DANIEL'S POV

Twenty minutes before the girl walked through my door, I was standing under the spray of the shower in the private bathroom attached to my office.

I turned the handle all the way to the left. The water came out cold. It hit my skin with a shock that usually helped clear my head, but tonight, nothing was working. My wolf, Apollo, was pacing inside my chest. I could feel him scratching at the back of my ribcage, restless and irritated. He hated being this high up. He hated the steel and glass and the recycled air of the fiftieth floor. He wanted dirt. He wanted to run until my lungs burned and my legs gave out.

"Settle down," I muttered to the empty room.

I turned off the water and grabbed a towel. I dried myself aggressively, rubbing the rough cotton over my arms and chest. I looked at the mirror. My eyes were already flashing that bright, unnatural silver. I blinked hard, forcing my human mask back into place. I couldn't let the board members see me like this. They feared me enough as it was.

I walked out into the main suite, wrapping the towel around my waist. My office was massive, more of a penthouse apartment than a place of business. I had a kitchen, a bedroom, and a living area all connected to the main workspace.

Marcus was sitting on one of the leather sofas, eating a container of takeout noodles. He didn't even look up when I walked in. That was the benefit of having a Beta who had known you since you were in diapers. He wasn't impressed by the money or the power.

"You look terrible," Marcus said, stabbing a piece of beef with his plastic fork. "There is a container of spicy chicken here for you. Eat it. Your blood sugar is low, and you're growling at the furniture."

"I'm not hungry," I said, walking past him to the closet. I pulled out a fresh white shirt and a pair of charcoal trousers.

"You have to eat, Daniel. The acquisition meeting is tomorrow morning. If you go in there running on empty, you might accidentally rip someone's throat out for clicking their pen too loudly. And the legal fees for murder are astronomical."

I pulled the shirt on and started buttoning it. My fingers felt clumsy. "I just feel... off. Something is wrong with the perimeter. I can feel it."

"The perimeter is fine," Marcus said, chewing loudly. "I checked the security logs myself. No breaches. No rogue scents. You're just bored. You need a vacation. Go to the cabin. Run in the woods for a week. Kill a deer."

"I can't leave. The merger..."

"The merger will happen whether you are here staring at spreadsheets or not," Marcus interrupted. "Sit down. Eat the chicken."

I sighed and sat down opposite him. I picked up the container. The smell of the food was strong, garlic, chili oil, soy sauce. Usually, I loved this place. But tonight, the smell made my stomach turn. I put the container back down on the coffee table.

"I can't," I said. "Apollo is waiting for something. He won't let me eat."

Marcus rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to argue, but then he stopped. He tilted his head to the side. His phone buzzed on the table.

"That's the front desk," Marcus said, glancing at the screen. "Your analyst is on her way up. Emma Carter. The one with the risk assessment files."

"Send her away," I said immediately. "I don't want to see anyone."

"Too late. She's already in the elevator."

I stood up and walked to my desk. I needed to look busy. I needed to look like the CEO of Blackwell Global, not a werewolf on the verge of a breakdown. I sat down and pulled a random file toward me. I stared at the words, but they didn't make sense.

Then it hit me.

It was a scent that felt foreign.

It started faint, drifting through the ventilation system. At first, I thought it was just the rain outside. But then it grew stronger. It smelled like ozone. Like the air right before a rainfall. Beneath that, there was something sweeter. Vanilla? No, wildflowers. Night-blooming jasmine.

Apollo didn't just stand up. He slammed into the front of my mind.

MATE.

The word wasn't a thought but a roar that vibrated through my entire skeleton.

I gripped the edge of my mahogany desk. The wood creaked under my fingers. "Marcus," I choked out.

"What?" Marcus asked, standing up. "What is it? Are we under attack?"

"Get out," I said. My voice sounded wrecked. "Get out of the office. Now."

"Daniel, talk to me. What's happening?"

"I said get out!" I roared, my control snapping.

