It had taken months to talk his father round, insisting that everything was different now that the future of their pack was secured, but now he finally had some good news for his mate. AS he had convinced her to move to Silverdale Manor and out of her rat-infested apartment, Layon had only a short distance to travel from his room to hers, and he did so with an extra bounce in his step that morning, anticipating her reaction to all he had to share with her. When he knocked, his insides began to twist with anxiety. What if she rejects me? he thought in the moment before she opened the door. Living at Silverdale Manor had been an amazing thing for Angel. She had become even more radiant since the stress and hardship had been lifted from her shoulders, and her smile warmed his heart when she gazed at him with affection and welcomed him into the room which she had clearly made her own, with all her little knick-knacks and her baby blanket, which she insisted upon keeping at the end of
Lara was ashamed of what she had become. Once she had been set to be the alpha’s mate, but after being passed over for no less than the daughter of a traitor, she was practically left with nothing. It was humiliating. Life just wasn’t working out. Even after graduating Silverdale University at the top of her class, Lara felt as though she had nothing to show for the first thirty years of her life. She was still stuck in Silverdale, the locked supernatural community where her pack were practically the rulers of the place, and yet she felt like less than nothing. Especially when her parents so often liked to remind her of the fact she could have quite literally been Silverdale’s queen if she hadn’t messed things up with Layon Silverdale. It was her mother’s face, so much like her own, that she saw in her mind’s eye, smiling at her with a dark expression of sheer disappointment in her hazel eyes as she said, “You wouldn’t be sitting here now if you hadn’t let him go so easily!” Y
Even after several days and certain that he had managed to wash Lara’s scent from his skin, Jason found he could barely look Layon Silverdale in the eye. Standing in the library of the Silverdale Manor with his hands clasped behind his back, Jason chose instead to avert his gaze to the floor as he listened to the latest report from his future alpha. “We’ve had reports of strange wolves in the area,”Layon explained, running his fingers through his glossy black hair as he sat on the desk where his father usually sat in order to give them their orders. Already Layon was looking like the embodiment of an alpha, sitting all high and mighty in his father’s chair, and Jason couldn’t help but feel a twisting in his gut whenever he thought of what his best friend might do if he found out about him and his ex-girlfriend. “Tyson and Lukas even scented a couple within the boundaries of the community, but what we can’t figure out is how they are getting in.” Stop thinking about Lara and focu
“You have got to be kidding me! Jason Rathbone? No way!” Lara cringed at her sister’s words, knowing that she probably shouldn’t have told her anything about the night she had spent with the future second of the pack. Yet it had been a few days and she hadn’t heard from him, nor had she managed to pluck up the courage to give him a call herself. She had to talk to somebody about it. Tanny stared at Lara with absolute astonishment on her face. The two had been sharing a quiet meal together at the Silver Moon. That was until Lara had dropped the bombshell on her. Now Tanny’s green eyes glittered with curiosity and surprise. She brushed back her ash-blonde hair and leaned across the booth to look Lara directly in the eye before asking, “Well, what was it like? Was he any good?” At the question, Lara’s insides tingled. She remembered all too well how good it had been, and it was clearly written on her face the moment Tanny asked, “That good, eh? Who would have guessed it from a big
3 Days Later “Thank you,” Jason smiled to the beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed she-wolf who placed a mug of coffee in front of him on the penthouse coffee table twenty-five floors up in Harrison Wolfe’s New York hotel. It had been less than a year since their last visit, though things were definitely much more peaceful than the last. “You’re welcome,” Acacia Wolfe returned his smile and turned to her newborn son, who had begun to coo and fuss in his Moses basket at the edge of the room.“I am sure they won’t be too much longer.” “Alphas will be alphas,” Jason responded with a shrug. Though he could hear Layon and Acacia’s husband, Harrison, leader of the New York pack, talking in the library down the hall, he was trying his hardest not to listen to what they were actually saying. If they had wanted him to know what they were talking about, they would have invited him in on the meeting. Jason couldn’t help but wonder whether something might be wrong between him and his first
Lara wasn’t sure how long she had been down there in the dark. She wasn’t even sure where there was, but what she was sure of was that therope binding her wrists and ankles wasn’t just any ordinary rope. If they had been, she would likely have already managed to yank herself free of them.No, the people who had kidnapped her were well-versed in kidnapping werewolves because the acrid stench of wolfbane that hit her nostrils every time she tried to pull herself free told her so.As if rope burn wasn’t bad enough, the wolfbane was slowly seeping into the cuts and scrapes of the coarse material, and it was weakening her from not only the outside in but also the inside out. She could feel the poison slowly leaking into her veins, making every single inch of her body scream for a release from the agony.The sound of thudding somewhere above her head alerted Lara to the fact that she was no longer alone. The sound grew distant as thoughsomebody was walking past above her head, and then
