like, as in a … date?” I asked, heart racing.Lucas gave me a sheepish smile. “Like a date? If that’s what you want.”But by the look in his eyes, I could tell that was exactly what he had meant. He wanted to bring me out into Bloodmoon this morning and have a good time with me, but he didn’t want to overstep as if they hadn’t overstepped yet by enacting my fantasies.“Tyler and Asher are staying back, if that makes it any more enticing.”My lips curled into a small smirk. “Asher staying back definitely makes it more enticing.”“So, you’ll go?”“Yeah!” I jumped out of bed, nerves zipping through me. I might’ve had a boyfriend before thanks, James but he never brought me out to breakfast. Ever. “First, I need to shower. I still smell of … cum and hot, sweaty sex.”As I went to hurry toward the door, I stopped in my tracks when I saw a picture of all five of us the night before my eighteenth birthday in a picture frame on his nightstand. I grabbed it, my chest tightening at how happy we
“No buts,” Anna said, calling over our waitress to order. “I’m hungry.”After mazing morning—besides the fact tha t Lucas had asked about Dad—I sat in the lobby of the doctor’s office with Lucas and Jake, waiting for Dr. Stormmark. My knee bounced uncontrollably, my nerves getting the best of me. I didn’t have to come to the doctor to get my IUD checked.I had two more years of it being usable, and I could check to make sure it was still inside me at home. There was a string that I felt around for multiple times a week to make sure it was still in place, especially while I had been dating James, my ex, after the move away from Loodmi.While I didn’t have an appointment and the waiting room was packed full, the nurse said she’d get me in within a few minutes. I filled out the rest of the paperwork that she had given me and returned it up front, then collapsed back next to the guys.“I’m nervous,” I said, clutching my stomach.“It’s going to be fine, Pretty Bird,” Lucas said, gently ru
Gods, I felt so alone. Not even my doctor would help me.Before any security could arrive, I pulled on my clothes, flung open the door, and stormed down the hallway. Other doctors tried to block my way of getting out they probably wanted to arrest me or some shit for putting my hands on one of their colleagues but they didn’t know half my story. Nobody did.I pushed everyone away and hurried out the door to the waiting room. As soon as I spotted Lucas and Jake, I burst into tears and ran toward them. They stood almost immediately, Lucas taking my hand to ask what was wrong and Jake quickly pushing people out of our way for a quick getaway.Thankfully, we escaped before the police or security showed up and hurried down the cobblestone streets of south Bloodmoon, taking back alleyways to flee the town as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to stay here another moment.What had been a nice morning turned so sour, so quickly.“What did they do to you?” Lucas asked. His voice was tense, as
“What happened?” I asked, instinctively knowing something was wrong with my mate.“Nothing.”“What. Fucking. Happened?”She turned her back toward me. “Noth-ing.”“Why the fuck are you so aggravating?” I said, growling at her. My gaze dropped to her throat, like it always did, my canines aching to sink into her and claim her. Maybe then I would finally be able to get inside her head and figure out what she was thinking, what she was hiding from me too.“Me?!” she said, whizzing around on her heel to stare at me. “I’m aggravating?!”“Yes,Anna, you are.”“You’re the one who won’t let me out of your sight!”“For your safety.”“If anyone cared about my fucking safety, they would’ve helped me years ago!” she shouted, but then she immediately pressed her lips together, as if she had let something slip out of her mouth that she didn’t want anyone to know about.But I didn’t understand it.After tearing her gaze away and staring at the floor, she turned back around and ran up the stairs. I fo
He sank down in the water, leaned his head back, and let out a long sigh. While I imagined Lucas would be one to take baths, I could never imagine Tyler in one even though he was sitting across from me.Once I pulled my knees to my chest, I took in every aspect of this man. He was always so tense, so crazy, but now, he was quiet and looked sorta, kinda peaceful. He opened his eyes, leaned over the side of the tub, and pulled a bottle of bubble bath from the cabinet under the sink.My eyes widened even further. “You take bubble baths?”Tyler’s eyes darkened as he dumped the bottle the entire fucking bottle into the tub with us, making the bubbles pile up far past the edge of the bath and spill over onto the floor, a mess that I didn’t plan on cleaning up. It’d be a good surprise for Asher tomorrow morning.“I bought it for you the day before you showed up in bloodmoon,” he said.“Wait,” I said, sitting up in the bath and focusing my gaze on him. I wanted to really understand this becau
JAKE.In the midstof a tense breakfast, Asher stopped mid-chew and glanced at the table, his eyes glazing over, the way they did when he was talking through the mind link to one of the warriors in our pack. I watched him carefully and listened as Sina moved around upstairs in her room.Suddenly, Asher shot up from the table, eyes completely golden, and hurried toward the front door. “Jake,” Asher called before looking back at him, “watch Pretty Bird. There are two of her father’s men at our borders that we need to take care of.”Tyler stood up from the table, his eyes turning almost black, then stormed out the front door before Asher could. But Lucas lingered behind with me, his movements slower than usual.“You don’t want my help?” I asked, knowing that I’d be more helpful than Lucas .“Lucas,” Asher growled because we all knew that Lucas would be the one to fuck Anna alone next if we left him with her.They were the closest out of all of us and had always had a connection that Asher
Once he left, I stumbled into the pack house.Anna pushed me down onto the couch. I held a large hand over my abdomen to hold the bleeding wound closed, my chest rising and falling quickly. As Anna scrambled through the house to find the medical supplies, I took a deep breath, bit my tongue, and slipped my fingers down into the gash. I felt around my insides to try to find the bullet, but it was lodged too deep.When Anna came back over to me, she stared at me in horror. “What are you doing?!” she exclaimed, pushing my hands out of the way and using a utensil to slide into my wound. “You have to be careful! You can’t just poke around inside there.”Within a few moments, Anna clamped down on the bullet with the utensil, winced, and slowly pulled the bullet out of me. She dropped it into a small dish, then cleaned the wound with some alcohol and some potion that we had bought from witches who lived down in Bloodmoon.“What did they lace this bullet with?” Anna asked, picking the piece of
Once Elise left, I eyed Lucas’s pocket, where he had hidden that circular loop thing that all the guys had been exchanging on our walk over here. Thankfully, the tavern wasn’t as busy as it was at night, so we had the whole corner to ourselves, and they could do whatever the hell they were planning.“All right, well … we gotta use the restroom.”“All four of you at once?” I asked when they all stood.They didn’t even answer me as they walked through the tavern to the restroom together, like they were part of some sort of cult or something. Pissed off, I angrily tapped my foot on the ground and stared at the men’s restroom door. I shifted in my seat, rubbing my thighs together and feeling the wetness between them already. My underwear tightened around my hips, and I discreetly tried to loop my finger around it to make it a bit looser.But when I tugged, it tightened even more, almost as if it was locked on to me.Breath catching in my throat, I glanced back up at the restroom and tugge