Marcus didn't argue. He knew that tone. He grabbed his jacket and bolted for the side exit that led to the private stairwell. The door clicked shut behind him just as the main elevator chimed in the hallway.

I couldn't breathe. My heart was hammering against my ribs so hard I thought it would crack them. I stood up, then sat back down. I couldn't stand when she walked in. If I was standing, I would run to her. I would grab her. I would claim her right there on the rug.

Mine, Apollo snarled. She is here. She is finally here.

The heavy oak doors opened.

And there she was.

She was small. That was my first thought. She was small, and she looked terrified. She was clutching a black binder to her chest like it could save her from me. Her skin was a rich, warm caramel color that made my hands itch to touch it. Her hair was pulled back, but a few curls had escaped, framing a face that I knew I would be looking at for the rest of my life.

But as she stepped into the room, the scent changed.

The wildflowers were there. The ozone was there. But underneath it, wrapped around the sweetness, was something else. Something sharp, metallic and chemical.

She smelled like a laboratory.

She smelled like the thing my father had spent twenty years trying to wipe off the face of the earth.

Apollo faltered. Wrong, he whined. Mate. But... wrong.

She dropped the binder, as it hit the floor with a loud thud. She looked at me, and I saw her eyes. They were brown, but for a split second, I saw a flash of violet in the irises.

She wasn't human.

But she wasn't a wolf either.

She was a Hybrid.

The realization hit me harder than the mate bond. Hybrids were illegal. They were considered abominations by the Council. There was a kill-on-sight order for any creature carrying mixed DNA. If the Council found out she existed, they wouldn't just kill her. They would torture her to find out where she came from.

And she was my mate.

I had to get her out of here. I had to get her away from me before I lost control and marked her. If I marked her, her scent would change. Every wolf in the city would know she belonged to the Alpha. And then they would look closer. They would smell the metal in her blood.

I stood up because I..I couldn't help it. I walked around the desk. I needed to scare her. I needed to make her run away from me so fast she never looked back. It was the only way to keep her safe.

I stopped three feet away from her. I could see the pulse jumping in her throat. She was terrified. Good. Fear would make her run.

"Who are you?" I asked. My voice was a low growl.

"I'm... I'm Emma," she whispered. Her voice shook. "The junior analyst."

I took a step closer. I leaned down, invading her space. I let my eyes flash silver. I wanted her to see the monster.

"No," I said softly. "That's not what I asked."

I inhaled deeply, letting her see me smell her. I saw her shiver. "You smell like a science experiment, Emma. You smell like something that shouldn't exist."

She blinked, confusion washing over her fear. "I... I don't know what you're talking about. I just brought the files."

"Do you know what we do to things that don't belong, Emma?" I asked, my voice dripping with a cruelty I didn't feel. I forced myself to reach out. I grabbed her chin, my fingers digging into her skin just hard enough to be uncomfortable. Her skin was burning hot.

Mate, Apollo cried out. Don't hurt her. Protect her.

I am protecting her, I told him.

"We destroy them," I whispered. I let go of her face and shoved her backward. Not hard enough to knock her over, but hard enough to make her stumble. "Get out of my office. Leave the files. If I see you on this floor again, I'll have security throw you out the window."

She stared at me, her mouth opening and closing. Tears welled up in her eyes. The sight of them felt like a knife in my gut.

"Go!" I shouted.

She turned and ran. She scrambled for the door, fumbling with the handle before throwing it open and disappearing into the hallway.

I waited until I heard the elevator doors close. Then I collapsed back against my desk. I put my head in my hands. The scent of her was everywhere. It was on the carpet. It was in the air. It was on my fingers where I had touched her.

The side door opened. Marcus walked back in. He looked at me, then he looked at the empty hallway. He sniffed the air. His face went pale.

"Daniel," Marcus said, his voice very quiet. "That wasn't a human."

"I know," I said, not looking up.

"And she wasn't just a wolf," Marcus continued, walking closer. "I smelled the metal. Daniel... that was a Hybrid."

I looked up at him. "She's my mate, Marcus."

