The crisp mountain air was a knife against Damien Voss's skin; it felt good to cleanse him of that sour odor of recycled ambition and stale perfume which had clung to his life in the city. Here, in the vast and wild Carpathian Mountains, he was not the CEO of Voss Enterprises, a ruthless corporate titan whose name was a whisper of fear and envy on Wall Street. He was just a man, a hunter, a predator in his own right, tracking prey for the simple pleasure of the chase, not out of need for food. Control was Damien's religion; the wilds were his cathedral. He had ruled boardrooms with an icy glare, brought rivals to their knees with a single phone call, and with the assuredness of someone who has never known failure, walked through the world. And yet, behind that bespoke suit and the attentively polished charm, something gnawed at him: an emptiness that could never be filled by an acquisition, a victory. This trip, this hunt, was a desperate attempt to muffle it. Under the rifle's weight, cold from the bounce of the dusk breeze and dressed to the nines, Damien set in for the evening. The sun bled out behind the jagged peaks, splattering the sky with angry orange and purple. Ill-omened rays strewn through the aged trunks of towering pines: the light of a blood moon. The local guides had expressed concerns, muttering old tales and superstitions. Damien had dismissed these with a condescending smile. He had faith in balance sheets and market trends; he did not entertain the world of folklore. Eyes sharp and focused with discipline honed through countless seasons, he followed the tracks of a gigantic stag for which he had yearned. As the moon climbed, an orb of blood-red hue, a wound congealing in the somber orb of the sky, change began to grip the forest. The familiar vibrations of the night—the cracklings of little creatures, the hoot of an owl—suddenly ceased, replaced by a silence so deep it startled him. An unnatural hush immersed the land, heavy with expectancy. An uneasy prick, most foreign to Damien and thus peculiar, passed up his spine; he was being eyed. Absolute doubt was felt: predator instinct previously unknown to him. He scanned the deep fabric of trees where silence had emanated... Nothing. He shook his head in disgust with his blunder. It had been the strange lights, the solitude that had conspired against him. And then it came. Two gleaming eyes, filled with malice, a sort of amber from the deepest shadows, glared back at him. Too large, too high for anything a reasonable wolf should be. A low growl, one seemingly vibrating through his very bones, rolled across the clearing. A nightmare in corporeal form stepped forth from darkness; a wolf, but terrifically oversized, with charred midnight skin and muscle toning and shifting beneath its hide like coiled steel cables. Its lips were silently snarled over dagger-like teeth. But it was those eyes that seized him engulfingly with an ancient, menacing wisdom.

Fear made no sense to Damien, yet what he felt then was raw terror, contemporary enough to shatter down the pillars of iron-will he had built for himself. He raised his rifle, aligning the crosshairs on the space between the creature's glaring eyes. He was Damien Voss. He neither turned nor flinched; he conquered. He let the shot crack, which scintillated in the once-in-a-lifetime continuation of silence; the beast so much as breathed. Then it exploded forward with a speed beyond reason--dark fury was the only description worthy of its color. The metallic taste of his own blood barely registered before the world became a relinquishing torrent of agony. The rifle was wrenched from his grip, sent flying into the undergrowth. Claws like razors were rending his jacket and flesh, and the teeth, hot and sharp, buried themselves deep into his shoulder. A scream was wrenched from his throat, a rough, animal-like sound he could not recognize as his. He was being lifted, shaken like a doll, the sheer power of the creature overwhelming him. Damien fought back, as a cornered animal would, and struck thick, coarse fur with little effect. Above, the world began to spin: a blood moon throbbing in time with the fire burning in his shoulder. There was something strange in the heat emanating from the wound: not just the searing heat of muscle and sinew tearing but something else, something alive yet so insatiably foreign. This was the transmission; an injection of untamed, savage power poisonous above all else. This was a curse; a very ancient legacy sealed in his blood under the morbid sanguine beam of the moon. The wolf's amber eyes were the last thing he saw before his fading consciousness; within that gaze, there appeared to be judgment, not just savagery. When he awakened, dawn kissed him tenderly, and the pine needles were his bed. Disbelief was the first clear thought. The second was, unmistakably, I am alive. He sat up, groaning, expecting his body to be a twisted, warped ruin. But looking at his shoulder, where the wolf had clamped down, nothing. No wound, no shredded flesh, not even a scar. All that remained was a slight, dull, tingling heat beneath the surface of his skin and a shredded hunting jacket he'd bought at a ridiculous price. Suddenly, he was up, confusion warring in his mind. Had he dreamt it? Some stress-induced nightmare? Surely, the memory was too vivid, and the phantom pain too real. Another change came to his attention. Somehow, the world appeared clear and sharp and vibrant. The green moss on a rock nearby radiated in emerald brightness; the smell of wet earth and pine filled his lungs with an intensity he had never experienced. He could hear the fretful heartbeat of a rabbit hiding in a bush fifty yards away. He felt... powerful. A flood of raw and untarnished energy pulsated through his veins, humming in his muscles. The rifle was found, its barrel a bit bent, and he slowly made his way toward the rendezvous point, bewildered yet invigorated with a strange rush. Back in the sterile luxury of his Manhattan penthouse, the city was an assault. The shrill sirens, mingling scents of exhaust fumes, street food, and a million human bodies all assaulted his senses, leaving him dizzy and irritable. His reflection in the floor-to-ceiling windows looked the same-impeccably dressed, sculpted cheekbones, and cold blue eyes-but it felt like the worst of lies. Something feral now lurked beneath the surface. There was an insatiable appetite: rare steaks cooked almost blue, an addiction to vintage scotch, an all-consuming hunger for women that reduced his usual partners to a state of ecstasy and terror. The beast was assimilating, twisting and darkening his outward personality. His sanctuary of complete control had turned into a cage. An underling laid a worthless financial projection at his feet, and for once, instead of the usual surgical dismissal, Damien could feel a growl building deep in his chest. His vision was swimming now, tinted red along the edges. He grasped the polished mahogany of the table so tightly his knuckles turned white, the wood creaking under the strain. He could see the flicker of fear in the man's eyes, and that fed a primal desire in him. Control over the situation was slipping away, the one possession he valued most. Then came the dreams. Night after night, he ran on four legs through a moonlit forest, the red-hot ecstasy of the hunt flowing through his veins. He would dream of the bloody moon, the taste of blood, and a woman. He never did see her face clearly, yet he knew her. He knew her skin sizzled with the scent of lilac and rain and something that was sardonically her own, an invitation to the very core of his newly savage soul. It was the scent of promise for calm and bedlam in equal measure. The scent his inner beast recognized bluntly as Mate.

