her no, he’s going to humor her, even though he’s the future pack beta, and his folks live only two floors down from the penthouse.

“What?” he grunts when he gets over to us, but before he even speaks, a foul stench smacks me in the face. I yank my shirt up over my nose like we used to do in primary school when a scavenger farted in class. He reeks worse than gas, worse than the port-a-pots over by the site where they’re building the new Research and Technology Center. What’s wrong with him?

This can’t be what they talk about when they say that when you recognize your mate, other males start smelling a little musky until you seal the bond. There is nothing little about this musk. But then why are Brynn and Teagan gawking at me and not the source of the world’s muskiest musk that ever musked?

They can’t smell it. Because they’re not going into heat.

Shit.

Teagan slowly drops her jaw, chomps her gum twice for emphasis, and says, “No. Freaking. Way.”

She glances from me over to Trevor and back again. I wish the asphalt would crack open and swallow me. I can’t do this right now.

Seth scowls, confused. “What do you want?”

“That’s all we needed.” Brynn waves him away. He doesn’t waste time figuring out what’s going on. With an irritated shake of his head, he continues on his business. As soon as he’s gone, I can breathe through my nose again.

“Oh, Izzy, I am so sorry,” Brynn says. She doesn’t sound sorry.

“Your mate is Trevor Floyd?” Teagan says Floyd like it’s a bad word.

“Don’t tell anyone,” I hiss, as much good as it’ll do. As soon as Brynn gets on her phone, everyone is going to know, starting with her mother.

I can’t let my mom find out from Aunt Catrin. Mom stewed for a week straight when Aunt Catrin found out what my first rotation was going to be before we got the official letter. If Mom hears about my mating from Aunt Catrin, she’ll never get over it. She’s never going to get over it anyway, but I don’t need it to be worse.

“I’ve got to get to my internship,” I say, and even though I know it won’t do any good, I stare them both down and try to instill some wolf in my voice. “Keep this between us, okay? Please?”

They both nod, but butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. They walk toward campus, and before they get ten feet away, they’ve already got their heads together, whispering.

I make my way to my car, a few rows back from where Cadoc’s inner circle parks, and misery bears down on me like a lead weight. I’m eighteen, but I still have to do my rotations in Marketing and Product Development. I can’t have a pup yet.

I thought I was going to be one of the lucky females who finishes her entire post-grad program before going into her first heat. I know most females balance their internships with pregnancy and newborns, but I also have no idea on earth how they do it.

You have to look your best at the High Rise every day, and even if I shower in the evening, it takes me an hour to do my hair and makeup in the morning, and if I have to get a pup ready for the on-site nursery, I’d have to get up at, what, five in the morning?

I can’t do that.

I touch my belly. I can’t grow a pup in there. I’ve got organs. Where would they even go? All of a sudden, my mind cannot fathom the physiology.

I’m standing by my car door, key in my hand, staring bug-eyed at the lock in a blind panic, when a scent like brown gravy, peppery and rich with sage and thyme, fills my nose. I’m not hungry—I lost my appetite last week at the salad bar—and it’s a weird smell in the middle of a parking lot, but it’s nice. Warm and homey. My wolf sits straight up. She loves it. The knot in my chest loosens.

“Do you want a ride to work?” Trevor asks. His voice is low, but also smooth and rich. Like his gravy scent.

I whirl, and he’s right there, maybe three feet away. He’s not crowding me, but I still retreat, shrinking back against the car door.

“W-What?” I say at the exact second my keys slip from my numb fingers. “Oh.”

Before I can act, he ducks forward, plucks them from the asphalt, backs away immediately, and holds them out to me, dangling them from the picture keychain of my parents and me in front of the statue of the Great Alpha Broderick Moore on undergrad commencement day.

My arm shakes as I hold out my hand. He drops my keys into my palm and takes another step back.

My lungs inflate again. Brown gravy. My wolf licks her chops.

“I guess you’ve got a ride,” he says, the corner of his mouth quirking. He shoves his hands back in his pockets and slumps his shoulders like he’s trying not to loom over me. I’m average height, but he’s at least a foot taller.

“This is my car.” I put my hand on it, an excuse to steady myself. My knees are wobbling.

“It’s nice.”

