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This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

M
EETING her was like taking a bullet. Point blank. Straight to the heart.

Mag had agreed to accompany his roommate, Rafe, to Assault, a club popular with the Denver University football team. It was Friday night and he was bored. He hadn’t expected this decision to change the course of his life. But that was what happened when a girl called out Rafe’s name behind them as they headed inside.

“Rafe? Is that you?”

Mag turned to see a tall, thin she-wolf in an emerald green dress waving at them. She had long, wavy hair, and her skin was the color of one of those complicated coffee-drinks Rafe always ordered at Starbucks. Espresso, two shots of milk, and a pair of wide-set eyes that shined with fondness for his friend. Mag didn’t have to be told she’d known Rafe for a long time.

“Janelle? What are you doing here?” Rafe smiled in surprise and pulled her into his arms for a hug while Mag stared like an idiot. He had never seen anyone so beautiful… between the covers of a magazine or in real life. Her delicate features were put together in such a way it made him think of woodlands and magical beings. The word fairy princess came to mind, even though he could smell the wolf inside her.

“Oh, I was asked to help judge this Miss Teen Wolf beauty pageant thing down the street, and they gave me a room at the Hotel Lusso since I was the only judge who had to fly in for it.” She pointed at a four-story stone hotel across the street with tall arched windows and a canopy over its swinging glass doors. A guy in a striped vest and shiny shoes stood out front. Not his kind of place, Mag could tell right away. That doorman would probably call the police if a guy like him so much as stepped up onto the hotel’s sidewalk.

“Why didn’t you call me?” Rafe was asking her now. “You know I’m at Denver University.”

“Well, I’m only in town tonight and I didn’t want to bother you. You’ve got your human work and your wolf work for school. Plus, you’re on the football team—I didn’t want to make you play host.”

“It wouldn’t have been a bother at all. I mean, I’m obviously not studying right now.” He jerked his head towards the club doors.

Her eyes twinkled. “Obviously.”

Mag was barely following the conversation at this point. Janelle and Rafe had been talking in a half hug position for approximately thirty seconds. And even though Mag knew Rafe would never betray his pretty little fiancée, Chloe, with another girl—Lord knew, he had plenty of chances—Mag had to force himself not to pull this unknown she-wolf out of his best friend’s arms.

Down, boy,
he told his wolf. This she-wolf, he could already tell, wasn’t for him. She had “good girl” written all over her: good clothes, good manners, good family for sure if she knew Rafe well enough to call him when she hit town. Rafe was the Alpha Prince of Colorado and he’d never put on any airs about it—hell, he was engaged to a scholarship she-wolf and lived in a crappy three-bedroom off campus because that had been all his two best friends, Mag and Grady, could afford. However, Mag suspected when Rafe wasn’t picking up friends and fiancées from the Island of Impoverished Toys, he kept company befitting a wolf who would one day rule over the Colorado state packs.

Mag looked down at his own clothes, a howling wolf t-shirt, jeans, a pair of scuffed up motorcycle boots, and a jacket doing a bad job of pretending to be leather—all purchased at Wal-Mart. The howling wolf t-shirt was supposed to be ironic: look, a werewolf wearing a wolf on his chest! But standing next to Rafe in his designer jeans and Italian leather jacket, he felt ashamed for not having the money to dress that well, for not being the kind of guy a girl like this would ever look at.

But then she did look at him, her eyes blinking a little, as if the same bullet that hit him when she appeared had just slugged into her.

“Hi,” she said, stepping away from Rafe and turning toward him. She smelled like expensive perfume, snow, and ice. “I’m sorry for not introducing myself sooner. I’m Janelle.”

She held out her hand. And he took it, trying to play it off like he didn’t feel another bullet go through his chest when his large hand closed over her smooth palm and long, delicate fingers.

“M-Mag. Maguyuk Lonewolf, but—but everybody calls me Mag.”

He was stuttering. He was actually stuttering, this girl had him so shook.

“He’s my roommate. We’re on the football team together,” Rafe said beside him.

“Oh!” Janelle gave Mag a pleasant smile. “How nice to meet you.”

She said this with such rote kindness, he got the feeling she spoke the words a lot. He didn’t care. He was more than willing to make small talk if it meant keeping her there. “Nice to meet you, too. You wanna come in with us? Our friend Grady’s on the door tonight, so we don’t have to wait in line.”

Janelle hesitated, seeming to consider the invitation. He didn’t blame her. She was tall, but at six-four with a fuck ton of muscle and a wolf that hovered close to the surface, Mag knew he was intimidating—especially compared to Rafe, who literally was a prince and acted like one, treating everyone with the courteous respect of a ruler born. He was like a walking Benetton ad, thanks to a pair of sharp cheekbones from his Native American dad, dreamy hazel eyes from his ma, and a whole head of matinee idol hair (seriously, every ink-black strand stayed in perfect place no matter what—Mag had no idea how the dude did it). Rafe looked like every girl’s dream come true. While Mag looked exactly like what he was—a long-haired Inuit thug who’d gotten into Denver University on a football scholarship.

However, Janelle surprised him by saying, “Okay, sure. I’ll come in.”

“Ladies first,” he said, stepping aside so she could walk ahead of them to the club’s door.

