1. Danny

Chapter 1

Danny

FIVE YEARS LATER

T ime passes differently when you're immortal. Whole decades go by without a single moment standing out. Years where you seem to do nothing more interesting than go to work, hook up, go to sleep, only to do it all again the following day.

This decade wasn't one of those.

For the first time in over a hundred and fifty years, my pack were breathing down my neck. I had thought I'd walked away for good, cut the bonds that were meant to tie me to them in the most permanent of ways.

I'd thought wrong.

Years had passed since the day they'd snatched Matty, mistakenly believing him to be my mate. At first I'd thought maybe they wanted to use him to force me to return to my pack and take up my role as the alpha. But when I'd learned exactly which member of my former pack was responsible, I'd known that there was a more sinister plot at play.

There were only two ways for a new alpha to take control of a pack. Either one was born, taking over on the death of the former—which was how I'd become the leader—or the alpha in charge was killed, his powers passing to the one strong enough to take his immortality.

I'd been born an alpha, but that didn't mean I wanted to be one. I hadn't let that deter me though, striving to be the best leader I possibly could. It went well for about two hundred years, but then the edges began to fray. I should've seen it coming. Should've listened to the warnings my betas tried to give me. But I hadn't. I hadn't believed that members of my pack could be capable of such betrayal.

When my folly had been laid out for all to see, I didn't have another choice. It was either leave or kill them all.

I couldn't be part of a pack who'd stood by while my wife and child were slaughtered. Who'd invited our enemy onto our lands in the hope they could oust me from power. From a seat I'd never fucking wanted in the first place.

No. There was no way I could lead them when all I wanted to do was put them down. Those I could prove had betrayed me had paid with their immortality. It was the others I struggled with. The ones I suspected had been involved but whose guilt I couldn't prove. It didn't stop me from wanting to execute them regardless.

I would've done it too, but they'd been Sarah's friends. Her family. Even with her dead and gone and Maria with her, I couldn't sully her memory in that way.

Some were innocent, that much was true. That, and the knowledge that Sarah would never forgive me, stayed my hand with the rest. Instead, I went to the remaining council of elders and negotiated to leave. They agreed on one condition.

I'd return once I had a mate.

That was an easy one to avoid. After losing Sarah and Maria, I had no interest in going down that road again. Sarah hadn't even been my mate, since tradition had forced us to wait until the next blue moon before sealing the bond. I'd wanted to just say ‘fuck it' and mate her on our wedding night, but it had been important to Sarah to wait. Being head over heels in love with her, I'd agreed. I would've agreed to anything in exchange for her heart.

I didn't regret anything about our time together except that. Perhaps if I'd pushed harder, tried harder, I could've persuaded her. Then I would've died with her and Maria, instead of being left behind.

But I hadn't. I'd remained here, alone.

That wasn't to say I was lonely. Nor was I unhappy. Don't get me wrong, I'd been a broken shell of a man for a century after everything that happened. I hadn't just been grieving the loss of my wife and child, but of my pack as well. I'd walked away from the only life I'd ever known, the thing I'd been raised to do.

Time marched on though. Whether we liked it or not, the years passed. It took over a hundred of them for me to start living again.

I wasn't the same man I had been before. I wasn't quiet. Focused. Responsible. I couldn't be him. I didn't want to be him.

So, I became someone new. Someone who never took life for granted. Who lived as if there wasn't a tomorrow, knowing how true that could be.

Even so, it wasn't until I met Leo that I felt anything resembling happiness. Craving the adrenaline rush I used to get from shifting and running with my pack, I took a job as a firefighter. One day, Leo walked in. A scrappy kid straight out of college, he quickly shaped up to be one of the toughest and most dedicated guys on the crew.

And my best friend.

It had been a long time since I'd had anyone to call a friend, but Leo had slipped into that role so easily, it was like he'd always been there. I hadn't thought much of it at the time, figuring there was nothing more to it than an easy friendship. I even became close to his family, particularly his younger brother, Matty.

It was only when the Grim Reaper appeared on the scene, claiming Leo was his reincarnated mate, that I began to suspect there was something deeper at play. That feeling was cemented when Matty was also mated to a supe, this time a vampire.

What were the chances that the first two people I'd been drawn to in centuries would find themselves in the supernatural world?

Pretty damned slim.

