Chapter: Epilogue, Part 2: A New BeginningJane’s POV “Hunter?” I frowned at his back as he marched me up the stairs to our bedroom. “What’s going on?” He shot me a reassuring smile over his shoulder, but didn’t slow his pace. “I just need to talk to you.” We’d moved out of the pack house. It held too many memories for us both. Now, we lived in what was basically a small mansion on the edge of the forest, not far from Rose and S’s house. It was light and airy, all warm wood and draping ivy paired with gleaming, modern appliances and crisp, cream-painted walls. The kids had a room each: Owen’s filled with state-of-the-art tech gadgets, Ares’s with workout equipment, and Ava’s with easels and canvases and a drawing tablet. They had everything they needed, and more space than Owen and Ares had ever had, but most nights they dragged their mattresses into each other’s rooms and slept huddled together. We were safe now, but we’d all been through so much. Too much. I hoped my kids were young enough that they’d recover from the t
Last Updated: 2023-07-25
Chapter: Epilogue, Part 1: A Second ChanceHunter’s POVKim ran towards me, his jaw wide, his canines glinting in the weak sunlight. Owen and Ava clung haphazardly to his back. Fear flashed through me. I started towards them–But they were safe, and Jane was safe, and I was safe, and we were home. I sucked in a long, slow breath, and a forced a smile as they neared me. The smile took hold, tucking itself into the corners of my mouth, and by the time my children had reached me I was grinning at them. I opened my arms wide, and the three of them ran straight at me. We tumbled to the ground, rolling in the grass, laughing; Kim licked my face, and Ava and Owen scrambled into my arms.“Hey, kids.” I pulled back and ruffled their hair. Kim rolled onto his back, his paws sticking up in the air. Ava rubbed his belly.‘Wow,’ I said to Reg dryly, ‘he really is your son.’‘I saw Ares eat a salad the other day – and enjoy it.’ Reg shuddered. ‘I love him, but that really threw me.’I pinched the bridge of my nose. ‘Don’t remind me. Then
Last Updated: 2023-07-25
Chapter: Chapter 166 AloneJane’s POVTime passed strangely after that.There were noises out in the hall. Noises I probably should’ve listened to, made something of, but…What was the point? Hunter was gone. My heart, my soul – my life – was dead.My throat closed up around the words I’d spoken. I’d bared every important moment of my life to the Moon Goddess, bound my prayer in my story, and she hadn’t listened.She hadn’t listened.I knew Ava was still with me, still clinging half to me and half to her daddy, and that was the last straw for me. Her pain became glass shards, which scraped at the raw edges of my own wound.For a while, my hurt was so immense that I felt nothing at all. If Nina or Ava spoke to me, I didn’t hear them. I was numb, frozen to the spot, Hunter’s lifeblood going cold and sticky on my palms.Beneath the frost of my numbness, though, a fire roared. I was terrified to start feeling again, to start moving. The second I moved my aching legs and stood up, time would start again.And the sec
Last Updated: 2023-07-14
Chapter: Chapter 165 The Truth of Our HeartsJane’s POVI shifted out. “No!” I wailed. I fell to my knees, then crawled over to him. My fists pounded the cold, metallic floor with every weak, shuffling movement I made.“You can’t be gone,” I whimpered, tears streaming down my cheeks, a lump forcing my throat to close around the words. “You can’t be.”But I knew that he was. The mate bond writhed and shrieked within me, screeching out for the severed other half of its soul.“Hunter?” I choked, grabbing him gently. His head lolled back as I moved him. His eyes were open; their blue irises were cold, so cold, and his pupils were unseeing. Cuts nicked his face.I pried him away from his father. Hunter’s body was merged with Reg’s: his hands were furry and clawed, but the rest of him was human. I wished he had human hands I could hold.It was that thought that shattered me entirely. I would never be able to hold his hand again. It was silly, and childish, and pathetic, but it was that notion that broke me. Not that I had lost my ma
Last Updated: 2023-07-11
Chapter: Chapter 164 Driven by a MadnessJane’s POV I was torn between my sons. Owen was safe – for now – so I turned my attention to Ares. His wolf, Kim, hit the ground. I bit back a cry– Kim rolled over, tussling with his attacker. He snarled, revealing huge canine teeth, then dove his muzzle at the other wolf’s neck, again and again and again. Blood spurted, slicking his fur coat. Then they were rolling again, slamming sideways into the thinning crowd of battling werewolves. The wolf on top of Kim was grey, and as big as him, but its size looked abnormal – the result of performance enhancing drugs, not nature, as Kim’s stature was. They fell back, circling each other. Kim’s upper lip pulled back from his teeth, revealing shining white canines with blood dripping from them. My stomach turned over. Beneath that fur coat was my sweet son, who wasn’t quite seven years old yet. He and his brother had seen so much – too much – already. Kim pounced. The grey wolf was a half-second behind, but lunged forward with a snarl the
Last Updated: 2023-07-10
Chapter: Chapter 163 Keep RunningJane’s POVAlpha Dylan – or what was left of him – pounced at Hunter. A scream built in my throat, but I was helpless to do anything. He’d given me a chance to get our kids out safely, and I wasn’t going to waste it.I wasn’t even sure how I was alive right now. One moment, I’d been lost to the foggy darkness of unconsciousness, and glad of it, too, after all the pain I’d been forced to endure. Even in the depths of nothingness, I’d known that agony beckoned in the light.But there were other things there besides the pain. Love, in all its many forms, waited for me here. My children. My mate. My friends.So I clung to wakefulness with everything I had and prayed that whatever was keeping me awake would keep working for another second, another minute, another hour. I needed every moment I could steal to get my kids to safety.Amy kicked the door open. My view of Hunter disappeared as Carl pushed me through it. The last I saw of him was his own father grinning at him, sick, twisted, sad
Last Updated: 2023-07-05