Chapter 1

Seren

Seren should have been out celebrating her birthday, but instead she was pulling up to an impressive auto repair shop in Casper's industrial area.

Three years ago, when she'd told her parents over a not-so-great family dinner that she was quitting her job, getting a divorce, and starting her own tattoo shop, her mother flat out stated that she'd be sorry one day.

Sorry for the lack of a husband, sorry that she hadn't tried harder to pop out enough children to populate the earth, sorry that she was throwing away a great career as the head of marketing for a prosperous business. One day, and one day soon, she'd bemoan the lack of stability in her life. She'd realize how greatly she'd fucked up everything on a whim. She'd open her eyes and find out that it was indeed a mid-life crisis, but it would be too late.

"Well, Mom, looks like that prediction is finally coming true," Seren muttered as she pulled her bright pink micro sedan into one of the parking spaces outside the large metal building. Brand new yellow lines had been sprayed onto freshly laid black asphalt. The place wasn't a new construction, but it had undergone one hell of a facelift.

Ironically, that was something else her mother promised her was in her near future unless she started taking better care of her skin, going for facials, buying expensive serums, blah-fucking-blah. Her parents liked her pink hair, pierced nose, ear gauges, and all her ink about as much as they liked the rest of her life decisions. Not. At. All.

Seren had more than enough guilt and shame going around at the moment. One stupid mistake. That's all it took. One freaking ridiculous stupid mistake and the whole thing could come crashing down.

The shittiest part was that the mistake wasn't even theirs. All someone had to do to ruin everything was to make an accusation and run with it.

She stared up at the clean white and red metal siding with no small amount of foreboding. It was after hours. The only other car in the parking lot belonged to a sleek black sedan. It had the distinctly expensive look of belonging to someone who cared about vehicles. The whole thing was de-badged, blacked out, and was rocking twenty-inch chrome rims. Very gangster, but the car didn't belong to some drug lord. At least, as far as she knew, Rome Nightfall didn't engage in that.

He was one of her first real clients. She'd gone about tattooing in a sort of unconventional way. The usual channels in life just weren't for her, it seemed.

She'd drained her savings to buy a hole in the wall little building near Casper's quaint downtown area. She'd renovated it and then she'd hired staff. Four were full-time chair rentals, but Becka got a good discount. It wasn't just because they'd been friends since college, but because she'd agreed to apprentice her. They'd met taking art electives. Becks was insanely talented. She'd ended up dropping out of college after her first year and becoming a tattoo artist. By the time Seren got a divorce, Becka had been tattooing for over a decade and a half. She was the one who made Seren believe they could start their own place and make it work. When Seren was lost, Becka opened that avenue, offering to teach her how to explore the artistic, creative side of herself that she'd never fully got a chance to use chained to a desk.

Seren spent over a year carefully crafting her art, but most clients weren't willing to get in the chair and dedicate much more than a few inches of their skin to someone just starting out. Rome wasn't officially her first client, but he'd turned into her first steady, long term one. He hadn't been afraid to walk in, check out her portfolio—which was admittedly mostly sketches and paintings—and ask for her because she had zero wait list while everyone else was at least six months to a year, and demand a sleeve.

That sleeve was his first tattoo.

Rome Nightfall was many things, and most of them she would never understand. Most of them she didn't want to understand. She did know a few things about him. This auto repair shop was one of them. The fact that he was a bit of a cunt was another.

Still. She had no one else to ask.

It was hard to suck up her pride, but she got out of her car, hoisted her bag over her shoulder, and clicked the fob to lock it.

How was one supposed to dress for a meeting that might determine one's whole future? However it was, she'd refused to fit into the predetermined box. She'd gone with the same ripped-up jeans and black velvet tank she'd worn to the shop all day. Same ripped-up, worn out canvas high tops.

The door was unlocked even though the sign in the door was flipped to closed. The token shop bell jingled when she stepped in. The sound grated on her nerves, and she pressed her fingers into her arm, letting her short nails bite into her skin.

"Seren Prescott."

Her soul nearly left her body when Rome Nightfall stood up from behind the desk at the front. It had a high counter, and she hadn't seen him sitting back there when she walked in. That was crazy because he was a hard man to miss.