Marcus froze. He stared at me for a long, silent minute. Then he walked over to the window and looked out at the city.

"If the Council finds out the Alpha of the Blackwell Pack is mated to a Hybrid abomination," Marcus said, turning back to me, "they won't just kill her. They'll declare war on us. We have to kill her, Daniel. Before anyone else smells her."

I stood up slowly. I let the silver take over my eyes completely. I let my claws extend, sharp points tearing through the expensive fabric of the chair.

"If you touch her," I said, my voice vibrating with the full power of the Alpha command, "I will rip your head off and mount it on the wall. Do you understand me?"

EMMA POV

The elevator doors slid shut, cutting off the sight of the heavy oak doors and the man behind them.

The moment the seal broke, I collapsed.

I didn't faint like I thought I would; instead, my legs just stopped working. I slid down the mirrored wall until I hit the floor, clutching my chest. It felt like someone had reached inside my ribcage and severed a cord that I hadn't known existed until thirty seconds ago. It was a physical ache, a hollow, gnawing hunger that started in my stomach and radiated out to my fingertips.

GO BACK! Artemis screamed.

It wasn't a whisper this time. It was a command that rattled my teeth.

He pushed us away. He rejected us. BITE HIM. Make him bleed. Make him submit.

"Shut up," I gasped, digging my fingers into my scalp. "Please, just shut up. I'm having a panic attack. That's all this is. Just a panic attack."

Liar, Artemis hissed. You felt the heat. You felt the bond. He is our Alpha. And he kicked us out.

The elevator plummeted toward the lobby. My ears popped, and the nausea rolled over me in a violent wave. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to picture my therapist’s office. I tried to picture the calming blue painting on her wall. Count the brushstrokes, Emma. Count the brushstrokes.

But all I could see were those grey eyes.

Silver, Artemis corrected.

The elevator chimed, and the doors opened to the lobby. I scrambled to my feet, using the handrail to pull myself up. I had to get out of this building. I had to get away from the smell of him. It was stuck in my nose, that mix of rain and iron. It was driving me crazy.

I walked past the security desk. The night guard, a man named Henderson who usually gave me a nod, didn't look up from his monitors. But as I passed him, I saw his posture stiffen. He sniffed the air, just like the guard upstairs had.

I pushed through the revolving doors and spilled out onto the sidewalk.

It was raining heavily. The city sounded like static, tires hissing on wet pavement, distant sirens, the low rumble of the subway beneath the grate. The cold water soaked through my blouse instantly, plastering the fabric to my skin, but I didn't feel cold. I felt feverish. My skin was burning hot, steaming in the cool night air.

I started walking toward the subway station, my heels clicking unevenly on the concrete.

"Okay," I muttered to myself, hugging my arms around my chest. "Okay, Emma. You're going home. You're going to take a double dose of the Quetiapine. You're going to sleep for twelve hours. And tomorrow, you're going to call HR and request a transfer to the agonizingly boring auditing department in the basement."

Coward, Artemis spat. We should go back up there and tear his throat out for disrespecting us.

"I am not tearing anyone's throat out!" I said, too loudly.

A woman walking her dog glanced at me nervously and crossed the street.

I kept walking, turning down the narrow alleyway that cut through to the subway entrance. It was a shortcut I took every day. Usually, it was safe. But tonight, I felt like the darkness was heavier than ever.

My neck prickled, and the hairs on my arms stood straight up.

Behind us, there is a predator. Artemis whispered.

I stopped. I didn't want to turn around. I told myself it was just paranoia. It was just the "delusion" acting up because I was stressed.

"Hey, sweetheart."

The voice was wet and raspy, like gravel grinding together.

I turned around slowly.

A man was standing at the mouth of the alley. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt that was stained with grease, and his hands were shoved deep into his pockets. He didn't look like a typical mugger. He wasn't looking at my purse. He was looking at me. He started sniffing the air, just like how Marcus and the guard did, his upper lip curling back to reveal teeth that looked too yellow and too sharp.

