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Chapter 1

Torin

“Earth to Torin.” Noble snaps his fingers in my face.

“What the hell is it?” I glare, growling as he pushes his bronze hair from his face. “I’m busy.”

“I said I want to talk.”

I cross to the window of my penthouse overlooking the glitter of Rochester, the city I basically fucking own. It should be enough. The power, the wealth, the status—I’ve defeated my enemies at every turn…except now.

The Blood Moon pack is a different beast.

“Thing is, I don’t want to fucking talk,” I grind out.

“Too bad, I do,” he says.

I turn and face him, my brain struggling to keep up the way I need it to. “We might be friends, but be very careful of how you talk to your alpha, Noble.”

“Fuck that.”

Noble hunches over like he’s got a fucking mountain on his shoulders.

I narrow my eyes.

He holds up a hand, shaking his head. “We need to talk about what happened at the temple with?—”

“Stop.” I flick the edges of my pristine cuffs and take off my custom-made suit jacket. “Do you want praise for how you slaughtered those wolves at the ruins of the Moon Goddess’s temple? If that’s it, you can fetch a cookie and shove it up your ass. I’m not in the mood.”

“I did my job,” he insists with a sharp hiss. “Now do yours.”

I huff and turn back to the window. “I said I don’t want to talk.”

“I know how good I was, where I failed.” He’s not making this easy on me. “And this here, right now, it’s just us. Old friends. You owe me an ear.”

I scrub a hand over my eyes. “Fuck, man.” I cross the room, draping my jacket on the sofa. “You did good. I admit it. Even that fucking asshole Mathis and his feral wolfman did a decent job.” But I flash Noble a hard look. “And if you’re not going to shut the fuck up, there’s a bottle of Blanton’s single barrel whiskey with my name on it.”

I’ll need a stiff drink to suffer through this conversation.

When I get to the wet bar, I wave a hand in his direction. “Get on with it then.” An invitation I’m sure I’ll regret.

We all have to play our parts, even when fucking being in touch with my damn wolf is the last thing I want. The constraints and pack fighting, the animalistic urges blotting out pure human logic… I prefer the modern way. Power with money. Power with technology.

Not folklore and temples and magic.

Noble sighs, his eyes tracking my every move. “Mathis was good. We needed him there. It shows how we need to work?—”

“Together?” I cut him off with an arched brow and lean on the bar. “I get it. When shit hits the fan, I see why Mathis is an efficient alpha to hispack.”

I take a moment. Thing is, Mathiswasa help. But it wasn’t enough. Not when we lost our girl.

Thegirl, I amend sharply.

Noble suddenly goes still, like he can smell my thoughts in the damn air. Then he crosses to me, his finger pointing. “You felt it,” he says.

“Felt what?” I grab the bottle. “Whatever you have to fucking say?—”

“Torin.”

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