Standing outside Layon's office inside Silverdale Manor, Jason debated whether to knock for the hundredth time. He had been fighting the urge to approach his best friend for the last few days now. It had been two days since their return from New York and since Layon had received the call from Lara's sister, and still Jason was feeling as though something wasn't right. He had called Lara's phone over and over again whenever he found himself alone, hoping and praying that she would answer, even if it was only to tell him to fuck off. Even if she said she wanted to forget all about what had happened between them and that she never wanted him to contact her again, he could face that. What he couldn’t face was the dreadful thought that something awful had happened to her while he had been away in New York. He wasn't sure he would ever be able to forgive himself if something had happened. Why would it be my fault? he asked himself even as he raised his fist to knock on the door for the
“Jason…” Lara breathed the name, feeling his hands caress her flesh. She stood with her back to him, feeling his muscular torso pressed against her spine even as he reached around and stroked the hair away from her neck to kiss the side of her throat. Tilting her head to the side to expose her throat to him, she leaned back against him, practically arching her back like a cat in heat. When she did so, she could feel the rock-hard throbbing length of his manhood pressed against the curve of her ass and she bit her lip, knowing that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. Reaching back with her hand, she slipped it between her ass and his groin, cupping his balls in her hand. Squeezing until he growled with pleasure, she broke into a smile. Unable to control herself any longer, she whipped around to face him, beginning to tear the metal buckle of his leather belt. Even as she did so, his hands came to cup her face and he leaned down to kiss her, making her head spin with delight. E
“You have got to be kidding me!” Emily’s exclamation startled Tyson. It had been the last thing he expected her to say when they stopped walking outside a psychic’s shop in a small human town just outside of Silverdale. “What’s the matter? Didn’t the tracking spell work?” he asked, feeling his gut beginning to churn. They couldn’t possibly have traveled all this way just for Emily to tell him that the spell had failed, that it had brought them to the wrong place. The tall and slender witch who wore a long, velvet gown cinched at the waist by a leather corset, stood at the bottom of the steps that led up into the shop and glowered up at the store front window. “No real witch would advertise herself in this way!” Emily snapped, practically spitting, and Tyson struggled to stop himself from shrinking away from her, reminding himself firmly of his reason for even being there in the first place. This is for Barach. “Then your outburst has nothing to do with this being the wrong pla
At first, everything was darkness. Then she felt it. One minute it was just the gentle brushing of something soft against her lips. Then she felt the suddenness of a most passionate kiss pressed upon her. Hands stroked down her ribcage, causing her to suck in a deep breath and then those same hands cupped her hips, drawing her closer to the warmth of the person they belonged to. Though at first, she could not see him, she could feel him. She could feel the smooth softness of his skin, the tender tautness of that skin pulled tight over thick bands of muscle. She could feel his callused yet somehow soft hands moving around her hips and back toward her buttocks, hooking her into place against him even as the lips upon hers added pressure and the kiss became even more passionate. Then finally, he pulled back and she was able to open her eyes. Dazed at the sight of him, Barach could only smile. She opened her mouth to speak but found there were no words to say. Instead, she wrapped he
Sitting by her bedside, Tyson couldn't help but think of the moment when he thought he had lost Barach forever. He had held her in his arms in the center of the small warehouse, cradling her on his lap as he watched all of the color drain from her face and her eyes roll back in her head, helpless to do anything else. Only the gentle sound of shallow breathing, that he would not have picked up had he been human, alerted him to the fact that she was still with him. I should never have let you go in the first place, he told himself even as he thought of how he had ditched everything, thinking of nothing else but getting her to safety. He had picked her up in his arms, alarmed at just how light she had become. The last time he had carried her, she had been kicking and thrashing and doing everything in her power to get him to put her down. Now she was deathly still, her face so pale and her eye sockets going so black as she lay in a bed at the Silverdale Manor, that he felt as though h
