The glass of wine splashed across my face, spilling down the front of my uniform.
The entire diner went quiet.
I just couldn't seem to catch a break. You would think beating me to a pulp yesterday was more than enough entertainment for Lana, but it clearly wasn't. Considering she brought her entire cabal of friends with her to the diner I waitressed to afford the necessities at Greymoor that the scholarship didn't cover, just to embarrass me.
The sweet, tangy flavour of the juice gathered on my bottom lip as I held the tray firmly. The sharp edge bit into my palm. Deep breaths. You need this job, Maisie. Do not–I repeat, do not stick the glass in her left eye.
As if he could hear my thoughts, I felt my boss's stare drilling holes into my back as I tried for a polite, apologetic smile. "I'm really sorry. I'll have that cleaned up–"
"That won't be enough."
Lana's voice was light. Almost cheerful. She extended one leg from beneath the table, her stained black boot catching the light. "Wipe it off. With your tongue."
I reared back. "Excuse me?"
"That bottle," Lana said, gesturing toward the wine, "costs more than half a year of your salary. Cole gifted it to me to make tonight special. And you've ruined it."
Her red lips curved. "I could have a word with Mr. Theodore about re-evaluating your usefulness here." Lana wagged her foot slowly and her ponytail slipped elegantly over one bare shoulder as she tilted her head. "Or you could get down, apologize and wipe my boots. Make it believable, and I'll forget all about it."
Surely, she didn't mean that.
When I didn't move, her blue eyes turned cold. "Perhaps, one run with the big, bad Lycans and you've forgotten your place in this pack. And who your future Luna is."
The tray was cutting into my palm now. I could feel the warmth of blood coating my skin as I fought against the helpless rage churning in my gut. "I will not," I said, voice hard and firm. "You tripped me–"
"I suppose that's possible, though. Forgetting yourself, I mean," she said, cutting me off. She reached for an empty glass and swirled it once. "I hear the sex is pretty great with them. Lycans." A soft, theatrical sigh. "But then, you would know, wouldn't you? You've always been generous that way, Maisie. The Lycans, half our senior class at high school… you've never really discriminated who you parted your legs for and fucked."
My ears began ringing.
Cole sat up straighter and she smiled wider. I knew what she was doing. She was slandering my name, my image, and before morning, it would spread like wildfire that I was some slut who slept around. All because she couldn't stand the idea that Cole wanted me. She would ruin me for everyone else.
Tripping me hadn't been a mistake. She had come here just for that reason and she's succeeded. I could hear the words spreading across the diner. Maisie's a whore. Maisie's a slut. Maisie's slept with more than half of Greymoor. Must be how she got in.
No matter that my first kiss had been with Cole, at the mixer, in that hallway.
I knew by now that there was no changing the narrative when it began.
"Anyway." Lana smoothed her ponytail over her shoulder and finally looked back at me, her eyes soft with faux sympathy. "The boots, Maisie. If you wouldn't mind."
I snatched off the stupid name badge from my uniform and threw it at the table and I glanced over my shoulder at Mr. Theodore. I'd never liked him anyway. He'd begun paying me less after I rejected his propositioning. "I quit."
And I grabbed the rest of Cole's wine and threw it in her face, before stomping off, tearing off the apron and hurling it in the thrash.
I would probably regret that decision in exactly five minutes, but I knew if I had to bear one more second of it, someone was going to meet the end of my fist.
I barely made it two steps outside the cold night before I heard Cole's fast steps behind me. "What did they want with you?"
I knew he was speaking about the Lycans. I just wasn't obligated to respond. I was having the worst two weeks of my whole life and I was physically and mentally checked out.
My shoes sank into the snow as I traipsed blindly across the street, my tears turning to ice on my cheeks.
"Maisie," Cole called out and I ignored him. "Maisie, wait–"
"Leave me alone!" I cried. "Stop following me. Stop talking to me. Stop acting like you have any right to my time. We are nothing to each other. You've done enough–"
I was suddenly tackled against a wall in the alley I took every night home. Cole's minty breath tickled my nostrils and his hand was in my hair, the other braced against the alley wall. "Is that why they picked you? Because you've been fucking them?"
I thrashed against him. "Let me go!"
His chest pressed tight against mine. "That's not what your body tells me, Maisie." He leaned in and I flinched back into the wall, fighting hard against the thrall, the pull.
Not again, I thought, as he abandoned his quest to press his lips against mine and went straight for my neck instead.
It was worse than I could've imagined. My wolf purred like a slut and my body went pliant, my chest heaving terribly as his hands raked up my ribcage. His tongue flicked expertly over my pulse and I shuddered, panting like I'd run longer than a mile in seconds.
My body tightened and I dug my nails into the wall, breaking it as I fought the urge to draw him closer and pull him into me.
He smelled so good, it messed with all of my senses. He smelled like mine.
A small moan escaped me as he made love to my neck tenderly, until my knees wobbled and
I couldn't keep my weight up. Until the spot between my legs began to quiver. Until my chest tightened with need and I was inexplicably hot.
"Do you feel that?" he said, arm banding around my waist to press me closer into him. He grinded against me and something thick pushed into my thigh. "This is what we'll always have, Maisie. I will always make you feel this way. Hate me. Push me away." His canines nicked my skin and I swallowed another moan. "Run from it all you want. But all I need to undo you is one touch."
I trembled with fear. Fear of what he could do to me. Fear at the absolute lack of control I had over my own body. "And Lana? Does she know her fiancé is shamelessly panting after a woman who doesn't want him?"
I felt him smile against my neck. "She'll be fine. She knows she'll be Luna. Alphas are known to have pieces on the side from time to time."
I suddenly felt faint. "Side pieces?"
Cole's hands traced down my waist possessively. "Lana and I will be mated in a few weeks, but I have decided to keep you, Maisie. An Alpha does need his true mate to be powerful. You," he murmured and kissed under my ear. "Will be my mistress. When the wedding is done, I will have you moved to the countryside. You will have everything you could ever ask for–"
But I'd stopped hearing him at 'mistress'.
I thought about my life. My dreams. Everything I had worked so hard for. Reduced to nothing but some worthless 'side piece'.
I'd been insulted in so many different ways in this past week, but this took the cake. So terribly, I felt a surge of anger from my wolf at the audacity of Cole Hayes.
A violent shudder racked my body. My stomach clenched so hard I nearly retched as I said the words, "I would rather die than be your mistress."
Cole went rigid. The shift in his demeanor was startling. One second he was nuzzling my neck, the next, he was snarling down at me. "You are a nobody." He snapped his fingers. "This quickly, I could have you banished from the pack and name you a rogue. No other packs would take you in, short of leaving the city, which you have no means of affording."
His nails dug into my shoulder, tearing into my skin. "You should be grateful I considered you worth the offer even if you're practically so useless, the chances of bearing pups who aren't as wolfless and weak as you are, is incredibly low. Yet, you act like you're more than that. Like you deserve more."
He grabbed my chin, forcing my gaze to his. "But that's where you're wrong. You don't even get to decide what you deserve. I am your Alpha, and what I want, I always get."
Cole pressed a cold kiss to my cheek. "Think about my offer, Maisie. No one else would care beyond using you as a quick fuck to even keep you around."
He disappeared around the corner, but when I glanced up, I saw Lana standing in the shadows, fists clenched, hatred and hurt mingled in her blue eyes. She'd seen everything.
And I knew it was only a matter of time before she punished me for it.
It didn't take very long before she did.