Page 1 of Pretty Little Prey
Prologue
“Fear the wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Luna’s mother had always said it before bed. Every night. All shifters labeled asprey—not predator—heard it. Rodent shifters, cattle shifters… Sheep shifters. “Fear the wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Truly, her mother should have said, “Fear men.” Because how was sixteen-year-old Luna supposed to know that the first attractive boy who came sniffing around her—bringing her flowers and taking her on dates—was a vicious wolf-shifter?
How was Luna supposed to know he had found her and gained her trust, just so he could slaughter her family and the entire herd?
Because this was a world where prey shifters were hunted by predators. Taken as “pets” or killed for sport. Luna’s kind, sheep shifters, were particularly rare.
Luna had cried and begged him to stop.
Rohan, the boy who had neverlookedlike a wolf—the boy who had said he loved her, took her virginity, then brought his werewolf friends to kill her family—had chuckled darkly. “Pretty little prey. Look at you, already knowing your place. On your knees.”
Rohan had sneered at Luna’s mother while choking her to death. “It was too easy. One whiff of my alpha scent, and Luna followed me everywhere. The perfect little sheep. Dumb and addicted to predator cock.”
The shame, humiliation, and raw pain Luna felt—after the men finished massacring her people in front of her—broke her. She laid on her knees by her families’ bleeding bodies, sobbing.
Shehad led a wolf to them all.
Shewas the reason they were dead.
Fear the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
She would fear every wolf after that.
Every predator shifter.
Every man.
She ran.
Through the woods, she ran from the hidden forest village of her herd, from the only life she had known. No longer feeling like a meek prey, she ran for her life as the wolves howled their amusement.They love the chase.
“You think you can hide from me, Luna?” Rohan’s yell sliced through the trees and wind as she ran. “Prey were meant to be hunted!” His shouts sounded so close, but she dared not stop. She dared not let her legs slow or her heart beat any louder, for fear of being found. “I will find you,” Rohan promised.
Luna had been on the run ever since.
Chapter 1
Six Years Later
Is this rock bottom?Luna thought to herself as she took the fancy gold-embellished elevator up to the penthouse suite. Strangely, she was not excited to get called to clean up vomit from the floor of a bachelor party full of rich, mediocre-looking entitled men. Men of any kind—rich, poor, handsome, old, etc.—made her uncomfortable.Wolf in sheep’s clothing.
She shook her head, clearing her thoughts as she strode up to the door to knock.It’s not like Rohan will be there, she assured herself. Her fear of him being right behind her always lingered. It lingered along with the memory of the last words he yelled into the woods when she finally escaped from him and his pack, “When I catch you, I will roast you over a fire and pick lamb chops from my teeth for weeks!”
Lamb chop.
The main reason why Rohan’s pack had hunted her for so long was because Luna was the rarest kind of shifter. A Duttur. A lamb shifter. No sharp teeth, or claws, or intense speed. She was born a prey. According to Rohan, she would die a prey by his hands.
She knocked on the penthouse suite’s door.
Time to clean up drunk male vomit with a smile. After all, a smile meant a bigger tip.
She needed cash to skip town. She had already been in this city for two months. Three months was her limit. Her rule.Keep moving and the wolves won’t find you. Rohan won’t find you. She went by made-up names, bought fake IDs, and took jobs where no one cared if she was who she said she was.
Cleaning rooms in fancy hotels was her current career. Typically, over the span of six weeks, she could get enough cash to leave wherever she was staying, skip the next ten towns via bus, and start over somewhere else. For another three months.
