CHAPTER ONE: Wolf in the Grass
Mira
I shouldn’t have been here. Not tonight. Not alone.
But maybe part of me liked being unseen.
The main library had been closed for hours, the echo of the last student’s footsteps fading long before I made my way down the side hallway. The overhead lights here were half-dead, humming like they were hanging on out of spite. My shadow followed me across the floor, stretching long and warped over the peeling linoleum.
The key in my hand shook a little, the small metallic clink sounding loud in the stillness. I slipped it into the old lock and turned it, feeling the stiff metal catch before it gave way with a reluctant click. The heavy door swung open into the small back room.
The air inside was cool, heavy with the scent of old paper, dust, and something faintly damp, like the walls had been drinking in the rain for years. I breathed it in. It was the kind of smell no one else liked, but I did. Safe. Familiar.
I stepped inside, the soft thud of my sneakers muffled by the old rug underfoot. The hallway behind me went dark as the door swung almost shut, leaving just a thin sliver of light.
Shadows clung to the corners of the room, shifting faintly with the movement of the single weak bulb above the door. I reached up for the string that hung from the ceiling fan, my fingers brushing the frayed cord—
And then I heard it.
A voice. Low, smooth, unhurried.
“There you are.”
I froze, every muscle locking tight. My heart slammed against my ribs. I turned my head slightly, but the dark was thick.
Then I caught it—his scent.
Pine. Smoke. Rain on warm earth. It slid into me like water soaking through cloth, filling all the cracks I didn’t know I had. It didn’t just touch my senses—it tangled in them, made them hum.
I should have moved. I should have run. Screamed. Something. But my feet stayed rooted, my breath caught halfway in my chest.
Something warm brushed my waist—fingers, firm and rough. Another hand traced up the line of my neck, the pad of a thumb brushing my cheek with a touch that felt far too intimate for a stranger in the dark.
Before I could react, he pressed me into the wall. His lips found mine.
The kiss wasn’t soft. It wasn’t a question. It was heat—fast and claiming. His mouth was warm, tasting faintly of winter air and something dangerous. My lips parted without my permission, my body answering him even as my mind screamed to stop.
His leg slid between mine, pressing with slow, steady force, and I—
I didn’t pull away.
That scared me more than the kiss.
I’d never been touched like this. Not by anyone since him. The boy who left me with cracks I’d never fixed. The one who’d smiled in my face while he held someone else’s hand—someone I’d once trusted.
But this stranger’s mouth erased all of that. For a heartbeat, the past didn’t exist.
My hands found his shirt, gripping the fabric like an anchor, but it didn’t ground me. I was falling.
And then something inside me snapped.
I tore my mouth from his, breath ragged, my palm flying before I could think. The sharp crack of my hand against his cheek rang out in the stillness.
“Get off me!” My voice sounded rough, almost hoarse.
He stepped back, not in fear but in something almost like… amusement.
I yanked the cord above me. The light flickered before buzzing to life.
That was the moment I saw him.
Too tall for this cramped little room, shoulders broad under a black leather jacket. Dark hair, messy in a way that looked deliberate. And eyes—icy blue, sharp and watching me with a predator’s calm.
Damon Blackwood.
The name fell into my mind like a stone in water. Alpha of the South. The one everyone whispered about but no one claimed to really know. The one girls stared at across campus like he’d stepped out of a dream you weren’t supposed to talk about.
He leaned against the doorframe as if he had all the time in the world. “Bit jumpy, aren’t we?”
I crossed my arms, even though it didn’t hide the way my chest rose too fast. “You assaulted me.”
A slow smile curved his mouth. “Mistaken identity.”
I stared at him. “I’m not whoever you were looking for. And you need to leave.”
He didn’t move.
Instead, his gaze moved over my face like he was reading something only he could see. Then—
“You’re Mira.”
The sound of my name on his tongue made something twist in my stomach. “What?”
“Quiet girl,” he said, stepping forward just enough to make my pulse trip. “Smart. Still untouched.”
The last word landed between us like a match in dry grass.
“They said you’d never come near us,” he went on.
“Who’s ‘they’?” My voice came out tighter than I wanted.
His smile grew, lazy and confident. “No one important.”
But I saw it—a flicker in his eyes. There had been a bet. A game. And I was the prize.
“You’re disgusting,” I said, low.
He didn’t flinch. Instead, he closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, as if the air between us had weight.
“You smell like vanilla. And spice. And something else… something feral.”
“You’re insane.”
“Maybe.” His voice dipped lower. “Or maybe I just know what I want.”
A shiver moved through me, sharp and unwanted.
He stepped back, lifting his hands like he was offering peace. “Relax, little virgin. I’m not going to bite.”
But the way he said it told me he could. That he might, if he wanted.
He turned toward the hallway, pausing only once. That smirk returned, cutting across his face like a blade.
“We’ll see each other again, Mira.”
Then he was gone.
The room felt colder without him, but my skin still burned. My lips still tingled where his had been.
I pressed my hands to the wall behind me, the cool surface doing nothing to steady my heartbeat.
What the hell had just happened?
Was this heat? The thing no one ever described in detail, as if words could ruin it—or maybe make it too tempting to resist? It felt like my body wasn’t mine anymore. Like every muscle leaned toward him, wanting him closer, even though my mind screamed the opposite.
I wasn’t imagining it. The pull. The ache low in my belly. The way his scent still curled through the air like smoke that refused to clear.
He’d lit something in me. Something wild.
And for the first time in my life… I wasn’t sure I wanted to put it out.