When Grady saw she was with them, he didn’t even bother to check her ID, just unlatched the rope and let them in with nods for Mag and Rafe.

“Hot.”
Grady signed, his eyebrows lifting up toward his hairline as he watched her walk into the club, where she’d look way out of place in her designer cocktail dress—like an intricately carved ring in a pan of fool’s gold.

Mag wasn’t nearly as good at ASL as Rafe, but he recognized the sign for “hot” well enough. It had been one of the first signs Mag asked the tank-sized blond to teach him, back in the early days of their friendship when Grady’s impairment had been a novelty as opposed to just one of many character traits belonging to someone he now respected very much.

But that respect didn’t keep his wolf from growling silently. Like Janelle was his territory and Grady had just stepped over the line.

Rafe shook his head and signed something complicated back to Grady, which Mag assumed meant “off-limits,” since a few seconds after he was done, Rafe looked back at him and said, low enough that Janelle wouldn’t hear… even with her wolf ears, “She’s a close friend of my family’s. Her dad’s like an uncle to me. You can look, but don’t touch.”

Mag nodded, weirdly liking how Rafe was so adamant about no one getting fresh with his family friend. Yeah, it meant Mag wouldn’t be able to act on those two bullets she fired his way, but it also meant no one else could either.

And despite having only just met Janelle, he found he liked the idea of no other wolf touching her. Liked it a lot.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

It was the second time Janelle had been asked that question tonight, but this time the circumstances weren’t nearly as pleasant. Kenny Lacer appeared in front of her like an unwelcome cold front on an otherwise lovely fall night, beer in one hand and a blonde with a butterfly tattoo on her chest practically hanging off his side.

Janelle struggled to keep the pleasant expression on her face. It was just her luck the Wyoming Beta was here. The Denver U. football team was one of the best in the division, mainly because it served as a feeder system for betas. The biggest, toughest wolves from across the land were sent there to not only play football, but also to hone the skills they’d need to serve as the first line of defense between a challenger to a state crown and the king the crown already belonged to.

Kenny, in particular, was a nasty piece of work: a cousin of the Wyoming royal family who’d done well in football and had agreed to be the alpha prince’s beta in exchange for a pardon on charges stemming from his nearly beating to death a gay wolf who’d “looked at him the wrong way.” Janelle wasn’t surprised at all that the large, brown-haired wolf would patronize a club called Assault. She also had less than zero desire to talk to him, much less explain her presence at a human nightclub most she-wolf princesses wouldn’t even know existed.

But he was the Wyoming prince’s beta, so…“I was actually across the street judging a…” she glanced at the blonde—a human who wouldn’t know werewolves were way more than a legend, “…small beauty pageant, when I saw Rafe coming in here with his friend.” She pointed toward the bar where Rafe and Mag were getting drinks.

The blonde looked over to where Janelle was pointing. “Ooh, they’re cute!” she chirped.

Kenny gave her a look that could have withered a flower on its stem, even if it was technically a weed like this girl, and handed her his beer. “Go stand over there and wait for me,” he told her like she was a dog at his command.

But the blonde didn’t seem to mind the order. “Okay, sure, I’ll be right over there!”

After his human was gone, Kenny looked over his shoulder at Rafe and Mag, then back at her. “Not sure the Wyoming prince would approve of you being out with two guys.”

Janelle held onto her pleasant expression, revealing nothing of what she was feeling inside, a skill that had been painstakingly drummed into her since birth.

“Rafe invited me here, and as you must know, my family and his are long time allies. I’m sure the Wyoming prince would understand how rude it would be if I turned down an invitation from a family friend—one happily pledged to another wolf whom I admire greatly.”

Kenny chewed over her defense, like a sullen dog with an old bone. “Yeah, I’ve never seen Rafe with anyone but that Chloe chick, but…” Kenny looked Janelle up and down, like he was running a leer-based lie detector test over her body, “…that guy he’s with, Mag—he hooks up with a lot of human chicks. I’m not comfortable with you hanging out with him, even if the Prince of Colorado is chaperoning.”

And that was when the situation got really awkward. Was Kenny telling her she had to leave the club? Yes, she realized, he was, and his presumption made Janelle’s cheeks burn with resentment. He shouldn’t be ordering her around! She was a princess, not some weed of girl he’d just met at a bar.

However, she knew if she didn’t do as Kenny said, he’d call the Wyoming prince. Then his parents would call her parents, and she’d be made to fly to Wyoming to smooth things over. And that would mean days of having to act like the Wyoming prince didn’t set her teeth on edge with his pompous attitude, his ridiculous sense of entitlement, and the way he acted like she was a trophy in his collection, one he owned body and soul. No, when she calculated the situation in her mind, defying Kenny wouldn’t be worth the trouble she’d be in if she didn’t do as he said.

“Okay,” she said, keeping her voice cheery. “Just let me say goodbye to Rafe and I’ll head back to my hotel.”

There was no small amount of smug on Kenny’s face as he nodded, “You do that.”

Then he went back over to the blonde with the butterfly tattoo.

When Rafe and Mag came with the drinks, she greeted them with an apology. “I’m so sorry,” she said before Rafe could hand her the glass of white wine she’d ordered. “I really misjudged how tired I was, and it’s a bit loud in here… I think I should call it a night.”

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