Quinn Troy looked up from his phone when I entered the tent. He smiled at me and put his phone aside. He smelled fresh and clean after his shower, and looked delicious in just his shorts. I was lucky. The woman, the human that made my skin crawl so much, made me realise just how lucky I was. I could have ended up as Nathanial Hawthorne’s wife, and if everything everyone told me were true, I would have been that man’s killing machine, not his breeder. Troy opened his legs and patted the air mattress in front of him. “How was your shower?” he asked. “Freezing cold and miserable,” I said. I didn’t need to tell him that I felt like running away the whole time. The other women in the ablution, some of them wolves, kept trying to talk to me. I didn’t mind the wolves so much, but the humans made me deeply uncomfortable. I kept waiting for one of them to throw an insult my way or to trip me as I walked across the slippery bathroom floor. I kicked my wet flip-flops off, and crawled up the
Troy When I brought up the topic of murdering Cher Nixon, I did not expect any resistance from Quinn. I felt her bloodlust earlier, the intense need to kill something. It was partly the approaching full moon, but mostly it was because of everything that had happened with her family's unexpected visit. I have had the urge to kill just so I could feel better, and I knew exactly what my mate was going through and how to help her. If Quinn allowed Salome out now, she’d go straight to Cher and kill her without thinking twice. An angry, emotional, homicidal werewolf was a dangerous werewolf, and if she didn’t get it out of her system, Quinn could turn on someone she loved. I should have taken her into the woods to shift a few times before the full moon. It would have made the last month so much easier on her, taught her how to control Salome better. Even I needed to shift, needed to set my animal free from time to time - it restored our equilibrium. “I thought you don’t kill women and ch
Troy The day passed too fast. Even Quinn relaxed and enjoyed herself. The warriors stayed closed to the she-wolves in case they needed us, but we kept our distance when they went to the rock pools to swim and play like children. Even the strictest of my warriors smiled when he saw his mate frollicking in the water. Not all of them were fated, but all of them loved their mates. That was the future I wanted for our kind. A normal life, with normal concerns. Not that endless war. Not mothers sending their children off to die in another wolf's war. Not mates waking up to find that their husbands and wives died during the night. I wanted peace so bad, and it was so close I could taste it. Quinn broke away from the pack and came to sit with me on the blanket I had spread out under a big tree that groaned like an old man in the wind. “Why don’t you join us?” she asked. “I thought you liked the water.” “You didn’t invite us in.” “You need an invitation?” I nodded. “In this case yes. Whe
Quinn Even as I walked up to Cher, I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to kill her. My human morals were getting in the way. But when she called her daughters little shits, I lost control of Salome for a few seconds, and she tackled the human to the ground before I could stop her. When I had Cher on her back, I looked up at Troy who had shifted back to human so he could taunt the woman. I wanted to know why she didn’t just leave. If she hated them so much, why didn’t she just leave? But Troy didn’t ask the question, and I couldn’t shift back no matter how hard I tried. It was a question that would forever go unanswered. I just wanted my mate's permission. I wanted him to reassure me that it would be okay, that I could kill her because she deserved to die after the things she'd done. “Go ahead,” Troy said. “Rip her throat out.” When I looked back to the human she became everyone I hated. My mother who hurt me so many times, all the Carolines and Freddies that took so much pleasure in
Quinn Monsters. That man on the path called us monsters. He was right. Were there truly any good people on this planet? It seemed to me that all we did was hurt each other, regardless of our species. We just got a kick out of killing and maiming. Casper and Lucas stayed right behind me as I walked across the camp, oblivious to the blood-soaked mud squelching under my feet and the cries of pain Troy tore from the incapacitated wolves. Good. I hoped they suffered. It was the child that spurred me onwards. A little girl, no older than two, dripping with blood. They left her there with her dead parents. She was on her knees, her hands on her mom's shoulders as she fruitlessly tried to shake her awake. “Mama! Mama! Wade up! Wade up! Linke hungy. Linke scawed. Pleade wade up!” she turned to her father. "Dada! Mama won't wade up." Oh, my heart. When I reached her, she looked up at me with her bloody little face, the tears barely able to wash the blood away. I bent over and she immed
Troy “You’re home earlier than expected,” Sebastian said when we got out of the car. "I thought you wouldn't be home until tomorrow." The others detoured to the camp in the woods so they could leave their mates with the pack, and I already felt Quinn’s longing to have her friends back and by her side. She-wolves needed other she-wolves, and I had no idea why I didn't remember that. “We ran into some problems," I replied. "The Northern wolves…obliterated the humans where we camped out.” Sebastian’s mouth dropped open. “They what?” “They killed them all. Even the rogues.” "Because you were there?" I shook my head, and looked over at Quinn. Her eyes were swollen and red. She was pale and quiet. She was used to violence, she accepted that I killed people, but in her mind, they all deserved it. The people at the campgrounds did not deserve to die. What broke her for good was when we stopped at the police station in Haverton to had over the child. I told the police a cock and bull st
Troy “Where the hell are we supposed to go, Bailey,” Aron snarled at me. I looked the arrogant noble up and down, completely unbothered by his aggression. “I told you…you are welcome to camp out on my property, but my people are coming home. I gave you a month, and you did nothing. You didn’t attempt to find employment, you didn’t contribute to the household. You just…sat here.” “Employment?” Morgan asked. “You want us to go out there and work? Like commoners?” “I did it,” I said. “I worked like a fucking donkey to fund your stupid war, to make sure you could cling to your precious status and your crumbling little empires.” I let my words hang in the air for a while before I went on. “What did my father promise you? When he told you to burn down your homes and your farms. What did he promise you return?” The nobles exchanged uncomfortable looks but no one answered me. “Yes, I know about that. I know everything. You forgot what you made. You’ve forgotten what I am.” “Prince,” Mo
QuinnI had no idea why Troy suddenly wanted to talk about our bedroom activities. We went from being deadly serious, to talking about sex in an instant. It reminded me of that day when we came home from the castle – except on that day, we went from talking about sex to more serious things without so much as skipping a beat.Maybe that was just how it went when you were a prince slash crime boss slash husband. You took the five minutes at your disposal to talk to your wife about how boring your sex life had become.I went down the list that he marked as hard no’s. It was all neatly typed up without a single mistake – not so much as a comma or space were out of place.It felt a little like a business transaction. Granted it was a very intimate business transaction, and I could tell that Troy took it seriously.It was the hard no for voyeurism that caught my attention. I had no idea why that one in particular piqued my interest so much. But it was there, and now that it was I couldn't