Maya POV
Victoria's hand shoots toward my throat.
I swing the fire extinguisher with everything I have.
It hits with her ribs with a sickening crunch. Victoria screams and stumbles backward, holding her side. Her beautiful face twists with rage.
"You little—" She lunges again, but this time I'm ready.
I spray the fire extinguisher straight in her face. White foam bursts everywhere. Victoria shrieks, clawing at her eyes, briefly blinded.
I run.
My heels are stupid for running but I don't stop to take them off. I sprint down the hallway toward the escape stairs, my heart hammering so hard I think it might explode. Behind me, I hear Victoria's angry snarl.
"You can't hide from me, human! I can smell you!"
Smell me? What does that even mean?
I crash through the stairs door and start climbing up instead of down. Maybe she'll expect me to run to ground level. Maybe I can hide on one of the higher floors until Dominic comes back.
If he comes back.
No. I can't think like that. He said he'd protect me. He killed Marcus to save me. He has to come back.
But what if Victoria was saying the truth? What if I really am just a substitute for his dead mother? What if everything he said in the elevator was a lie?
My foot catches on a step. I stumble but catch myself on the ledge. Keep going. Don't stop.
I make it to floor fifty—the top floor, luxury suites—before I hear the stairwell door below me slam open.
"Found you," Victoria calls up. Her voice bounces off the concrete walls. "You know what's funny about humans? You're so slow. So weak. So..." She stops. "Fragile."
I burst through the door onto floor fifty and look around desperately. The lights are off—everyone went home hours ago. It's just empty offices and dark halls.
And me, alone, being hunted.
I duck into the first room I find and close the door as quietly as possible. My hands are shaking so hard I can barely turn the lock. I press my back against the wall and try to breathe quietly through my nose.
Maybe she'll pass by. Maybe she won't find me.
Glass shatters behind me.
I spin around and see Victoria standing in the office doorway—except she's not using the door. She came through the window. From the outside. Fifty floors up.
But that's impossible. No one can climb the outside of a building fifty stories up. No one human.
Oh god.
"What are you?" I whisper.
Victoria smiles, and her teeth are too sharp. Too many. "I'm what nightmares are made of, sweetheart."
Her body waves. Bones crack and reform. Fur grows across her skin—but it's not wolf fur. It's spotted. Sleek. Her face elongates into a feline snout. Her fingers become paws with flexible claws.
A snow leopard. She's a snow leopard shifter.
And she's between me and the only exit.
"Dominic's wolf is strong," Victoria purrs, circling me slowly. "But cats are smarter. Faster. More patient." Her tail lashes behind her. "We wait for the right moment to strike. And right now? You're completely alone. No alpha to protect you. No one to hear you scream."
I grab the desk lamp and rip it from the wall, holding it like a baseball bat. "Stay back."
Victoria laughs—a sound that's half-human, half-animal. "Oh, I like you. I see why Dominic is obsessed. You've got fire." Her eyes gleam in the darkness. "Too bad I'm going to put it out."
She springs.
I swing the lamp with all my strength. It connects with her shoulder, breaking into pieces. Victoria yowls but her speed carries her forward. We crash to the ground together. Her claws rake across my arm, cutting through my sleeve and skin. I scream.
"That's it," Victoria hisses in my ear. "Let Dominic hear you. Let him know he failed to save you."
Her jaws open wide, going for my throat.
I do the only thing I can think of—I grab a shard of broken lamp and stab it into her eye.
Victoria shrieks and rears back. Blood pours down her face. I crawl away, my arm throbbing where she clawed me.
"You're dead!" Victoria roars. "Dead!"
I run again, out the office door, down the hallway. Blood drips from my arm, leaving a trail. My vision is getting blurry. How much blood have I lost?
The hallway ends at a meeting room. I stumble inside and lock the door, knowing it won't hold her for long. My phone. I need my phone. I need to call— My phone is in my bag. Which is in the elevator. With Marcus's dead body.
I'm completely alone.
The door bursts inward. Victoria stands there, half-shifted, blood covering her face, pure murder in her remaining good eye.
"No more running," she snarls.
I back up until I hit the window. Nowhere left to go.
Victoria stalks forward, taking her time now. Savoring my fear.
"Any last words?" she asks.
I look at the window behind me. Fifty floors up. Certain death if I jump.
But maybe, just maybe, a better death than being torn apart by a crazy snow leopard.
"Yeah," I say. "Dominic is going to kill you for this."
Victoria laughs. "Dominic isn't—"
The window behind me bursts inward in a shower of glass.
Something huge and dark crashes into the room—bigger than Victoria, bigger than any animal I've ever seen. Silver fur. Gold eyes. Fangs like knives.
Dominic. In full wolf form. And he's absolutely scary.
He lands between me and Victoria, a growl rumbling from his chest that shakes the floor. His lips pull back, showing teeth that could tear through steel.
Victoria changes fully to leopard form, hissing.
They circle each other, two apex animals ready to fight to the death.
"Dominic," I say. "Your brother—"
His ear flicks toward me. He heard. But he doesn't take his eyes off Victoria.
"Lucas is fine," a voice says from the doorway.
I spin around. A man stands there—younger than Dominic, with warm brown eyes and an easy smile that seems wrong for the scenario. He's covered in soot but otherwise unhurt.
"The fire was a trick," he says, walking in casually like this is normal. "Smoke bombs, no real fire. She wanted to separate you." He looks at me. "You must be Maya. I'm Lucas. Dominic's brother. Nice to meet you."
Victoria snarls something that sounds like cussing.
"Yeah, yeah," Lucas says happily. "Your plan failed. Dominic's too smart to fall for—"
Victoria doesn't wait for him to finish. She springs—not at Dominic, but at me.
Dominic intercepts her mid-air. They meet with the force of a car crash. The floor cracks beneath them. They roll across the room, a blur of fur and fangs and claws.
Lucas grabs my unhurt arm. "We need to go. Now."
"I can't leave him—"
"He's an alpha fighting for his mate. Trust me, he's got this." Lucas pulls me toward the door. "But if you stay, you'll distract him. Make him exposed. Come on."
I let him pull me into the hallway, looking back just in time to see Dominic sink his teeth into Victoria's throat.
She goes limp.
Dominic releases her and changes back to human form, blood dripping from his mouth. His eyes find mine across the room.
"Maya," he starts to say.
Then his eyes roll back and he falls.
"Dominic!" I scream, trying to run to him.
Lucas holds me back. "He's been poisoned. Victoria's claws—they were coated in something." His face is grim. "We need to get him to the pack doctor. Now."
"Poisoned?" My voice is barely a whisper. "Will he... will he die?"
Lucas doesn't answer.
Which is answer enough.
We drag Dominic's unconscious body toward the lift. He's heavy—all strength and dead weight. My injured arm screams in anger but I don't care.
He saved me. He chose to save me instead of going after Victoria directly. He put me first.
And now he's dying because of it.
The elevator doors open.
Standing inside, smiling that terrible smile, is Victoria.
But that's impossible. She was just—
I look back at the meeting room. At the person lying in a pool of blood.
It's not Victoria.
It's Lucas.
I'm standing next to someone wearing Lucas's face. Holding Lucas's voice. But the eyes... the eyes are Victoria's cold blue.
"Surprise," Victoria says in Lucas's voice.