Alpha Achim Glass stood on the nightclub balcony, looking out into the night. He was a little out of place here, in a suit and loafers, but he was allowed to be. He owned this place, after all.

He looked around him with pride. This place had been his first venture. Back then the clubbing scene had been centred on trendy Briarleaf, to the north-east, the new town that had sprung anew from the marsh slums to the east in the 1960s. 

People thought he was crazy for setting up shop in the old city, seen as the preserve of hobos, bohemians, immigrants and starving university students. But he saw the potential, the below-market-value price, the sheer size of the place, the close proximity to the tenements that were just starting to show the first signs of gentrification, and leapt on it.

It had been a squat for homeless people, and before that a haberdasher's. The place had been uninhabitable when he'd picked it up; the floors smelt of urine, cockroaches made nests in the joinery, and rats scurried under the rotted floorboards. 

He had stripped out the place himself. It was a difficult time; he had just taken over running the pack from his father, and finances were tight. He would make the gruelling eight-hour round trip across the border, down the M4 and back, often several times a week, trying to split his time as efficiently as possible. 

When opened, it had been one of the first nightclubs in the Old Town. At first the business had been slow, but soon it had picked up and the rest was history. Now the whole street was alive every night. He could hear other music blaring in the background of the music coming from directly behind him. 

There had been many copycats. He didn't mind about that. The more the merrier. It gave him pride to have started a trend. To have grown something. Who cared that only that old loony of a Post-Gazette columnist knew or cared about that particular accolade. 

With the profits he had bought another ruin. This one had been an old factory that had caught fire. Using his pack house as collateral, he took out a hefty loan, had it knocked it down and put up apartments. One thing led to another, and soon there were dozens of properties under his belt. 

Twenty years on, Glass Group had only gone from strength to strength. He was successful, his pack was thriving. Life was good. He had everything he desired at his fingertips and what he didn't have was a phone call away.

 Everything, except for a mate. 

It had been bearable all throughout his twenties: he'd been working far too hard back then for it to get to him, but now the sensation that people were laughing behind his back was getting too hard to ignore. There was only so much that a lavish lifestyle could compensate for. The questions from his family were gradually becoming more pointed. He had felt himself become more and more withdrawn, quicker to anger. His colleagues seemed to not have noticed, but it was only a matter of time. Or maybe they were being polite. He had long learned to cope with it, but sometimes the pain came back in the most unexpected of times. It was particularly bad today, watching all the young couples dancing around him. 

Only Monagh knew how many matchups his mother had arranged, how many ceremonies and rituals he had been to, how many healers and fortune tellers and matchmakers he had consulted. 

Nothing happened. 

Could he be one of those mythical creatures, a person with no mate? He tried not to think about it. It couldn't be true. The dishonour would be too great for him to bear. All the hard work, all the long hours, for nothing. It would be stripped away from him. He thought of his good-for-nothing brother, happily mated with three kids. He was the one who paid the bills, who put the roof over their heads, paid for the private boarding school fees. He just did some odd jobs around the pack. But it was him that his parents doted upon. He was happy for him, he told himself. But inside he knew that telling himself that could only work for so long. 

He felt something splash his stomach. He turned to his left to catch the eye of one of the waitresses, manouvering along the balcony at the edge of the crowd. She had spilt one of the wine glasses on the platter she was carrying on his suit and shirt. A pale red stain was already spreading. 

She cowered, fearing his wrath, but he simply smiled graciously and waved her away. She quickly disappeared into the crowd, grateful for his reprieve. 

He was happy to play the part of the benevolent owner. He was feeling generous tonight. 

At the corner of his eye, a flicker of motion down below caught his attention. He felt his heart skip a beat. 

***

Stepping into the cool, bracing darkness of the shop courtyard, every blind step she took familiar, she held the phone to her cheek, trying to hear the voice on the other side over the noise spilling from the balcony of the club two doors down the road. She had known who the caller was the second the phone started ringing. It could only be him. Who else would be calling her at this hour? It was half an hour before her mother would start getting worried.

 She forced herself not to look towards to balcony. She knew that Julian played gigs there regularly. They paid better than the other venues, and not just by a small margin, mainly because the owner was some bigwig property developer. She had been there before, before she got tired of the clubbing scene. Was he playing tonight? What if he stepped out onto the balcony? She knew there was a miniscule risk of it happening, but nevertheless she was taking a risk by just standing here. 

"He's a snotty-nosed private school kid. What can he do?"

"He has connections. He could ruin you. Ruin both of us." She fingered the necklace, feeling the heft of the pendant. 