Jet black hair and even blacker eyes. Impossible size. Rugged features chiseled to the point of breathtaking. He was beautiful, but cold. Unapproachable. Fearsome. She'd never seen him in a suit before and doubted he even owned one, but he carried himself with an unmistakable sense of power. He was well put together, packaged with a gorgeous exterior, but most people with good sense probably gave him a wide berth. It was likely obvious even to regular humans that he was bleeding out from wounds on the inside.

Over the year and a bit that she'd know him, Seren had gathered that Rome had a soul to match his hair and eyes. Black. He was ice, through and through. His impeccable veneer never once crumbled. He'd always looked perpetually bored, but she was a wolf like he was, and from one animal to another, she'd sensed the cruelty lurking beneath that carefully polished surface.

Her willpower crumbled when Rome's lips curled into a chilling smile. On him, it looked exactly like what it was. The gesture of a predator scenting prey. Rome wasn't chunky muscle, thick and bearlike. He was far more elegant. He was still well over six feet and built the way a Roman statue would have been, so his name was apt.

In more ways than one.

This man before her liked to conquer. He liked to fill up a room, a city, a state, the whole world with his presence. It was no surprise that the smile didn't reach his eyes. They were hard and cold, blank, dead onyxes. Rome was the kind of man who, from the beginning of his existence, marched towards the end with frightening forcefulness. He wasn't afraid of pain or death, and that made him a very dangerous kind of person.

Seren scooted quickly out of the way when he stalked towards her. She told herself she wasn't afraid, but she knew that was bullshit. He could probably scent her fear as he twisted the big metal deadbolt on the door and flicked off the light.

"We'll have the meeting in my office." His voice might be sin wrapped up in rich velvet decadence, but there was always something about his tone that wasn't quite right.

He turned and she followed. Rome was the devil she knew. Short of going to a fucking loan shark or worse, he was pretty much her only option.

She followed his black-clad form, work clothes in hardy fabrics.

She inhaled too sharply. A mistake. The whole place smelled like oil, grease, chemicals, metal and tires, but on Rome, the scent wasn't unpleasant.

He took her down a short hallway, past a few closed doors, and made a sharp right into his own office. When he turned on the light, she noticed that his hands weren't clean. His nails had grease caked into the fine lines around his nailbeds. He'd probably scrubbed them clean, but the stains were always there. Working man's hands. She'd noticed at the last several appointments that his hands were calloused and stained. They hadn't always been that way. She'd made the mistake of asking him about it once, and got a non-committal grunt and something about a garage he'd just opened.

There were no chairs in the office. He didn't close the door.

She was already sweaty, which could be excused by the hot August day and the fact that her car had no AC, but now she could feel the beads trickle down from the back of her neck. She shivered anyway.

Rome tilted one dark brow at her as he faced her from a foot away. His desk was as clinical as he was. There was nothing on it except a monitor, keyboard, a mouse, one expensive-looking pen, the kind that twisted open, and a pad of plain lined paper. No chair. Had he removed it? Did he stand there when he needed to work? The desk wasn't anything fancy, it looked like every other standard office desk, and it wasn't the right height for it.

"Ms. Prescott. You called me to ask for this meeting. Why don't you enlighten us both as to what it is you might want." He managed to sound bored and imperious at the same time.

A violent hammering started in Seren's head. Her heartbeat tore at her pulse points and wrenched behind her ribs. She'd thought about how she could ask this man for a loan. While other men might enjoy having their egos stroked with flattery and perhaps even flirting, Rome was the kind who would appreciate a direct approach.

Her mouth was disgustingly dry, and she wished she'd tucked a bottle of water into her bag. There wasn't any on offer here. Rome was probably above basic human conditions like hunger and thirst.

"I need a loan."

"Ahh." He grasped his hands together, locking his fingers and cracking his knuckles. Loudly. Or was that sound the peals of her heart doing a number on her ribs? "A loan. From me. What gives you the impression that I'm the person you should come to for something like this? The bank seems far more suitable."

"The bank isn't going to lend me this kind of money. Even if I had some collateral to put up or assets I could move, it would take too long."

He didn't ask why. His face didn't so much as twitch. He stood there and then his eyes slowly swept over her. When they returned to her face, they were even blacker than ever. It was impossible to distinguish his pupil from the iris. Without so much as trying, he managed to drip danger, but also elegance. There was something unfortunately magnetic about Rome Nightfall.

