Page 1 of Wicked

1

Candlewick

The prison guard hands me a plastic box filled with all the possessions I have left in the world: a white suit, a pearl necklace, a wallet, and an old pair of shoes.

“Get changed.” He doesn’t leave the room to give me privacy. The implication is clear. I’m supposed to change in front of him. I thought my release meant I would stop being treated like a feral animal. I guess not.

I pick up the pearl necklace. It’s the only thing of Gran’s I have left. Her debtors showed up like vultures the week after she died and took everything of value. They left her pearls because they were fake.

The white suit in the box is a knockoff too. I found it at a thrift shop in the East Village when I was twenty-two years old. I remember seeing it in a window display the day I moved to New York City and wanting to be the kind of man who would wear something so unapologetically glamorous. I was a naïve kid from Kentucky with dreams of making it in the big city. I didn’t know I was already too old for the modeling agencies or that none of them would sign me anyway. They were experts at recognizing a red wolf shifter’s thrall—even a mild thrall like mine—and it automatically disqualified me.

Three months later, I was back at the thrift shop. Not as a hopeful window shopper, but as an employee making minimum wage. I couldn’t afford the rent for the matchbox-sized apartment I shared with two roommates, let alone the beautiful white suit that had been relegated to the back corner of the store, still waiting for a customer bold enough to buy it.

The day Lester walked into my shop, I wondered if it would be him. He was the prettiest man I’d ever seen—all cheekbones, silver hair, and sleek lines. His silver suit matched his hair and fit him like a glove. I gawked at him for a full thirty seconds before I realized I was staring.

“Welcome to Retro Threads,” I finally blurted out.

He gave me a polite, close-lipped smile. “Thank you. My name is Lester Semenov, and I believe you are the person I was hoping to run into.”

I wondered if he was running some kind of scam. Or maybe he was selling something. Maybe both.

“I don’t have any money, if that’s what you’re after.”

He shook his head. “I have plenty of money. I’m looking for omegas who are part red wolf shifter. Someone told me there was one working at this store.”

I stepped back. “It’s none of your business what kind of shifter I am.”

At the time, I was trying to keep my red wolf shifter ancestry a secret. I’d burrowed with three different fox shifters after high school, only to find I couldn’t form a proper bond with any of them because of my mixed blood. And then there were the housing regulations. Omega red wolf shifters with a thrall were supposed to register with the government and live in designated housing, which was horrendously expensive. In high school, my mild thrall was nothing but a fun way to attract the alphas I had a crush on. In the real world, it had turned into a major liability.

“Let me start by saying I’m not here to cause trouble for you. I only want to invite you to a party. In fact, I’ll pay you to attend.”

“A party? What do you mean?” My voice trailed off as I put the pieces together. There was one line of work in particular where a thrall was a huge asset. But I hadn’t come to New York City to work as a call boy.

“No. I’m not… like that.”

Lester raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Like… that.”

“You mean, you’ve never eaten dinner at a nice restaurant with an alpha for money? Or gotten paid to watch a show on Broadway with a man rich enough to spring for front row seats?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Everyone knew arrangements like that didn’t end with dinner or a show.

Lester pulled out a thick white card and placed it next to the cash register. It was the size of a business card, but it didn’t have his name or contact information. A date, time, and address were printed in crisp, black ink. “Listen, kid. I’m not here to lure you into a job you don’t want. Any work you do for me will require your clear and enthusiastic consent. But if you’re interested, I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to come to my party. All you have to do is show up on time in a nice suit, be polite to my guests, and go easy on the booze. Think about it.”

I thought of little else for the next week. Two hours before the party started, I tried on the white suit and stood in front of the full-length mirror in the dressing room for a long time. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life now that modeling was no longer an option, but I knew I wanted to do something exciting and big. I hadn’t escaped Kentucky to work retail and share a tiny apartment. There had to be something better for me out there.

So I went to Lester’s party.

The venue was a rooftop in Manhattan with strings of lights lining a large wooden pergola and a dozen circular tables covered with white tablecloths. Servers in tuxedos wandered the space with trays full of shrimp canapés and champagne. A cellist and violinist played in the corner. Their music was strangely complementary to the hum of cars and the whistling of the wind. The whole ambiance was perfectly orchestrated. Walking into that party felt like stepping into another world.

Immediately, I realized how ridiculous my white suit was. Everyone else was wearing black or gray. I gorged myself on shrimp canapés while I watched Lester and his boys work the room. They were all handsome and charming as they flitted from guest to guest, flirting and making polite conversation. It was like watching a dance.

Clearly none of them were from a place like Kentucky. They had a social grace I knew I could never match. Lester had clearly made a mistake inviting me.

Midnight came and went. I stayed on, careful to be polite like Lester said. It wasn’t until after two o’clock that the last client left and the servers with him. The only people left on the rooftop were the six young men who worked for Lester. They chatted among themselves for a minute or two before the one with shiny chestnut hair and bright green eyes walked to the table where I was sitting and relaxed into the chair next to me.

“I’m Revolver,” he said.

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