"I don't have any cash," I said, my voice trembling. "Take the phone. It's an old model anyway."

I reached into my pocket to pull out my cell, but the man laughed. It was a low, mocking sound.

"I don't want your phone," he said, taking a step closer. He stepped into a puddle, but he didn't seem to notice the water soaking his sneakers. "You smell expensive. You smell like a payout. And that is what I do for a living, hunting predators".

"What?" I took a step back. "I'm an analyst. I make forty grand a year."

"Not you," he said, tilting his head. "Your blood. The Boss has a bounty out for anything that smells like the old labs or chemicals. And you... god, you reek of it. Metallic, wrong but strong."

Before I could even process what he was saying, he lunged at me.

He moved faster than any human should be able to move. One second he was ten feet away, and the next he was right in front of me. He grabbed my shoulders, his fingers digging into my flesh like iron claws. His breath smelled like rotting meat.

"Let's see what color you bleed," he growled.

Panic exploded in my chest. But it wasn't the freezing, paralyzing panic I was used to. It was hot like a furnace, red-hot rage.

KILL HIM! Artemis shrieked.

My body moved without my permission. I didn't think about it and I certainly didn't plan it. My right hand shot up and slammed into the center of his chest. I just wanted to push him away. I just wanted breathing room.

There was a sickening crack, the sound of ribs snapping.

The man didn't just stumble back and flew to God knows where.

He was lifted off his feet as if he had been hit by a truck. He sailed through the air, traveling ten, maybe fifteen feet, before he slammed into the brick wall of the adjacent building. He hit the bricks with a wet thud and slid down to the pavement, groaning.

I stared at my hand.

It looked normal. My manicured fingernails, my small palm, my wrist that looked so fragile.

"What..." I whispered.

The man on the ground coughed, spitting up blood. He looked at me with wide, terrified eyes. "What the hell are you?" he wheezed. "That's not... that's not human strength. Of fucking course.."

I didn't wait to answer.

I turned and ran.

I sprinted toward the subway station but didn't stop there. Instead, I shot right past it, covering the six blocks to my apartment building without getting tired. My lungs didn't burn; my legs moved with a mechanical, terrifying efficiency. I was a blur, running even faster than the cars on the street.

I burst into the lobby of my building, startling the elderly doorman, Mr. Henderson.

"Miss Carter?" he asked, standing up. "Is everything alright? You're soaking wet."

"I'm fine!" I yelled over my shoulder, not waiting for the elevator. I took the stairs. I lived on the fourth floor. I took the steps three at a time, leaping up the flights like... like an animal.

I fumbled with my keys at my door, scratching the paint around the lock before I finally managed to jam the key in. I threw the door open, stumbled inside, and slammed it shut. I locked the deadbolt. I locked the chain. I dragged a heavy wooden chair from the kitchen table and wedged it under the handle.

Only then did I let myself breathe.

My apartment was quiet. It smelled like the lemon cleaner I used and the drying lavender I kept in a vase. It was normal and I was safe.

But I wasn't.

My stomach lurched violently. I clamped a hand over my mouth and ran to the bathroom and fell to my knees in front of the toilet and retched. Nothing came up but bile and water, but my body kept trying to purge itself, trying to get rid of the adrenaline, the fear, the smell of the man in the alley.

I dry-heaved until my throat was raw. I sat back on my heels, shaking uncontrollably and reached up and turned on the cold water tap, splashing my face. I grabbed a towel and scrubbed my skin, trying to wipe away the feeling of the man's hands on my shoulders.

"It was adrenaline," I whispered to the empty bathroom. "Hysterical strength. Mothers lift cars off their babies. That's what happened. He surprised me, and I panicked."

You broke his ribcage, Artemis said. Her voice was calm now. smug. It felt good. The bone snapping. It felt right.

"Stop it!" I screamed, gripping the edge of the sink. "I am not a monster! I am Emma Carter! I pay my taxes and I watch cooking shows and I am normal!"

I squeezed my eyes shut. "Open your eyes, Emma. Look at yourself. You're fine."