I'd be a fool to not believe in fate. After all, demons and angels had fated mates. Someone had to be pulling the strings. It was when it was applied to my life that I struggled. Was Sarah always meant to die? Was Maria never meant to live long enough to take her first steps?

I couldn't stomach the idea that that could be true. If I ever met this fate person, I'd have a few choice words to say. Maybe some claws to dig into some necks.

Anyway, I digress.

My friendship group had expanded over the past few years, whether I'd intended it to or not. You couldn't really be in this crowd without them inserting themselves into every aspect of your life.

One in particular had taken hold in a way I hadn't expected—not a supe, but a human.

I had to be honest…I didn't hate it. Especially with both Leo and Matty wrapped up in their mates, it was nice to have others to call on. After finding their friendship, the idea of having to return to the loneliness I once knew was intolerable.

While I could call on any number of our ever-growing group to hang out, I rarely did. I'd flick through my contacts before always settling on the same one. The bloke who'd quickly defeated everyone else to claim his place as the most important person in my life.

Riley.

After our night together five years ago, I'd been worried he'd want a repeat. To be completely honest, I wanted a repeat. The level of heat I'd shared with him, the sheer chemistry… I hadn't experienced anything like it before. Which was why I'd known it couldn't happen again. That sort of sex was what I considered ‘once in a lifetime,' meaning that if I did it more than once in a lifetime, I'd be hooked. Given my past and my agreement to return to my pack once I'd taken a mate, going there again wasn't an option for me.

Fortunately, Riley had been of the same mind. Even that night, he'd been full of assurances that he was a one and done kinda guy, but I'd heard that many times before. Every time, they would wake up the following day singing a different tune, one I wasn't keen on hearing.

Not Riley though. Nope, he'd thanked me for a cracking time before getting dressed. He'd even blown me a kiss over his shoulder as he left, a swagger in his step that had had me wanting to throw all my previous convictions out the window just to have him once more.

I'd managed to keep it in my trousers though, and, fuck, was I glad I had. The last thing I'd been expecting following our night together was the friendship we'd formed.

A friendship that had come to mean everything to me.

That wasn't to say we didn't clash from time to time. The main cause of our strife was Riley's job, in which he was overworked and massively underpaid. While he enjoyed his work as an accounts manager for an online news website, he barely made enough to make ends meet. Over the years, each of us had learned the hard way that Riley wouldn't accept help.

He didn't get that all of us supes had more money stashed away than we could spend even in an immortal lifetime. Cash just didn't hold the same value for us as it did for humans. Even if we didn't have it, we'd be able to use compulsion to get whatever we needed.

Not exactly an ethical approach, but when you lived as long as we did, those kinds of boundaries became blurred.

Riley didn't see it the same way though—he saw it as charity.

" What am I? Some poor kid you all feel sorry for? Absolutely fucking not . I got this far in life without accepting handouts and I'm not about to start now. "

Everyone had tried to get him to see it wasn't a handout, but there was no reasoning with Riley.

I was sneakier than the others though. The trick was to never outright offer anything to Riley, or even ask him if he was struggling. You had to be smart about it. You had to spot the signs and take action before he even realised what was happening.

Over the past five years, I'd become something of a Riley expert. It was why I'd made myself at home on his sofa, watching the minute hand on the clock tick closer to six p.m.

Well, it was one of the reasons. The other was that I was bored.

So. Fucking. Bored.

And when I was this bored, there was only one person I could guarantee would be able to put up with me.

To his credit, Riley didn't do more than give an exaggerated sigh when he opened the door to find me sprawled over his sofa. I'd made myself at home, with one of Matty's crocheted blankets on my lap and Pacific Rim on the TV. It was a terrible action film with more CGI than plot, which was the exact genre both Riley and I preferred.

"You do know you have your own place, right?" he said by way of greeting while kicking off his shoes.

"I'm aware."

"And you remember that I gave you that key for emergencies only?"

"It was an emergency," I said innocently, holding up my bowl. "You had red velvet cake and I'd eaten all of mine."

"So you decided you'd eat mine too?"

Licking my fork, I winked at Riley. "Really, I'm doing you a favour."

Riley raised an eyebrow as he hung up his coat. "Okay. I'll bite. How d'you work that out?"

"Well, you're not immortal like me, so you can't afford to eat this much sugar. It's just asking for diabetes."

Riley's nostrils flared. "Are you implying that I can't look after myself?"