I blink over my shoulder at it. It’s a mid-size luxury sedan, the latest model year. My dad brags to his buddies about how he got the top-of-the-line trim level for less than asking price, and he didn’t even have to flash his fangs at the human salesman, so I guess it must be nice. I don’t know much about cars.

“Thank you,” I say quietly.

For a long second, we’re both silent. I stare at the ground. I can see his feet. He’s wearing tan work boots. There’s a streak of grease across the toe of the right one.

Are people watching us? Are they texting about this? Are their moms calling my mom already?

“Izzy—” he says. His voice is firm, but gentle. Respectful.

My cheeks are burning. They must look like when I was little when I got into my mom’s makeup, and I thought blush went on in perfect circles. “Apples of the cheeks” means you paint your cheeks to look like apples, right?

I’m such an idiot.

“You know—” he says, falters, takes a breath, and then continues. “You know what we are. Right?”

I nod and force myself to look up. It’s not his fault that this is the worst thing ever.

He pushes a loose curl out of his eye. He doesn’t seem any more confident about this whole situation than me. For some reason, that gives me a shot of courage.

“We’re mates,” I say.

He smiles shyly, not much more than a slight lifting of the corners of his soft, generous mouth, but it makes my stomach muscles tense, and all of a sudden, I’m aware of my entire body in a way I never have been before. My small breasts weigh heavy. Blood pulses between my legs.

I don’t know what to do with my hands. I wish I could shove them in my pockets, but I’m borrowing my mom’s work slacks, and they don’t have real pockets, more like little slits where you can tuck a few quarters for the snack machine.

What is my brain doing? My thoughts are rolling all over the place like spilled marbles.

“If you don’t need a ride, maybe I can come by your place tonight after work? We can go for a walk or something?” His soft smile rises a notch higher, encouraging and hopeful.

“No.” The word comes out so much more emphatically than I intend, and his smile falls. His shoulders tense.

I hold up a hand between us, and I mean it like ‘wait a second,’ but his jaw tightens, and he takes a step back.

“I can’t tonight,” I say quickly. I don’t want to explain—and I sure don’t want to sound like a pup who has to pass everything by her daddy—but now I feel awful that I made him feel bad, so I force myself to say, “I have to talk to my parents first. About what’s going on.”

His eyes darken until they’re more like a rainy, gray November sky than a clear, blue June.

“I get it.” His mouth twists, and there’s a bitterness that wasn’t in his voice before.

I want to argue—or lie—and say it’s no big deal. I just want them to hear the big news from me; they’ll be happy to meet him. But I can tell from his expression that he does get it. Everyone at Moon Lake is rank-conscious. He knows that everyone is going to think that he got lucky, and that my parents are going to think the opposite.

“Maybe tomorrow?” I offer.

“Yeah. Okay.” He exhales, blowing out his cheeks. “I guess I better—” He jerks his head over his shoulder in the direction of his truck.

I nod and stand there numb, my brain buzzing, as he carefully takes my keys, opens my car door, and holds it open like the valet that greets the alpha when he pulls up in front of the Tower.

I blush. At least there’s no way he can tell since I’m already bright pink from the heat my body’s cranking like a busted boiler.

Once I’m settled in the driver’s seat, he hands me my keys. “If you need me, I’m in 521,” he says.

“I know.” I gasp, horrified that I let on that I know where he lives, and then doubly-horrified that I gasped.

Trevor’s eyes brighten, almost twinkle. “So you know where to find me then,” he says without the slightest hint of teasing in his voice.

I nod, bite my bottom lip, and stare desperately ahead. I’m wildly grateful when he gently shuts the door and backs up so I can drive away. I sneak a peek in the rearview, and he stands there in the middle of the aisle until I turn out of the Academy parking lot. His shoulders aren’t slumped now. He’s straightened to his full height, arms loose at his sides, his jaw set with calm determination.

My belly fizzes like a skyrocket. No matter how gentle and patient he was with me, he’s a full-grown shifter male. He’ll wait for now, but he’s not going to wait forever. He can’t. Neither of us can escape Fate. Even if we wanted to.

I’m going to mate with Trevor Floyd, and my parents are going to disinherit me.

If they don’t kill me first.