Unfortunate for every female out there. Rome also gave off incredibly disinterested vibes. She'd never seen him look at anything or anyone with an ounce of warmth. He was indeed a carved stone statue.

"How much?"

"Um, a little over a million."

"Oh." He turned on his heel and gave her his back without going anywhere. It was more unnerving than if he'd gone right up in her face and laughed at her. That one word was sharp enough. Dangerous.

Her whole body broke out in a clammy sweat.

"Aren't you going to ask me why?"

"If that's what you want me to ask."

She wanted to ask him to turn around and damn well face her. Her stomach twisted sickly. This wasn't about pride. She hadn't anticipated this would be easy. She knew Rome wasn't like anyone else. He was too magnificent to be normal. Still. It seemed like he was enjoying himself. Enjoying torturing her. Since his back was to her, she couldn't tell, and it was maddening.

"Because the insurance company I have my policy with for the shop is shit. Because over the last six months we were sued for malpractice and the prick was awarded over a million dollars. He said he contracted hepatitis from our shop, but it's not possible. We're so careful. All of us have liability insurance, but they're refusing to cover it. It's either declare bankruptcy and lose the shop or find a way to pay."

She should have known better than to expect a simple no or a yes. Rome either wanted to make her suffer or he was thinking. The prolonged silence that fell over them was as sharp as a knife.

"You think I have this kind of money because…"

Why the fuck did she think that? It wasn't the clothes and the shoes. Maybe it was the fact that he'd tipped her more than his entire back piece cost on the last session when she'd completed it. She'd tried to look into him at that point, but short of hiring someone, she knew she'd find very little. He was a shifter, and other than the few legal things he had to put his name to, the rest would be carefully hidden. As curious as she was, she wasn't going to throw money away on a PI. She had no idea where to even find one who specialized in shifter and paranormal digging.

He turned back slowly, sucking all the oxygen out of the small office. The walls were so white, the floor a speckled white and gray industrial tile. The place looked like any other garage. She wasn't walking into a multi-billion-dollar construction.

Rome's unreadable expression sucked the life out of her, but it also wrenched the truth from her closed-up throat. "I have no one else to ask. If you don't have the money, do you know someone who would lend it to me?"

"Do I know someone?"

It was irritating in the extreme that he asked her with another tilt to his brow, amused by her discomfort. She knew she was visibly distressed. She was shit at hiding it, and she was still sweating. He could probably hear her thunderous heartbeat.

"I know you're a wolf. I've wounded you. I've drawn your blood. The truth is, I never needed to. I knew what you were from the second you walked in. Just as you knew I was also a wolf. You drive a nice car. You wear nice clothes. You probably have a big house somewhere and you have this shop. You spend an insane amount of money on tattoos, so that tells me you have a large portion of disposable income. Maybe that's all just assumptions. Maybe it was idiotic to come here. You were my last shot. I've already tried everything and everyone else. I'm not going to close up my shop without a fight. I'm not going down like this. It's not my pride. It's the fact that I'm responsible for everyone else working there. It's my business. It's my building. I put this together. This is on me."

"It's not a little bit about your pride?" An errant twitch of his left eye broke something wide open on his face. For a fleeting instant, she thought she saw enjoyment. Not for the current moment, but an immense satisfaction at what was to come. That if it was about her pride, he'd enjoy breaking her.

She was right. He was dangerous. She'd just vastly underestimated how much. He wasn't just a wolf. He was decidedly lacking in humanity. If she hadn't made him bleed multiple times over the years, she would have been in doubt that he even could.

He didn't leave her writhing there. He had something far more vicious planned for her.

"I have the money. I'll lend it to you, but I want something in return."

Obviously. Who wouldn't? His chilling words made her stomach start to churn so violently she thought she'd throw up all over the floor. At least the tiles looked like they'd easily wipe clean and there wasn't really anything in the impersonal office that was in the splash zone.

The way his black eyes fixed on hers made it all too apparent that what he wanted wasn't an insane repayment schedule with absurd interest rates. It wasn't anything that any legal, upstanding, normal, decent, humane institution would ask for.

Rome wasn't the bank. He wasn't a legal system. He wasn't a building. He was a flesh and blood person. Sort of.

Seren might have been better off going to a loan shark. Even the nastiest one might have been a safer option. She'd made a mistake. She thought she could come here, and that Rome would be fair. That there was a semblance of goodness in him that she could appeal to. That from one client to another, one business owner with a dream to another, he'd understand.

