Marked by the werewolf

CHAPTER 4

Brady POV

I should have been celebrating.

The Global Star Award sat on my coffee table, gleaming under the penthouse lights. My first major win and the culmination of three months of carefully executed plans. I'd beaten Crystal Bill on her own turf, taken the award she'd expected to be hers.

Victory should have tasted sweet, Instead I couldn't breathe.

My wolf clawed at my insides, rabid and desperate. The suppressant I'd taken before the ceremony was wearing off, and every cell in my body screamed for something I couldn't name. Her scent still clung to my suit jacket. It smelled like pine and something sweeter, something that made my wolf howl.

I paced the length of my living room, fighting for control. This wasn't supposed to happen. The suppressant always worked. Always kept my wolf buried deep enough that I could function like a normal human.

But tonight, when I'd leaned close to her, when I'd whispered those words against her skin, everything had shattered.

I'd meant the word I said to her as a taunt and a reminder of what her family had done. The girl with the star birthmark, the one my mother had warned me about with her dying breath. Stay away from her, she'd said and I'd understood. This girl and her family were dangerous and they'd destroyed us.

For eighteen years, I'd carried that warning like a brand on my heart. I'd made sure I was unrecognizable from the little powerless boy from small and it worked because she didn't recognize me.

But then her birthmark had glowed blue beneath my breath, and my wolf had recognized something my human mind refused to accept.

Mate.

I think it's impossible because she was a hunter's daughter, the enemy and the reason my mother was dead.

I grabbed the bottle of suppressant from my safe and drank another dose, even though I'd already taken one six hours ago. Too much could kill me and the seizures were getting worse. The nosebleeds are also more frequent but I didn't care because I needed control.

I needed to focus on why I was here which was , Revenge.

I'd built Wolfe Enterprises from nothing for this exact purpose. Every deal I'd stolen from Marcus Bill's company, every client I'd poached and every contract I'd undercut—it was all part of the plan to destroy her husband's empire, her career and take everything she had, piece by piece, until she understood what loss really meant.

Until she felt what I'd felt back then, watching my world burn.

But my wolf didn't want revenge, it wanted her.

I punched the wall in frustration and felt the pain. Get it together, Brady. She's the enemy so focus.

I forced myself to sit at my desk and open my laptop. Work. I needed to get my mind busy with numbers and strategy and cold, calculated destruction. Things that made sense.

The reports from Wolfe Enterprises filled my screen. Marcus Bill was hemorrhaging clients. His company stock had dropped three points this week alone. He was getting desperate , which is perfect.

Marcus Bill, Crystal's husband. The man who got to touch her, hold her and wake up next to her every morning while I...

I stopped that thought before it could finish.

I didn't want her, I wanted her destroyed but I couldn't focus. My mind kept drifting back to the way she'd looked at the hall with confusion and anger. And beneath it all, something that looked almost like recognition.

I couldnt go on again so I closed the business reports and did what I always did when sleep wouldn't come. I researched her.

I'd been doing it for months now. Every interview, every photograph, every public appearance. I told myself it was strategy. Know your enemy and find their weaknesses.

But tonight I went deeper into fan pages, social media discussions and comment threads analyzing her every move.

That's when I found it.

A forum discussion from three months ago: "Anyone else think Crystal Bill would write amazing fantasy stories? Her eyes have that dreamy quality, like she's imagining another world."

Another comment below it: "She probably secretly reads those banned werewolf apps lol. The good girl act is definitely hiding something."

My interest sharpened at the mention of the banned werewolf app. I knew about MoonScript. Every werewolf did. It was an underground app where humans wrote werewolf fiction, ironically run by werewolf sympathizers trying to gauge human sentiment toward our kind. Most of it was garbage. Full of romanticized nonsense written by people who had no idea what it meant to be hunted.

I'd never bothered with it before.

But now, curiosity pulled at me like a hook.

I downloaded the app and created an account with Username: GoldenWolf which was Ironic, considering my eyes.

The interface was simple and divided into categories. Top rated authorsband most followed.

One name stood out at the top of every list: StarlessNight.

I clicked on her profile. She had hundreds of thousands of followers and dozens of completed stories. The description of her most recent work made me pause:

"A werewolf and human, enemies by birth, drawn together by fate. A love that shouldn't exist but refuses to die."

Something about those words called to me so I opened the first chapter and I couldn't stop reading.

The writing was beautiful, raw and emotional in a way that caught me off guard. The werewolf character wasn't a monster. He was complicated, haunted and desperately trying to hide what he was while living among people who would kill him if they knew.

He felt real.

The human character was trapped in a life she didn't choose, yearning for freedom she couldn't name and every word she spoke felt heavy with loneliness.

I read chapter after chapter, and forgot my business reports.

Then I hit a passage that made my heart stop:

"His eyes were gold, like sunlight through amber. Looking at him felt like remembering something she'd forgotten. Something that was important."

My hands stilled on the keyboard as I spoke those words out: Gold eyes, Remembering something forgotten.

I kept reading.

"She touched the mark on her neck absently, wondering why it only burned when he was near. Why her body recognized him even when her mind insisted they were strangers."

My wolf stirred, and became restless.

This author wrote like she'd lived it. Like these weren't fantasies but memories. The details were too specific to be coincidence and the emotions felt too raw to be fiction.

But that was impossible because the author was probably human. Just another writer spinning romantic fantasies about creatures she didn't understand.

Still, I couldn't shake the feeling.

For the first time in eighteen years, since the night my mother died, I felt something other than rage but peace and curiosity.

Reading this stranger's words, I didn't feel the constant anger that drove me. The burning need for revenge and the isolation of being the only one who understood.

I felt seen.

Who was this person who could write my soul onto a page?

I scrolled through the comments. Thousands of readers praising her work and begging for updates. But StarlessNight never responded or revealed anything about herself.

I wanted to know her. I felt I needed to.

My fingers moved to the comment box before I could think better of it.

What should I say? What could I say that wouldn't sound insane?

I typed: "How do you know this story?"

Sent it before I could overthink.

Then I sat back and waited, my heart pounding in a way it hadn't since I was a child.

My phone buzzed and showed another report on Crystal Bill. More details for my revenge plan but I ignored it.

Right now, I didn't want to think about Crystal Bill, but about StarlessNight, the woman who made me feel human again.

I didn't know how long it was but then a notification popped up on my screen showing that StarlessNight had replied.

"It's fiction. I made it up."

I stared at the words. I couldn't believe that

The details were too real and emotions too precise. You couldn't write a werewolf's fear of living alone forever unless you'd felt that kind of loneliness yourself.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard, my pulse racing as I typed.

"Fiction doesn't feel like this. Fiction doesn't know that a werewolf's biggest fear isn't death, it's living alone forever. Who are you really, StarlessNight?"

I hit send.