Betrayal Under The Blood Moon

Chapter One

SADIE

First class champagne still fizzes in my blood when Ella takes the exit too fast. The rental Tahoe's tires squeal against wet asphalt, and Suki shrieks from the back while Julie clutches the oh-s**t handle with white knuckles.

"Sorry, sorry." Ella straightens the wheel. "This thing handles like a drunk moose."

"You handle like a drunk moose." Melanie flicks auburn hair over her shoulder. "How many mimosas did you have on the plane?"

"Fewer than Sadie."

"Snitch." But I'm smiling, first real smile in days. Something about being three thousand miles from DC makes breathing easier. Even if my skin feels too tight and the injection site under my sundress throbs like a fresh bruise.

Portland rain mists the windshield. Not the polite drizzle of home but something wilder, Pacific Northwest precipitation that smells like pine and secrets. Through the trees, I catch glimpses of the Columbia River running dark and wide. Somewhere on the other side lies Otherkind territory. Dante Byrne's territory.

The thought shouldn't make my pulse skip. Shouldn't make the injection site burn hotter.

My phone buzzes. Randall's face fills the screen, senatorial smile perfectly calibrated even in candid photos.

"The worried fiancé calls." Julie sing-songs from beside me.

I slide to answer. "Hey."

"You landed?" His voice carries that particular tone—concern wrapped in control. "The flight was fine?"

"Pregamed our way across America. You'd have hated it."

"Drinking at altitude amplifies effects by—"

"Randall."

He sighs. "Sorry. Just worry about you. Especially with your condition."

My condition. Twenty-six years of daily injections, pills with breakfast and dinner, booster shots when the regular cocktail isn't enough. All for an autoimmune disorder so rare it doesn't have a real name. Just symptoms that make less sense every year. The way my body runs too hot in summer, too cold in winter. How certain smells—wet earth, blood, fear—hit like physical blows. The dreams that feel more like memories, running on four legs through forests I've never seen.

"How close is the cabin to the Portland pack border?"

"I don't know. Two miles? Three? Ella?"

"Mile and a half to the official crossing." Ella catches my eye in the rearview. "But the woods are just woods. Not like there's a wall."

"Mile and a half." Silence stretches like pulled taffy. "Sadie, that's practically on top of the Portland Pack."

"It's fine."

"It's not fine. Do you know what Dante Byrne is? What he's capable of?"

Julie leans over, interested. "Is he describing Dante Byrne? Because yes, please, tell us what he's capable of."

I shove her back, but she's grinning like Christmas came early.

"We're not going to accidentally wander into wolf territory."

"Wolves don't respect borders. Especially not Alpha wolves. Especially not him."

"You've met him?"

"Treaty negotiations last year. He's..." Randall pauses, choosing words like selecting weapons. "Dangerous. All animal instinct wrapped in a suit. The way he looks at people, like he's cataloging weaknesses."

"Sounds hot." This from Melanie, loud enough to carry.

"Is someone listening to our—"

"My friends are jackasses. Ignore them."

"Senator Patterson should talk to her staff about appropriate—"

"Randall. Stop." The words come out sharper than intended, edge of something that might be teeth. "I'm on vacation. My first vacation in two years. Can we not turn it into a political thing?"

"Everything's political when you work for the opposition party."

"Patterson's not opposition. She's a colleague. Just because she actually thinks Otherkind deserve rights—"

"We're not doing this now." His senatorial voice, the one that makes freshmen representatives cry. "Just... be careful. Please. The wedding's in eight weeks."

Eight weeks. The words sit like stones in my stomach. Eight weeks until I walk down an aisle in a dress that required three fittings and my mother's opinions about appropriate necklines. Eight weeks until I become Mrs. Randall Lee, political wife, perfect accessory to his calculated ambitions.

"I know."

"I love you."

"You too." The lie tastes like copper pennies, like the pills I take every morning. "I'll call tomorrow."

I hang up before he can parse my tone. The car fills with pointed silence until Julie breaks.

"So. Dante Byrne."

"Don't."

"I'm just saying, I've watched a lot of C-SPAN. Like, a concerning amount of C-SPAN. Those treaty hearings? Better than cable drama."

