The Devil's Favorite

Prologue

The first thing I learned about monsters was that they didn't always look like monsters.

Sometimes, they wore tailored suits.

Sometimes, they owned billion-dollar companies.

Sometimes, they stood behind you in an empty hallway and whispered your name like they had every right to know it.

I learned that lesson the night my life fell apart.

The cameras had been following me for weeks.

Everywhere I went, someone had a phone pointed at my face. Every headline had my name in it. Every stranger seemed to have an opinion about what I had supposedly done.

I didn't do it.

But innocence didn't matter once the world decided you were guilty.

My manager told me to disappear.

So I did

No cameras. No runway. No interviews.

Just a new job, a new routine, and a new boss.

Caleb Vale.

I had heard enough about him to know I should stay away.

Cold.

Ruthless.

Untouchable.

The kind of man who could destroy a career with one phone call.

What I didn't know was that the rumors were only half the truth.

Because Caleb Vale wasn't human.

And the first time he looked at me, something in his eyes changed.

Not surprise.

Not curiosity.

Recognition.

His jaw tightened as he stared at me from across his office.

Then he whispered something I couldn't understand.

A word that sounded almost like a warning.

I should have walked out.

Instead, I stepped closer.

And that's when he said the words that would change everything.

“You shouldn't be here.”

I frowned.

“I'm your new secretary.”

His eyes darkened.

“I know.”

There was something almost dangerous in the way he said it.

Then he looked away, as if fighting an instinct he couldn't explain.

“That's exactly why you shouldn't be here.”

I didn't understand.

Not yet.

I didn't know about wolves.

I didn't know about the pact.

And I certainly didn't know that accepting this job had placed me directly in the path of the most powerful Alpha in the city.

All I knew was that my new boss looked at me like I was the one thing in this world he had spent his entire life trying not to want.

And somehow...

I had already The Devil's Favorite.