"We are going to have to work quickly," Barach whispered. Though they had managed to secure themselves in one of the outer buildings on the industrial estate, just close enough to every point of the area that her spell would reach Layon and Jason no matter how far they moved, she knew all too well that the longer they remained, the more danger they were placing themselves in. Having added all the ingredients to the spell in the small cauldron she'd placed in the center of the room on a pile of old boxes, she had only one final thing to do. Holding two bundles of sage, lavender, and fennel in front of her with a lighter in her other hand, she pointed out, "This may well attract Tyson's wolves to our location, but I can't do the spell without it." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tyson stiffen. It was clear that he didn't like the thought of her being put in danger at all. She could feel his concern in the way he stared at her, feel it in the way his entire body tensed. Being
The pack was clearly restless. They stood all around the dining room awaiting Lester’s return, unable to stay still, several of them murmuring among themselves about what was taking so long. Tyson remained silent, watching Barach as he stood close by, unable to stray too far from her for too long. With everything going on, he was on edge and in full protection mode. Everyone fell silent the moment that Lester returned to the room and settled back into his seat at the head of the table. “So you’ve located her?” he asked, looking at Barach, who stood at the far end of the table, close to the doors, looking like an outsider. Even against Lester’s steady gaze, Tyson felt the urge to protect her, and he was barely able to stop himself from stepping between them. Barach nodded. “She’s in the industrial estate just as I said she’d be,” Jason snarled through gritted teeth and Lara, who had taken a seat beside him, quickly placed her hand on his shoulder again, warning him silently to be
When she had left, Silverdale had been on high alert, but on returning, things appeared to have gotten ten times worse. Though on the outside things looked entirely the same, the moment Tyson's truck passed through the gates and they closed automatically behind them, Barach felt as though a weight had landed heavily on top of her shoulders. She could practically feel the tense energy coursing throughout the streets of the locked community, and she was certain that something serious had to have happened since she left. If Tyson attacked us in New York, then he knew I wasn't keeping my eye on things here, Barach thought grimly, glancing at Tyson in the driver's seat to see if he had thought the same thing. Was the attack on us just a distraction from something going on here? It was clear from the way that he glanced at her, his hands gripped tightly to the steering wheel and his body so tense he looked like he might snap a bone, that he was having exactly the same thoughts. They wast
She tasted just as he might have expected, like cherries and cream, and her lips were plump and soft and smooth as if she were wearing Chapstick. When she opened them to him, he dipped his tongue into her mouth, tasting her further when she offered the same in response. They kissed as though it was their first and their one hundredth time all wrapped into one.Everything was heightened, the pleasure and desire and the sensation of having her close to him and yet he felt as though it was practiced, something they had done many times before, something they had been meant to do together. It was then that the need started to pulse between them. He could feel it coming off Barach in waves even as he realized he could fight his own urges no longer. When he felt her beginning to pull on the hem of his t-shirt, yanking it up over his muscular torso, he knew there was no turning back. Instinctively, he shrugged off his jacket, barely hearing its zips clattering onto the hardwood floor behin
The moment they stepped out of the truck, Tyson became even more on edge. He felt far too exposed standing out on the front steps of the shop, waiting for Barach to open it up. The shop itself was just as Tyson had expected. Two huge display windows out front were decorated with candles, gemstones and small statues, glass bottles and vials, and all manner of other witchy things. Even though the place was locked up tight, he could faintly smell the scent of all manner of herbs coming from under the front door and guessed that inside the smell would be almost intolerable. Though he hadn't been inside many witches’ shops, he had been in enough to know that his senses were about to be irritated big time. Gritting his teeth, he stood by, waiting for Barach to do what she needed to do. "Well, do you have a key or not?" he asked when she didn't pull one from her pocket. Glancing down at her, he realized there wasn't much chance of her having anything on her. All she was wearing was a v
Why the hell did I just tell him that? Barach thought grimly even as she relaxed back into the passenger seat of his truck and crossed her arms over her chest defensively. Although he was driving like a maniac, it wasn't that telling her she should have him stop the car. It wasn't even the fact that she was still feeling the urge to turn around and go back for her grandmother's body. It was the fact that she was suddenly alone with him, trapped in a confined space and with no hope of escape until the truck drew to a halt. The worst thing was, Barach wasn't sure she wanted to escape him. Although there was plenty of room inside the truck, Barach could sense how close their seats were, how easily she could reach out and touch him. No, this is not going to happen, she told herself firmly before she spoke aloud through gritted teeth, "We should go back." Tyson flashed an incredulous expression at her before turning his eyes back onto the road, still speeding well over the limit and g