"You watch congressional hearings for fun?" Jinsoo twists from the passenger seat, dark eyes incredulous behind wire-rimmed glasses.

"I watch for the plot." Julie grins. "The plot being Dante Byrne in a three-piece suit making senators sweat."

"Objectifying," Suki says primly. Then: "Is he really that hot?"

"Six-four. Shoulders like a linebacker. Dark hair to his collarbones—total violation of professional standards and he doesn't give a f**k. This voice that makes you think about gargling gravel and good whiskey. And his hands—"

"Julie."

"What? I'm painting a picture. Those hands could palm a basketball. Or a head. Probably has. The man radiates 'I've killed people who annoyed me' energy."

"You've thought about this a lot." I keep my tone neutral while my pulse does something complicated.

"Haven't you? Come on, Sades. You work for Patterson. You've seen the footage."

Heat crawls up my neck. Too many nights curled on my couch, laptop balanced on knees, watching treaty negotiations that had nothing to do with my actual job. Watching him command a room just by existing. The way he moves—economic, predatory, certain. The way his eyes catch light sometimes, flashing gold-green like an animal's.

"Maybe."

"Maybe?" Ella cackles. "That's Sadie-speak for 'I've memorized his schedule.'"

"I have a professional interest in—"

"In those shoulders?" Melanie interrupts. "Those hands? The way his eyes go gold when someone pisses him off?"

"They don't go gold." Automatic protest. "That's just the light."

"So you have been watching."

Caught. "Fine. Yes. He's..." I search for words that won't damn me. "Compelling."

"Compelling." Julie tastes the word. "Our engaged friend finds the big bad Alpha compelling."

"It's an aesthetic appreciation."

"Is that what we're calling it?"

"I'm marrying Randall." The words fall like lead shot. "In eight weeks."

Nobody responds. These women have known me since Georgetown, through bad boyfriends and worse decisions. They know what my truth sounds like. This isn't it.

The trees thicken as we wind deeper into nowhere. My skin prickles wrong, like static before lightning. The injection site throbs harder, spreading heat that doesn't feel like infection. This morning's dose burned going in, metallic taste flooding my mouth. Been happening more lately. Dr. Morrison says it's stress. Wedding planning. Work. Life.

Feels like something else. Something my body knows but won't name. Like trying to remember a word in a language I never learned.

"There." Ella points to a dirt road barely visible through green. "Home sweet middle of f*****g nowhere."

The cabin emerges from trees like something from a story. Dark wood and river stone, windows reflecting forest, dock stretching toward water that runs deeper than it should. Ella's grandmother built it in the sixties after her husband died. Raised five kids alone out here where the nearest neighbor was three miles of woods away. A woman who didn't take anyone's s**t, including nature's.

We pile out, bags and coolers and wine bottles enough for a small army. The air hits different here. Cleaner. Wilder. That smell again—pine and water and something else. Something that makes my hindbrain whisper *run* or maybe *chase*.

"Dibs on the master." Melanie's already racing up porch steps.

"Like hell."

They scatter, claiming space, while I stand frozen. The treeline pulls at me. Not the cabin with its promise of wine and gossip and pretending everything's fine. The trees. The shadows between them. The territory beyond where things with teeth make their own laws.

"You okay?" Jinsoo touches my elbow, doctor voice creeping in. "You've been quiet since we landed."

"Just tired."

Her eyes narrow. Always been too good at reading me. "When's the last time you took your meds?"

"This morning." Half-truth. Took the pills. The injection can wait. Sometimes I skip the midday dose, pretend I'm normal for a few hours. Pretend my body doesn't need constant chemical intervention to function.

"Sadie."

"I'm fine, Dr. Kim."

"That's what you said last time. Right before you collapsed at that fundraiser."

"That was different."

"Was it?"

Inside, chaos reigns. Ella wars with the ancient stove while Julie unpacks enough wine to kill a regiment. Suki arranges groceries with teacher precision and Melanie live-tweets our arrival to her thirty thousand followers.