"It's over," She enunciated her words, making sure that he could hear him. If he asked her to repeat her words that would utterly ruin the gravitas of the situation. "I can't do this anymore." 

"Please." There was that edge to his voice again, loud and clear through the din from the balcony in a way that surprised her. She didn't like it one bit. She had only heard it flare up once before. They had been at a party and someone had looked at her. Only her insistence and physically dragging him out into the courtyard of the house had prevented a physical altercation. 

"I can handle it." What did he mean by that? 

"I'm sorry." She hung up. 

She looked up at the balcony. She swore that there had been someone watching her. But there was nobody there. The people were partying away. None of them were looking at her. She put the thought at the back of her head. 

***

There was a girl, in her work uniform, standing in the rear courtyard of one of the adjoining shops. She was on her phone. 

The club was still pulsating with the music, and he could still feel the thump of the beat through the floor, but it was completely numb and detached, like it was a thousand miles away. 

All he could focus on was her. 

He felt the shock, the rush of adrenaline, the thump of his heart, almost before his eyes had figured out what they were seeing. It had happened. He had heard so many descriptions of it from so many different people over the years, but no amount of conversations he could have prepared him for the feelings flooding his body. 

He turned around, melting into the crowd, throbbing, pulsating to the beat around him. As he felt the adrenaline die down inside him, the idea of the whole thing gradually blossomed inside his mind. He had found a mate. His mate. He had found what he had been looking for his entire life. 

But it was not the end of it; there was much more to come. She would have to accept him; the bond was a mutual affair. That might take more said than done. But he was willing to do anything to relive that feeling. 

His peripheral vision registered the flash of a camera, somewhat spoiling the moment. The photographer would have to be dealt with later. But at this moment he was almost too giddy to care. 

Tonight, of all nights. He felt his heart racing. It took every last ounce of his resolve to keep everything together. 

Forcing himself to stay calm, he forced himself to turn his thoughts away from bringing her to him and convincing her to accept him. That would come later. Fishing his phone out of the inner pocket of his suit, he brought up the first number in the contacts. 

He hesitated for a moment, playing through the chain of events he was about to set into motion in his head. It was reckless. Completely illegal by New Carinthian law. But he could not stop thinking about her. 

His fingers were shaking as he hit the call icon. Every second that passed seemed like an eternity. The concept of time itself seemed to have left him. Beta Raine picked up on the first ring. He always did. He breathed a sigh of relief. 

"The pharmacy." It took every fibre of his soul to stop his voice from shaking. "Two doors down. I want you to stay outside. Tell me when she gets out. Stand at the end of the alley, where the camera can't get you." He relayed a description of the girl. "Yes, Alpha," replied the voice at the other end.

 ***

She was in charge of locking up. Her coworker had already left for the night. She relished it. She enjoyed making sure everything was in its rightful place, locking the day's takings in the till. 

She locked the heavy roller door and headed up the alley to the tram stop. It would be a fifteen-minute ride home to the small apartment she shared with her mother. 

She saw the figure at the top of the alley. That wasn't really that unusual in these parts. It could just be a homeless person. There was often a guy who slept just outside the door. But this person did not look homeless. She could see the heft of his figure, even in the darkness. He disappeared into the shadows. 

She was relieved by this, but her mind was racing. Julian probably didn't suspect a thing, but what if he did? He had a temper, and a vicious one at that. She had seen what it was like. She could imagine him noticing the necklace, feeling its weight in his hands, ripping it off her neck. She could see his jealous eyes, the fury burning in them, the orange flash. 

She knelt down at the grate, halfway up the hill. Unclasping the necklace, she discreetly dropped it in. She would have to retrieve it later. She tried not to think about what might be down there. 

She kept on moving. Only to be stopped when the dark figure stepped out of an alcove in front of her. She tried to walk around him, but he blocked her.

 "Julian." The sudden feeling in her gut was intolerable. 

Looking up, she locked eyes with him. She could barely see his eyes in the darkness, but the cold, lifeless glint of moonlight was enough to chill her to her to the bone. 

"You have no idea who I am, do you?" The voice was deep, guttural, masculine. Julian would have shit his pants if he'd been spoken to like that. The thought amused her. She quickly banished the thought. This was not the time for such flippancy. 

She tried to duck around him and run for it, but he was faster. A hand clapped over her mouth before she had the chance to scream. 

***

Charting a course through the cobbled backstreets of the Old Town, the black SUV hit the Ring Road and entered the freeway network, cutting across the north of Corviston before following the M4 up past Jozendor, up into the shadows of the forest, all the way to the border. 

The guards at the checkpoint barely even glanced before waving it through.