Shit. Backtrack. Fast. There I was feeling all sneaky and smug about helping him, and I'd still managed to land myself in it. He might not have had any powers or supe strength, but Riley was not a man you wanted to cross. "Of course not! I'm just trying to look out for you."

"Because I'm not capable of making sensible, healthy decisions?"

Was I sweating? I definitely felt like I was sweating. "No, I didn't mean that at all. I was just making a joke."

"Oh, now my mortality is a joke to you. Do you like to rub it in my face that I'm going to die someday while you live forever? Who the fuck does that?"

I buried my face in my hand. "Oh my god. Is this over yet?"

Riley's chuckle had me snapping my head up to glare at him.

"You're so easy to fuck with."

"Mean."

"Well, you ate my cake." He sauntered over and dropped onto the sofa beside me. "And now you need to persuade Matty to bake me another one."

Matty might've been Leo's younger brother, but I doted on him like he was my own. It was impossible to be around Matty and not adore him. He was like sunshine personified. "Easy. Matty can't say no to me."

Riley smiled sweetly. "But Sebastian can. Good luck working around that obstacle. He's already pissed off at you for the barbecue last weekend."

Sebastian was Matty's very grumpy and very stabby vampire mate and husband. We were sometimes friends. Well, basically I treated him like a friend, and he tolerated me for Matty's sake. "It was one sausage! I didn't know he'd cooked it especially for Matty. He got blood all over my favourite shirt."

Riley hummed. "It was a cute shirt. Funny how a few years ago I wouldn't have thought of stabbing as an effective way to end an argument, but I have to admit, it has its merits."

I pointed at him. "Don't even think about stabbing me."

He smirked. "Why would I when I can just ask Sebastian to do it for me?"

That was true. Even years after the incident, Sebastian still insisted that I owed him a new car. Like it had been my fault that Sebastian had stabbed me repeatedly, causing my blood to go everywhere. I may have had something of a quasi-friendship with the grumpy fucker, but he used literally any excuse to make me bleed a bit. It was especially rude when you considered he didn't even drink my blood. Apparently he didn't like the taste.

Like I said—rude.

Riley's eyes landed on the bag in the corner and immediately narrowed. "No."

"Please?"

" No. "

I wriggled so I was facing him, letting my lip jut out as much as I could. "But you love me."

"No, I tolerate you."

I pouted even more dramatically. "Must we do this every time? We both know you're going to cave eventually."

Riley pinched the bridge of his nose before sighing. "You know, I hate how fucking true that is. Okay, what's the plan?"

Beaming, I chucked him on the shoulder. "Double date over at Kuti's. They've introduced a dress code, so I've bought you an outfit."

Riley glared at me. "Weird how every place you drag me out to has recently introduced something or another that requires you to buy me an outfit. I am capable of buying myself clothes, you know."

Which you do once in a blue moon. Riley loved fashion, but he couldn't afford to keep up with trends. In fact, he could barely afford to replace items of his clothing with holes in. Not the fashionable type, the kind where he'd worn them so many times they'd become threadbare.

When that happened, I'd find an excuse such as this one. See? Smart. That's how you had to approach these things.

"Also, it's low-key hilarious that you can't hook up without me there."

"Yes, but that's because they say it's just one night, and then they always want more. "

"I didn't." Riley smirked and I pretended not to feel my gut twist. It wasn't that I wanted to pursue anything with Riley, or even hook up with him again, but the constant reminders that that night hadn't been earth-shattering in the same way it had for me?

Yeah. I could have lived without that.

"You know, if you don't want them to assume you're after more, you should probably skip the whole ‘wining and dining' schtick. Why not just hook up in a club?"

Because then I don't have an excuse to buy you clothes you desperately need and take you out to a restaurant you otherwise couldn't afford. And I wouldn't have an excuse to make sure you're safe with the dudes you're hooking up with.

"I can't go to The Closet without one of the others interfering, and at all the other places I seem to run into people I've already hooked up with."

"I'm surprised you can walk down the street without that happening."

"You better not be slut-shaming me. You're just as bad."

Riley winked. "Or should that be ‘just as good?' Because I think we both know the answer to that."

Yeah, I did fucking know. And some days, I wished I didn't. If Riley and I hadn't gone there, I'd never have known what I was missing out on.

The saying was right—ignorance was bliss.