CILLIANSunlight poured through the boughs of the trees. The beams of light illuminated the dust particles, turning the forest into a magical place. It awed me that the forest could seem so innocent and serene despite the danger lurking not too far away. The cool mountain water flowing through the river was a nice reprieve.But even the serenity of the forest didn’t stop my mind from drifting to Kenzie and Blue. It seemed like such an unusual alliance. Blue didn’t seem intelligent enough for Kenzie. Not that the guy wasn’t smart, but his happy-go-lucky demeanor contrasted with Kenzie’s mental focus. Then again, it could be why she found him so alluring.I swam to the riverbank and shook the water out of my hair. I could hear Ciara in my head, making a comment about how I didn’t have to act like a dog. Luckily, she wasn’t there to see me. Just thinking about her being here with me filled me with a longing so great, I was desperate to see her. But the pack came first. I couldn’t waste m
Ipulled in a deep breath. The heady scent of sex filled my nostrils and saturated the small office. Cillian’s breathing was heavy and stifling on my neck, and I shifted slightly on his lap to lift my drowsy head. I giggled as I stared at him. “I don’t know about you,” he said, breathlessly, “but I’ve never had sex with a politician before.” “I’m not the mayor,” I said as I ran my fingers through his hair. I loved that I could have him whenever I wanted. There was a comfort about that—to being able to give myself to him. He’d always be there for me and always know what was going on inside of me, even if I wasn’t entirely sure myself. Cillian was a rock that I could bet my hopes and dreams on, and I knew it would never rust or deteriorate. “But you could be if you wanted the position,” Cillian said. I shook my head. It was hard for me to tell if he was hunting for a reason to keep me here, or if he really believed that I could manage both Argentum and Moon Valley. “I’m not Wonder W
CILLIAN “Oh, God. Blue. Please wake up,” I heard through the closed door. I quickly pushed my great-aunt’s door open to find Kenzie raking her hand over her upper lip. Her eyes were deep red as silver streaks of tears ran down her cheeks. She whipped her head up the second the screen door slammed behind me. “Kenzie, what happened?” I asked as I rushed over to her. Blue’s breathing was ragged and strained. I pressed my ear to his chest and listened to his heart as Kenzie shot up and rushed to the cabinets. “I told him not to touch anything,” she said as she pushed aside the different dried herbs in the cabinets. “I swear, I just turned for a second and came back to find him like this.” “Kenzie, you’re the healer. You have to focus. Push past whatever feelings you have for him and think. What did you use when I was in this position? Before you had the detox formula.” Kenzie trembled as she dropped her hand. She sucked in air in short bursts. “I can’t remember.” “Yes, you do,” I to
Ilifted the shot glass and downed it as Torque moved to Cillian’s side and gave him a hearty pat on the back. “Look,” Torque said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I know I was a bit of an ass back at the house, and I’m sorry. But you know how it is when you have people’s lives under your command.” Everyone’s eyes shifted to Cillian, and I felt his wolf puffing up. It was almost like filling a balloon to maximum capacity. Cillian glanced over to me for a moment before he wrapped his arm around Torque and gave him a brotherly hug. “We all do crazy things sometimes in the heat of the moment,” Cillian said. “I’m just glad nothing serious happened to Blue.” “As if there were any doubt about Kenzie’s mad skills,” AP said. “I hate to say it, buddy, but I think Kenzie might even have surpassed Lourdes. We all saw how she handled Blue in his most savage state. She held her own.” “Who’s that?” Blue asked as Sam poured another round of drinks. “Cillian’s grandmother,” Kenzie said. “She
CILLIAN The tension in the bar gave me a headache. It pulsed between my shoulder blades and ran up my neck. I rubbed my temples, trying to rub the pain away, but I knew it wasn’t going anywhere—not with so much going on. In the far reaches of my mind, I felt Ciara. She wasn’t trying to poke or prod me, nor was she trying to soothe me. I didn’t want her to. The fact that she’d directly disobeyed my order to stand down irked me. She was at the far end of the bar, coddling Colleen with Ella and Sam as Torque and Hatchett sat at the other end, closer to the door. It was strange to know that only last night our two packs had been united, now the rift between us strained the plans. How could I trust them if they didn’t respect us? “What else do you know about the compound in the woods?” I heard Ciara asking Colleen as I moved to the booth to sit next to Ciara while keeping an eye on the Steel Lycans. “You okay?” I asked Colleen. She shrugged. “It’s been a long day.” “Don’t worry about
“AP, adjust your camera down a bit,” Holden said. I hovered over his shoulder, staring at the computer screen, chewing my lower lip as the cameras came online. “Good, down just a bit more… there. Perfect,” Holden said as he tested the various settings. My heart pounded as I leaned back and crossed my arms over my chest. This wasn’t the first time I’d joined in on a mission, but it was the first time I had so much at stake. I tried to push out my emotions and focus on the tasks at hand, but it was hard watching my friends and family put on Argentum gear and know they were the ones going out there. “Aiden,” I called. My brother’s head whipped up, and Melody looked over at me. Aiden gave Melody a quick peck on the cheek and walked over to me. I studied him. It seemed like just yesterday he was a boy, running around our parents’ living room in a diaper. “Keep your head on a swivel,” I told him. I grabbed one of the filtration devices off the table and handed it to him. He glanced at
CILLIAN “Cillian!” Ciara’s voice crackled through the speaker of the walkie as I stared at the line of men and women marching toward my town. My heart pounded in my chest, and it felt as if time slowed to the crawl of a snail. “Cillian!” Ciara continued to scream. “Please, whatever it is you’re thinking about doing—” I clicked to a different frequency. She’d be pissed as all hell, but I needed to concentrate. Members of the Greyclaw pack stood side by side with the Moon Valley police force. But I knew just by the sheer size of the Raze’s numbers that we were outnumbered one to twelve. Even at my best, I could only handle five at a time. Ciara’s presence in the back of my mind rattled me as I rushed to the convenience store and took cover around the building. I needed to get my thoughts together. Rubbing my temples to ease the headache mounting behind my eyes, I tried to think. Pushing Ciara out of my head and blocking her off was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do in my life. Th
Terror ripped through the thin fibers of my being. I didn’t know what to do as I stared at the computer, watching in horror at the scene before me. There was no where I could look that didn’t show chaos and destruction. My beloved town of Moon Valley was being pummeled by the Raze. “Holden, where did Cillian go?” I asked as I scanned each of the screens, searching for his wolf. I could barely feel him on the edges of my mind. He seemed to be slipping away from me, but not so much that he was dead and gone, but that he was hiding. “Near the school,” Holden answered. “Let me readjust the drone to get a better view.” I couldn’t tame the frantic beating of my heart as I watched the screen. The drone flying high gave me the perfect view of Moon Valley and everything going on down on the ground. My heart went out to the Greyclaw pack as I watched them drop one by one under the Corpse Lily fog. I wished with all my might that Kenzie had made more of the lotion so we could protect more peo