As she sat back in the office chair, Selena pushed the stray brown hair from her glance as a triumphant smirk played across her lips. Her editor, a grizzled veteran named Morris, dropped a thick file onto her cluttered desk. It landed with a thud that spoke of significance. "Pack it in, Cross. You're done with city hall chumps," he grunted, his voice a gravelly rasp. "I'm giving you the big leagues." He tapped a glossy photo clipped to the front of the file. It was a picture of Damien Voss, taken at some charity gala. He was devastatingly handsome, his smile a calculated masterpiece of charm, his eyes a piercing, arctic blue that seemed to hold a universe of secrets. "Damien Voss," Selena said, her voice laced with disdain. "The Prince of Corporate Piracy. What's the angle? Hostile takeovers? Union busting? Insider trading?" She had followed his meteoric rise. Voss Enterprises was an empire built on the bones of its competitors. He was brilliant, untouchable, and by all accounts, utterly ruthless. "All of the above, and then some," Morris confirmed. "He just acquired Sterling Industries, ran it into the ground, and sold it off for parts, leaving five thousand people jobless right before the holidays. He’s a shark, and he’s bleeding the city dry behind a smokescreen of philanthropy. But no one can get close to him. He’s built a fortress of lawyers and PR reps. I want you to find a crack in the armor. Get inside. Find the dirt. I want a story that will strip the golden-boy veneer off Damien Voss for good."

Selena's fierce determination lit in her eyes. This was the kind of story she lived for. A real dragon to slay. For the next week, the only thing she could think about was Damien Voss. Her apartment walls plastered with articles, financial statements, and a convoluted web of connections that all led back to him. Hearing disgruntled former employees spinning tales of a boss with an inhuman ability to concentrate and a temper that could freeze hell, she was quick to get business rivals talking, who spoke of him with a mixture of hatred and awe, called him a predator who could smell weakness from a mile away. Tens of thousand-of-counter-narratives of his public generosity, his calculated charm rebutted every of his ruthless doings. He was ghost, phantom of polished surfaces and dark rumors. As Morris had warned, getting an interview was trying to breach Fort Knox. His executive assistant, a woman with a voice colder than a winter morning, stonewalled her at every turn. Damien Voss did not grant interviews to journalists known for their...adversarial approach. So, Selena changed tactics.