She'd come with a plan for repayment. It was reasonable and fair, or she'd thought. It seemed utterly foolish now.

"What-what do you want?" She only stammered on the first bit and churned the rest of the words out. They sounded desperate, as desperate as her ragged breathing, but there was no helping that.

He'd respond. She could always say no. She could always walk out of here. And… what? Admit defeat? Close up the shop? Let everyone down? Listen to her mom saying I told you so for the next forty fucking years, or the end of one of their natural lives?

"You."

Yeah. Right. She'd sort of seen that one coming as the pressure in the office changed, as the air grew frigid, and the last vestiges of humanity sailed on a ship she wasn't even close to catching. She'd walked straight into it that trap. It felt like stepping into the line of fire anyway and taking a bullet. One she might not survive.

When she'd walked through this in her head, she'd seen that as a slight possibility, but she'd immediately discounted it given that Rome gave off that don't fuck with me vibe, but also a strong I don't want to fuck you either aura. In all the times she'd had him in intimate positions, all the hours she'd spent touching his skin, connected even though she wore gloves and hadn't ever truly made real contact, she'd never once scented anything close to desire from him. He'd always been so disinterested, stoic even when she'd spent hours hammering ink into places that she knew hurt like the hounds of hell were ripping at your flesh.

He stared at her, not so icy any longer. A glimmer of smug satisfaction glistened in his dark eyes. He knew he'd already won. Jesus, even if she surrendered and took his money, it wasn't a competition. She'd come with a legit plan on how to make good on the loan. This wasn't going to turn into some smutty sexcapade. She didn't see herself above anyone else or fault anyone for their line of work, but she certainly wasn't going that direction.

"Uh, no." She twisted a strand of her pink hair, doing her best to appear bored. "I'm off the table." She reached into her bag and pulled out a thick stack of pages. She held them out, but when Rome didn't take them, she threw them down onto his desk. "I have the repayment schedule and terms in there. Possible interest rates, that kind of thing. If you turn to the very back, I have an alternate proposal where I would be willing to give up twenty percent ownership of the shop to you in exchange for two hundred and fifty thousand, with the rest to be paid back on a schedule we have yet to decide."

She'd never once seen Rome smile like a regular person. When a faint, ghostly glimmer made his lips twitch, adrenaline burst through her. He hadn't moved, but he was ten times the predator he'd been a few seconds ago. Wolves ran hot, and the thought of him cornering her in the room, tearing her clothes off, and bending her over that clinically neat desk to fuck her, raw and angry, made her blood boil.

Which told her that she'd been far too long in neglecting herself. She didn't want a man, and she didn't need one to get herself off once in a while. Clearly, she needed to. The lack of orgasms was affecting her brain.

"No," she repeated, but her voice was husky. That twisted smile increased a notch. He was enjoying this. He liked toying with her.

"If you'd like my money, Ms. Prescott, you'll accept my terms. Seventy percent ownership in your shop and for the next six months you belong to me."

Her wolf nearly tore out of her skin and leapt at the bastard. No one owned a wolf. No one. Ownership was for domesticated animals, and she was no fucking doodle dog.

"I belong to no one," she hissed, stabbing a finger in his direction. "Least of all you." She snatched the pages off his desk. "Forget it. I don't even know why I came here." She stalked to the door, but couldn't resist turning around and giving him one last parting shot. It was more an effort to scrape together a shred of dignity than anything else. "Get yourself in line, wolf. You're disgusting."

He was on her in a second. He'd pulled a wrench from somewhere. She couldn't even gasp as he caged her in, trapping her to the right of the door, advancing on her until her back hit the wall. In a few calculated steps, she'd lost any advantage she might have had. He licked his lips, staring directly at her throat like he'd enjoying tearing it out with his teeth.

There was something distinctly and very fucking out of control

about her own body when a shiver ran down her spine and her breath wheezed out. It wasn't a shiver of fear, and her breath hadn't gone wrong because she hated him or the thought of the violence he might do to her. She didn't believe he'd ever truly harm her, and maybe that was the worst of her judgement.

Methodically, carefully, meticulously, he ran the wrench down her forehead, over the slant of her nose, past her lips and to her chin, the metal cold against her burning skin. It was weird. Creepy. No part of him touched her, but with his hands locked on the wall and his body so close, she could feel his heat.