I opened my eyes and looked in the mirror.

The scream died in my throat.

The face looking back at me was mine, but it wasn't. My skin was flushed with a feverish heat. My lips were swollen. But it was my eyes.

My dark, chocolate-brown eyes were gone.

In their place were irises the color of a bruised sunset. A vivid, glowing violet. They weren't just purple; they were luminous, shining with an internal light that cast a faint glow on the bathroom tiles. The pupils were slits. Vertical, predatory slits that pulsed with my heartbeat.

I leaned closer to the glass, my breath fogging the surface. I touched my cheek. The reflection touched its cheek.

"No," I whimpered. "No, this isn't real. This is the hallucination. I'm in bed. I'm asleep. I'm dreaming."

I reached for the bottle of pills on the counter, my hands shaking so hard I knocked a bottle of perfume into the sink. It shattered, the smell of expensive flowers mixing with the smell of my own fear.

Put the pills down, Artemis said. They won't fix this. You can't cure what you are.

"What am I?" I whispered to the violet eyes in the mirror. "What is happening to me?"

Artemis laughed, a dark, rolling sound in the back of my head.

You're finally waking up, Emma. And so is everyone else.

DANIEL'S POV

I sprayed another thick layer of chemical disinfectant across the surface of my mahogany desk and wiped the wood down with a heavy microfiber cloth. The harsh bleach masked the faint lingering trace of ozone and wildflowers that Emma had left behind, but I still lit a bundle of dried sage and let the thick smoke fill the corners of the room. My heart rate was finally beginning to slow down to a normal rhythm after the shock of her appearance, though my dress shirt was sticking to my back with nervous sweat. I grabbed my discarded suit jacket from the floor and tossed it over the back of the sofa, trying to focus on the mundane task of cleaning rather than the primal urge to run after my mate. I walked over to the small kitchen area attached to my office suite, turned on the espresso machine, and began grinding fresh coffee beans to give my hands something normal to do.

The heavy oak door swung open, and Marcus walked back into the office while coughing aggressively into his elbow to clear the sage smoke from his lungs. He walked over to the kitchen island, grabbed a clean glass from the cabinet, and poured himself a large measure of water from the refrigerator dispenser before drinking it down in three large swallows. He then opened the microwave, pulled out the container of leftover chicken he had been trying to force me to eat earlier, and took a large bite.

"You are going to set off the commercial fire alarms if you keep burning that weed in here," Marcus said, chewing his food and setting the water glass down on the granite counter with a loud clinking sound. "I already alerted the night cleaning crew to skip the fiftieth floor tonight so no one else catches the scent, but we need to figure out exactly who that girl is right now."

"I know we do," I replied, pressing the button on the coffee maker and watching the dark liquid pour into my mug. "Get on my computer and pull up her employment records from the human resources database. She said her name was Emma and she worked as a junior analyst, so it should not be difficult to find her file."

Marcus nodded, wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, and sat down in my leather desk chair. His fingers moved quickly across the keyboard as he bypassed the standard employee portal and accessed the highly classified background check files we kept on everyone who worked in the building. While he searched, I walked into my attached private bathroom, turned on the faucet, and splashed cold water over my face to wash away the sweat. I grabbed a fresh white towel from the metal rack, dried my skin thoroughly, and threw the towel into the laundry hamper. When I walked back out into the main office holding my mug of hot coffee, Marcus was staring at the glowing computer screen with an expression of complete disbelief.

"What did you find in her file?" I asked, setting my coffee down on the desk and walking over to stand behind him so I could read the monitor.

"Her full name is Emma Carter, and she was hired eight months ago straight out of a standard business program at the local university," Marcus explained, pointing to the digital photograph of Emma on the screen. "Her background looks incredibly boring and completely normal at first glance, but I ran her social security number through the deep pack network to see if her family had any ties to the supernatural community. Her mother was Dr. Aris Carter."