What she best does, digging, is what she did. It was a vice president at a charitable foundation that Voss heavily sponsored. To use a little collateral she had about the foundation's misallocated funds-slightly embarrassing but nothing illegal-and blackmail her into a ten-minute meeting, with that appointment made. Top floor, Voss Tower. She felt both exhilarating victory and tinging apprehension; she was about to walk into the lion's den. Landslide of silence, the stomach-churning ascent to the penthouse floor. As the doors opened, she found herself in an office that was not so much a working space as a power accolade. It was massive and sparse, punctuated by glass boasting of a god-eye view of Manhattan. An altar of a room with a broad view onto the Great Office Desk of Dark Lustrous Wood-an altar, indeed. And behind it, Damien Voss. The photos hadn't done him justice; in person, he seemed to come alive and dominate the atmosphere with a presence so potent that one felt almost a suction effect from all the air in the room. He stood higher than his expectation, shoulders broad beneath a perfectly fitted grey suit, a suit that exquisitely clung to his liquid-gold-like elegance. With an electric current akin to pure, unmitigated lightning shot right into her, she felt a jolt from the moment his cold navy eyes zeroed in on her, like an arctic chill. "Ms. Cross," he said, his voice low, smooth, and terrifically baritonic; far more compelling than she could ever have imagined. "What do I owe the pleasure of this... ambush?" He motioned for her to sit, an almost-smile flirting on his lips, but never reached his eyes. Those eyes seemingly trapped her, scrutinizing her with a ferocity that made her feel exposed. She steeled herself, gripping her notepad like a shield. "Mr. Voss. Thank you for seeing me. I want to talk about Sterling Industries." He walked around the desk, approaching less to sit than to lean against it, closing off some of the space separating them. Tension mounted in the air. Close enough for her to smell him, any questions she had ever prepared vanished from her skull. An intoxication with the smell of expensive cologne, sandalwood, and something else... something wild and primal, like the scent of thunderstorm-washed earth. Clean, masculine, and disturbingly so with a very ancient part of her brain that now found it achingly familiar.

"Sterling was a failing company, Ms. Cross. A necessary casualty of market evolution," he said, and his voice sunk lower, almost intimately so. He leaned in a little, his gaze flickering down to rest on the pulse fluttering at the base of her throat. "But I don't think that's what you're really here for. You're a hunter, just like me. You're looking for a weakness. A flaw in the armor." Her heart was hammering against her ribs. He was disarming her, counteracting her ambition. Heat crept onto her skin, a strange mix of anger and unwelcome desire. This is what he could do. He didn't command only boardrooms; he commanded the very space around him. She held his gaze in full confidence and refused to look away. "The five thousand people you put out of work might disagree with your definition of 'evolution'." Something old and dark flickered in his eyes. For a tiny fraction of a second, she could swear they had flickered with a glowing golden hue, startling in its brilliance. Pushing himself from her desk, he began to pace, restless and caged. "The world is a brutal place, Ms. Cross. Only the strong survive. You, of all people, should understand that." He stopped directly in front of her chair, looking down at her. The raw power rolling off him was suffocating. The beast inside him was drawn to her, to the defiant fire in her eyes, to the scent that was driving him to the brink of his sanity. It was her. The woman from his dreams. He had to fight every instinct screaming at him to pull her from the chair, to press his face into her neck, to claim her. Selena felt trapped, mesmerized by the conflict she saw warring in his expression. This wasn't just a ruthless CEO; this was a man wrestling with a demon. The realization was terrifying but infinitely more compelling than anything she had ever experienced. The professional curiosity she'd started with was rapidly morphing into a dangerous, personal obsession. He reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek. His touch was a brand, a scalding hot iron through the whole of her body. "Be careful," he whispered, a gravelly warning that held equal weight in both threat and plea. "Some secrets are buried for a reason. If you dig too deep, you might not like the monster you unearth."

The moment the sliding doors of the elevator shut behind Selena Cross, sealing her from him, the ironclad mask of control Damien wore shattered into a thousand pieces. A roar of guttural and pure rage filled his throat, something more beast than man. He swept his arm across the vast, polished expanse of his desk and sent one laptop, a crystal decanter of scotch, and several other stacks of financial reports flying through the air. The laptop hit the far wall with a sickening crunch of plastic and metal, while the decanter shattered into a million pieces against the bulletproof glass, pouring amber liquid and glittering shards onto the plush carpet. Nothing could calm the storm that raged on inside him. He stalked the length of his office like a caged panther with fists clenched and white-knuckled. Her scent. It was everywhere. It was on the chair she had sat on, in the air she had breathed, driving him mad, away from sanity itself. Lilac, rain, and that indescribable, unique essence that was all hers. It was the scent of his dreams, the scent that called to the ravenous creature now fused to his soul. The beast within had recognized her instantly and surged against the bars of his consciousness with a brutal, possessive force that had almost buckled his knees. While he had been wrestling with her, analyzing her, a primal part of his being had been screaming a single, incessant litany: Mine. Mate. Claim. Mark. It took every ounce of his formidable will not to haul her out of that chair, sink his teeth into the soft, white skin of her neck, where her pulse beat a frenzied, delicious rhythm, and mark her as his for eternity.