"Six months," he growled. His lips peeled back to reveal sharp white teeth. His eye teeth were slightly crooked and one of the bottom ones crossed over at a slant near the top. Two flaws, two arguments for humanity. "Six months and you will come here every Monday night and perform for me. I will never, ever touch you. I have no interest in that. And you will not touch me." He shivered violently, like the thought of her repulsed him, which was in direct contradiction with his words. "Your shop is closed Sundays and Mondays, so every Sunday, you will spend the day with my daughter. She is also a wolf. I have no idea how to teach her the things she should know as a female. She hasn't shifted yet, ever, that I know of."

Seren gaped at her captor. He was no longer the tormentor. He was giving up the huge advantage that he had over her. He was at the top, but he'd lowered himself. He might as well be prostrate on the floor.

"You're a dad?" That word felt wrong. Dad . Holy fuck. She never would have thought. The word was ice water on fucked-up flames. She didn't touch him because her sense of self-preservation was too strong. Instead of pushing him away, she ducked under his arm and spun into open space. "Jesus Christ, you want me to spend a day with your daughter every week and then the next day, come here and do sick, twisted things?"

"I said perform. I never mentioned anything sick and twisted. You'll follow my commands for an hour every Monday night, but how do you know they'll be depraved? Would you like them to be?"

She shook her head, nostrils flaring. "If you truly have a daughter, why would you ever treat a woman that way? Why debase and humiliate me? Would you like someone to do the same to her one day?"

He lifted a shoulder, but there was nothing casual about the rest of his stance. He vibrated with a potent rage. "No one will ever touch her. Not until she'd old enough to decide what she wants, and even then, if anyone ever hurt her, I would tear their heart out and feed it back to them."

"Wow. Gruesome. Duly noted. So, you want the best for her, which involves me teaching her because I'm the best you can do female wise, but you don't care about my feelings. You don't care about how your sordid request would violate and harm me?"

"You're an adult. A complex, talented, brilliant woman. A shifter living amongst humans. You can be two things at once. I don't care about your feelings on the matter. This is what I require. If you had any other option, you wouldn't be here. It's a stake in your shop and two days out of your week, or you walk out of here with nothing. You close your shop. You give up on your dreams. All your hard work and talent will be wasted, but worst, you'll have failed everyone who put their trust in you. Those are wounds you'll never manage to properly lick clean."

"You have to be joking." But she knew he wasn't. She knew that already. Men like Rome didn't have a proper sense of humor.

He extended his hand. Ink she'd put there swirled over the back and extended onto his knuckles. He grasped the wrench in the other. Shiny. Metallic. Cold.

He would never touch her. She'd never touch him. Perform could mean anything, though. He was right. What choice did she have?

You always have a choice.

She did, but he was right about the price too. Failure would be a wound that would never close. She could forgive herself for the things she'd do for the cash, but she couldn't forgive herself for putting four other people out of a job. Out of a home. Three shifters and a vampire couldn't just find work anywhere. The shop wasn't just a shop. It was a haven of sorts.

"Thirty percent. I'll spend the day with your daughter because she's a little girl without a mother or any woman in her life and she needs that. She's a child, and even though she's yours, she's probably sweet and innocent and this isn't her fault. As a shifter, she needs guidance, and you're right. You're a male. You can't properly prepare her. On Mondays…" Her voice wavered. Her breaths turned into ragged saws. "On Mondays, anything I might do, I do clothed, at least to some extent. Nothing less than a bathing suit would cover. I suppose you'll want free tattoos for life." She rolled her eyes, trying and failing for that dignity again. Her pride was smashed to shit long before she walked into this office.

Rome's hair was long, and when he tucked his hand back at his side, a thick strand of raven black danced over his forehead and cheek. He didn't brush it aside.

"Nothing is free. I'll pay like any client. I expect no special favors."

"We have a deal, then? I want something in writing so we're both protected."

"We have a deal."

He turned and strode to his desk, pulling a fresh sheet of paper from one of the drawers and twisting that expensive-looking pen. Great. She was going to get it handwritten. It seemed somehow appropriate for the sort of soul contract she was about to enter into.

His voice boomed through the small space, echoing through her bones, wrapping around her like the iron bars she most feared. It was charged and powerful, ominous as fuck. "Bathing suit or not, I can't wait to mold you, shape you, and break you."