I leaned heavily against the edge of the desk and stared at the name on the screen while a cold sense of dread washed over my entire body. "Dr. Aris Carter was the head geneticist at the clandestine laboratory facility that my father ordered the Council to burn to the ground twenty years ago. The Council reported that the doctor died in the chemical fire along with all the hybrid experimental subjects, but clearly, they missed one."

"They did not just miss one," Marcus argued, scrolling down to a redacted incident report from two decades ago. "Emma is not a random subject who survived the purge. She is the daughter of the head scientist, which means she is the original lost subject the underworld has been searching for since the labs fell. She is Patient Zero, Daniel. Every rogue pack and supernatural mercenary in the country would pay billions of dollars to get their hands on her DNA."

"Nobody is getting their hands on her because she belongs to me," I stated firmly, pushing away from the desk and pacing across the thick carpet. "We need to make sure she made it back to her apartment safely. Access the city street cameras and trace her route from the front doors of this building to whatever address is listed in her employment file."

Marcus typed another series of commands into the keyboard, and the large television monitor mounted on the far wall flickered to life, displaying a grid of black and white surveillance feeds from the downtown area. We watched the screens intently as Marcus pulled up the footage from twenty minutes ago, showing Emma walking out of our lobby doors and heading down the rain-slicked sidewalk toward the subway station.

"There she is," Marcus noted, enlarging the camera feed from the corner of Fourth and Elm Street. "She is walking alone, and she looks completely terrified. You really scared her when you yelled at her and told her to leave."

"I had to scare her away to protect her from you and the rest of the pack," I reminded him, watching her small figure huddle against the cold rain on the screen. "Wait, pause the footage right there. Who is that man stepping out of the alleyway behind her?"

Marcus paused the video and zoomed in on a tall man wearing a hooded sweatshirt who was blocking Emma from walking down the shortcut. The man was leaning forward and aggressively sniffing the air around her neck, which immediately told me he was not a human mugger looking for cash.

"He caught her scent," Marcus said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "He knows what she is, Daniel. Look at his posture. He is preparing to attack her."

I gripped the back of the leather chair so tightly that the wooden frame cracked under the pressure of my fingers. I watched helplessly as the man lunged forward and grabbed Emma by the shoulders. I fully expected him to drag her into the dark alley, but Emma reacted with a sudden burst of violent movement. She raised her right hand and shoved the man squarely in the chest.

"Did you see that?" Marcus shouted, jumping up from the chair and pointing at the television screen in shock. "She just threw a full-grown supernatural enforcer fifteen feet through the air with one hand. She has absolutely no idea how strong she actually is."

I watched the man slam into the brick wall on the video feed while Emma turned around and sprinted down the street at a speed that no human could ever achieve. She disappeared from the camera frame within seconds, but the man in the alley did not stay on the ground. He struggled to his feet, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a cell phone.

"He is not running away from her," I observed, feeling the predatory instinct of my wolf rising to the surface of my mind. "He is making a phone call."

Marcus quickly typed on the keyboard again to access the audio surveillance transcripts from the street microphones. A few seconds later, the man's raspy voice echoed through the speakers in my office.

"I found the lost subject," the man on the audio recording said. "She is heading north toward the residential district. Send the extraction team right now, and tell them to bring the heavy tranquilizers because she is strong."

Marcus turned to me with wide eyes. "That is the extraction code for the rival pack from the northern territory. They have been watching our borders, and they know exactly what she is. They are going to capture her tonight."

I did not bother to answer him. I walked over to my desk, grabbed my car keys from the top drawer, and headed straight for the heavy oak doors.

"Daniel, wait!" Marcus yelled, running across the room to stand in front of the door so I could not leave. "You cannot go after her. If you engage the rival pack's extraction squad in the middle of the city, you will start a full-scale territorial war that will destroy everything your father built. Let them take her."

I looked Marcus directly in the eyes and let the silver light of my wolf bleed into my vision.

"Move out of my way right now, Marcus, or I swear I will kill you myself," I warned him, my voice vibrating with absolute authority. "They are not taking her anywhere. Are you going to step aside, or do we have a problem?"