Episode 1
# Chapter One
The Claiming
The penthouse smelled of gun oil, Cuban tobacco, and old blood baked into Italian marble.
Dante Moretti stood at the window, thirty-eight stories above a city that belonged to him on paper and hated him in every heartbeat.
Rain lashed the glass in silver sheets.
Lightning cracked open the sky, bleaching the skyline white for one brutal second.
Behind him the doors opened without a knock.
Only one wolf in the world dared that.
Dominic Valente stepped inside and locked the doors with a soft, deliberate click that sounded louder than gunfire.
Dante didn’t turn.
He didn’t need to.
The air changed when Dominic entered the room (became heavier, hotter, edged with violence and something darker).
“Tell me it isn’t true.”
Dominic’s voice was low, rough from the cigarettes he pretended he didn’t smoke and the screams he never let out.
Dante watched the reflection of those gold eyes in the glass.
They were burning.
“It’s true.”
Two words.
Flat.
Final.
Dominic crossed the room in four strides.
His hand slammed Dante against the window, forearm like iron across Dante’s throat.
The glass groaned but held.
Dominic’s claws pricked his skin, four perfect points of fire.
“You let him buy her?”
The words vibrated through Dante’s bones.
“My sister, Dante. Seraphina.”
A growl rolled out of Dominic’s chest, so deep the crystal decanters on the bar rattled.
Dante let the pressure build against his windpipe.
He deserved it.
He welcomed it.
“Lucian didn’t ask permission,” he said.
“He informed me. Contracts signed. The bride's price was paid in territory and blood.”
He met Dominic’s eyes in the reflection.
“In three nights, under the full moon, I claim her in front of every pack in the five boroughs, or we lose Brooklyn to the Russians.”
Dominic’s claws sank deeper.
Beads of blood welled, slid warm down Dante’s collar.
“You rejected your fated mate once,” Dominic snarled.
“Do it again.”
Dante’s laugh was a broken thing.
“I rejected you.”
The confession scraped his throat raw.
“And I’ve bled for it every single day since.”
Silence fell, thick as the storm outside.
Dominic’s grip loosened a fraction.
His next words came softer, deadly soft.
“Then bleed a little more.”
He released Dante and stepped back.
The distance between them felt like a canyon.
Dante turned slowly.
Dominic stood bathed in lightning, leather jacket open, scars and ink on display like battle standards.
The claw marks across his throat (Dante’s own work, ten years old) gleamed silver in the flash.
Ten years ago, in the smoking ruins of a warehouse on the Hudson, two boys who should have killed each other felt the mate bond snap into place.
Dante had been twenty-four, already heir, already drowning.
Dominic had been twenty-five, already a killer, already lost.
The Moon had laughed and bound them together with silver fire.
Dante had looked into gold eyes and said the four worst words of his life: I do not choose you.
He had expected death.
He had gotten something crueler (a decade of nights where Dominic still came to him anyway, teeth and blood and whispered names in the dark).
They never spoke of the bond.
They never spoke of love.
They simply took what the Moon had stolen and pretended it was enough.
Until tonight.
Dante straightened his cuffs, blood smearing the white linen.
“I don’t have a choice, Dom.”
His voice cracked on the nickname he hadn’t used in years.
“If I refuse the claiming, Lucian will give her to someone worse.”
He swallowed.
“Or he’ll kill you to make the point.”
Dominic’s smile was all fangs.
“Let him try.”
The elevator chimed.
Both wolves turned, bodies shifting into a fighting stance without thought.
The doors slid open.
Lucian Moretti stepped out flanked by four enforcers in tailored black.
The Alpha of the Moretti pack was sixty but looked forty, silver threading his black hair like moonlight on steel.
His eyes were the same winter gray as his son’s, only colder.
Behind him, wrists bound in silver silk, walked Seraphina Valente.
The scent hit Dante first (jasmine and gunpowder and fresh snow on pine).
His wolf surged forward so violently his vision tunneled.
Mine.
The word roared through every vein, every bone.
The mate bond detonated like a landmine buried ten years deep.
Seraphina lifted her head.
White-gold hair spilled over one shoulder, braided tight like war banners.
Crimson eyes locked on Dante and flared bright as fresh blood.
Her lips parted in a silent snarl that showed the tips of her fangs.
The silver cuffs smoked against her skin, but she didn’t flinch.
Dominic went rigid.
A low, continuous growl vibrated out of him.
His claws lengthened, black and lethal.
Lucian smiled like a man who had just won a war.
“Dante.”
Lucian’s voice cut through the room like a blade.
“Meet your bride.”
Seraphina’s gaze never left Dante.
Hatred and hunger warred in those crimson eyes.
She took one step forward, chains singing.
The bond pulled so hard Dante tasted copper.
He forced himself still.
Forced the words out through a throat raw with need.
“I don’t want her.”
The lie tasted like ash.
Seraphina flinched as if he’d struck her.
Dominic’s growl cut off abruptly.
Lucian’s smile widened.
“Good,” the old Alpha said.
“Because wanting has never been the point.”
He gestured, and the enforcers shoved Seraphina forward.
She stumbled, caught herself, stood tall.
Lucian continued, “Three nights until the full moon. You will claim her in the old circle beneath the Chrysler spire. Every pack will witness. And you will give me an heir with Valente blood.”
Dante’s hands curled into fists.
Nails pierced his palms.
Blood dripped onto the marble.
“Or,” Lucian added softly, “I start with Dominic’s heart and work my way through every wolf who ever looked at you too long.”
Dominic moved first.
He lunged, faster than thought.
One enforcer went down with a broken neck before he hit the floor.
The second lost his throat to Dominic’s teeth.
Chaos exploded.
Dante shifted mid-leap.
Black fur ripped through his suit.
He slammed into the third enforcer, jaws closing on a forearm.
The bone snapped like kindling.
The fourth raised a silver blade.
Seraphina moved.
Silver cuffs and all, she twisted, drove her elbow into Lucian’s temple.
The old Alpha staggered.
She snatched the fallen blade, spun, and buried it in the fourth enforcer’s thigh.
Blood sprayed across the marble like red wine.
For one heartbeat, the room froze.
Three wolves (Dante black as midnight, Dominic gold and savage, Seraphina white as moonlight) stood shoulder to shoulder, breathing hard, covered in blood that wasn’t theirs.
Lucian straightened, wiping blood from his lip.
His eyes glowed ice-white.
“You’ll regret that, girl.”
Seraphina smiled, slow and sharp.
“I haven’t even started.”
She turned the blade toward Dante.
Crimson eyes locked on his.
The bond screamed between them, raw and aching.
“Touch me,” she said, voice velvet and venom, “and I’ll gut you myself.”
Dominic stepped forward, fangs bared.
“Back off, Seraphina.”
She didn’t look at her brother.
Her gaze stayed on Dante.
“Choose,” she whispered.
“Right now. Him or me.”
Thunder crashed overhead.
The lights flickered.
Dante’s wolf howled inside his skull, torn in two directions by two impossible bonds.
Lucian laughed, soft and terrible.
“Choose wrong, son,” he said, “and I kill them both.”
The window behind Dante exploded inward.
Glass rained like diamonds.
A dozen Russian wolves poured into the penthouse, eyes glowing arctic blue, silver blades gleaming.
The last thing Dante saw before hell broke loose was Seraphina’s lips curving in a feral, terrified smile as she whispered one word that changed everything.
“Run.”