I escape upstairs, medical bag heavy in my hands. The bathroom door locks—small mercy. The supplies spread across cracked tile: pills that taste like pennies, syringes loaded with clear fluid that burns like ice. Twenty-six years of this routine. Twenty-six years of believing it keeps me alive.

The needle slides home practiced and smooth. Fire spreads from the injection site, racing through veins like it's looking for something. Fighting something. My reflection wavers in the spotted mirror. Same face as always. Korean features that made adoptive parents proud of their diversity. Dark hair that won't hold curl. Eyes that Randall calls "mysterious" when he's feeling poetic.

Something flickers behind my pupils. Gold, maybe. Or green.

Trick of the light.

I lean closer. The bathroom smells like cedar and age, but underneath—something else. Musk. Earth. Wild things. My hands shake as I pack away the supplies. The injection site pulses with each heartbeat, spreading that strange heat deeper.

Downstairs, wine flows and stories unspool. Julie holds court with tales of corporate Otherkind discrimination. Melanie spins gossip from DC's elite. Ella burns dinner spectacularly while Suki saves us with takeout menus.

Normal. Easy. Everything a bachelorette weekend should be.

Except I can't shake the feeling of being watched. Not paranoid delusion but certainty that sits base-of-spine deep. Something in the trees knows we're here. Knows I'm here. The sensation crawls over my skin like fingertips, like breath on the back of my neck.

"More wine?" Jinsoo appears at my elbow, bottle ready.

"Trying to get me drunk?"

"Trying to get you talking. You've been weird since Portland."

"Gee, thanks."

"Sadie." She uses her serious voice, the one that makes sick kids trust her. "What's really going on?"

The wine tastes like blackberries and bad decisions. We've moved to the porch now, watching darkness eat the trees. The others cluster around the fire pit, but Jinsoo and I sit apart, feet hanging off the edge where the deck meets wild grass.

"I don't want to marry him."

The words hang between us, too real for taking back.

"Randall?"

"No, the other fiancé I keep in my back pocket."

"Hey." She bumps my shoulder, warm and solid. "Talk to me."

"There's nothing to talk about. Wedding's in eight weeks. Invitations are out. My dress is hanging in my closet like a silk ghost. His mother has opinions about centerpieces."

"So?"

"So I can't just—" I gesture helplessly at the vastness of everything I can't name. "I can't."

"Why not?"

Because Senator Westbrook's daughter doesn't break engagements. Because Randall's perfect on paper—Harvard law, youngest senator from Maine, the kind of ambitious that builds dynasties. Because I've never wanted anyone the way normal women want men, so maybe this is as good as it gets.

Because sometimes I watch treaty hearings just to see the way Dante Byrne moves, and that probably makes me twenty kinds of f****d up.

"It's complicated."

"Love shouldn't be complicated."

"Who said anything about love?"

Jinsoo's silence speaks volumes. She knows. Has probably known longer than I have.

Outside, wind moves through trees like something breathing. The watched feeling intensifies, prickles down my spine like ghost fingers. I catch myself leaning toward the forest, body canting forward like a compass finding north.

"I should check my levels." I stand too fast, room spinning slightly. "Make sure the afternoon dose is working."

"Sadie—"

But I'm already moving, drawn to windows that show nothing but darkness and the promise of trees. Something's out there. Something that makes my medication burn hotter, makes my skin feel like a costume that doesn't quite fit.

Mile and a half to the border. To Dante Byrne's territory. To a world where senators' daughters don't exist and the moon makes its own laws.

The injection site throbs, and I press my palm against it. Hold the poison in. Keep the wildness out. But for the first time in twenty-six years, I wonder what would happen if I stopped. If I missed a dose. If I let whatever's fighting the medication win.

Thunder rolls somewhere distant, though the night was clear minutes ago. The sound pulls at something behind my ribs, makes me want to tilt my head back and answer with a sound that human throats don't make.

Eight weeks until I marry Randall Lee. Eight weeks to pretend this feeling under my skin is just stress, just doubt, just cold feet every bride experiences.

I pour more wine and don't think about golden eyes and dangerous hands and what waits in the darkness between trees.

Don't think about how the thunder sounds like calling.

Don't think about how badly I want to answer.