Your Last Lie to Me Book One

I was standing beside the mall’s escalator, staring at my phone when I heard a loud thud like a heavy mass landed behind me with a whoosh. My phone fell out of my hand and clattered on the ground. “I’m sorr—"

He apologized, and I pulled him up to his feet. The kid was a tall, gangly boy who looked like a skeleton with big glasses that overwhelmed his face, and he was shaking badly. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

“Sorry about that,” he mumbled. “Those guys are dicks.” He pointed to the pack of laughing jackals from the second floor railing, peering at him and hollering.

Did they drop him from the second floor? Assholes. I looked up and glared at them, shaking my fists. They only laughed harder. I turned my attention back to the kid and helped him straighten his clothes and brush the dirt off his back. “Hey, are you okay?”

He adjusted his glasses, mumbled yes, then ran away.

I bent over to pick up my phone from the ground and shoved it into the left pocket of my skinny jeans before stepping on the escalator. When I looked up, my eyes met with piercing green ones which belonged to a gorgeous young man with jet black hair and a perfectly sculpted face.

My heart stopped and for a moment, I couldn’t get enough air to take into my body and I got a little light-headed. When he shifted his attention to the pretty girl next to him with a charming smile on his face and put his arm around her shoulders, a wave of disappointment swept over me.

I didn’t realize I was gawking at him until one of his friends approached him and whispered to him while gesturing toward me, and someone tackled me from behind, nearly causing me to stumble. With a snarl, I whirled around to confront the bitch who dared to assault me, but it was just my friend Gia, who was grinning at me.

“You’re lucky I have lightning fast reflexes or I would have strangled you right now,” I hissed, lowering my fist. “Didn’t your momma ever tell you not to play around on the escalator?”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Whoa, what’s with the attitude?” She straightened her posture and hurriedly fixed her clothes. “OMG, bitch, fix your voguing face.”

I almost got a whiplash from her rapid change in moods. “What the—"

“The future alpha is coming down the escalator right now, bimbo,” she whispered through gritted teeth, clamping down on my hand as though she meant to crush the bones.

The thing is, I’ve never encountered our Alpha or Luna, and their children, in person. This would be my very first opportunity to meet one of them. My entire life cycle thus far only included going to school and heading back home. My parents weren’t the type to force me to join any pack activities or associate with other wolves if I didn’t want to.

“Show him respect once he’s within greeting distance.” Gia was all about pack protocol, while I wasn’t. She put on her brightest smile, while I bit on my bottom lip. I pretended to look away while tapping my fingers on the rail, wishing this damned escalator would go up faster.

“Matteo,” my best friend said in her most congenial voice even as she buried her nails into my arm.

I chanced a look in their direction only to see one of his friends smirking at me. Those piercing green eyes met mine again and stared back this time. He appeared to be contemplating if he wanted to say something; instead, he just stared.

Any other girl would have basked in that moment and swooned over his brooding good looks and fanned themselves because he was so hot. All I could think about was touching his face and tracing his jawline with my fingertips.

But of course, I ruined the moment for both of us. I held his gaze a little too long, then turned away from him with a glare. I wanted to make it seem like his presence didn’t faze me at all even though my body was on its way to breaking down and melting to the ground.

He and his group passed us, and I heard his friends hooting and howling. Some of them whistled out loud, which caught everyone’s attention. All the mall rats from the second floor, it seemed, rushed to the railing to see what was happening on the escalator. I wanted to die.

I took one last peek before he stepped off the escalator only to be met with his wink and those damn dimples as he smirked at me. I quickly turned away before he could see me blushing like a red-ripe tomato. Ugh, I’m such a ditz.

“You blue-ribbon idiot!” Gia smacked me on the back of the head and pinched my heated cheeks.

“What the hell?” I batted her hands away when she tried to pinch me.