He pressed his forehead against the ice-cold glass of the window, fogging it with his breath as he gazed at the twenty-six floors below, with the city sprawled on anything but. I am Damien Voss. Empires are built by my sheer will. Men are broken by a word from my mouth. I have no place in fate, destiny, or the romantic rubbish sold in cheap novels. But knowing that this woman, this stubborn, infuriatingly beautiful journalist, and he were bonded for all time, shook the steel framework underfoot. It was bypassing logic and embedding deep in his bones, right down to the tainted marrow by the wolf's curse. His warning to her had not quite been a threat; it had come out of a desperate, selfish want. He had wanted her to flee, abandon her story, and get as far away from him as possible before he did something that would compromise them both. Just the thought of her doing that, of never getting to see her again, whipped fresh fury from the very depths of his primal soul. She was a paradox: a threat to his cherished world and yet the only thing his beast seemed to want more than blood. The days following their meeting turned out to be a special kind of hell. The rising full moon was a count-down clock; minute by minute, decreased would be the chance to wrench himself from its terrible grasp. His senses, already unnatural, were becoming painfully acute. The city was a sensory torture chamber. He could hear whispers in the boardroom from the other end of the long table, smell the fear sweat of an executive who was trying to bury a mistake, and feel the subway vibrating deep below the tower. Sleep was an act of little mercy. The dreams crowded in more vividly, more gruesomely. It was no longer just a dream of running through the woods; now he was hunting, the thrill of the chase blossoming into the hot metallic taste of blood. He would wake tangled in his thousand-thread-count sheets, his body slick with clammy sweat, muscles stinging from exertions he had not performed in his sleeping state. More than once, he had caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror and saw his own eyes glowing with that feral amber light, a gleaming reminder of the monster staring back from his own face. The obsession with Selena morphed into a ravenous emotionally consuming need. He did what he always did when presented with an obstacle: threw all his weight-and resources-at it. He had his head of security, a former Mossad agent by the name of Elias, compile a full dossier on her. He told himself it was strategic, that he needed to get to know the journalist who was carving away at him. It was a fib. The information became a feast, consumed not like a CEO assessing a threat but like a predator eyeing his quarry, or a lover studying his obsession. He read everything she had published, awed at the ferocious intelligence and uncompromising ethics embedded in her words. He discovered that she was an orphan brought up in the foster care system, which accounted for her relentless drive and ingrained distrust of powerful, privileged men like him. Pictures flooded in of her laughing with friends in a bad downtown bar, that genuine smile breaking forth without any restraint, making his chest ache with a feeling he could hardly articulate. He found out where she lived, grabbed her morning coffee, and what route she would take to work. It was a dangerous comfort, a way to possess a part of her without her even knowing. He was every one of those things: the shadow, the ghost, the phantom, stalking her life from the edges.

On the eve of the full moon, the beast felt like a diamond-clawed creature scratching at the inside of his skin, trying desperately to come out. Sharp shooting pains coursed through him during a conference call, the terrifying sensation of his bones beginning to shift. He bit back a cry, terminating the call abruptly, literally hanging on to the edge of the desk until bruises formed began to form against his fingers. He had to get out of the city. He had a secure, secluded estate upstate, a place where he could lock himself away and weather the transformation without jeopardizing anybody. Logically, it was the responsible and right thing to do. The driver was waiting downstairs. The bag was packed. But still, he could not force his feet toward the elevator. The beast wanted nothing of isolation; it wanted her. It howled for its mate, a need stronger than his will to survive. Down below, he saw traffic flow like rivers of light through concrete canyons of the city. And then he saw her-a dim figure on the sidewalk far below, hair black against the lamplight, walking home from work. Impossible. A million-to-one. But still, there she was. The moment he laid eyes on her, his entire being shook. All rational plans, any carefully-constructed walls of defense, crumbled into dust. He couldn't leave. Not now. Not when she was so close. The need to see her, to be near her, was a physical ache, a gaping wound that could only be soothed by her presence. He could no longer run from her; he was fighting a losing battle. In his resignation, he turned away from the window, toward the elevator. His heart thumped in a rapid, predatory beat as he pressed the button, the beast inside him purring. The driver was waiting in front of the sleek black sedan. "Change of plans," Damien said, a low, dangerous growl. He slid into the backseat, the cool fine leather against his feverish skin. He gave the driver her address, one he now knew as well as his own. "I need to get there. Now."