Jane’s POVToo angry to sit around doing nothing, I went to confront S. Ina was worryingly quiet about the matter of him saying he was my mate, and the fact that he’d told Hunter, of all people, made me wonder if he truly believed it.It didn’t take me long to find him. I asked an Omega if they’d seen him, one I didn’t recognise from before, thankfully, and she hid a giggle behind her hand and said everyone knew where he was, which made a change.She pointed me out into the gardens, and I saw him immediately. He was lying on the grass, surrounded by broken glass, blood soaking into the earth beneath him.“S?” I called out to him, breaking into a jog. What the heck had happened to him?He groaned, pulling himself up. “I’m fine,” he started to say, and then his head jerked back so he could look at me. His throat jumped. “You came to find me,” he murmured.“Uh… yeah, I guess I did.” I dug the toe of my boot into the ground. “S, what happened?”He shook glass out of his hair and stood up.
Jane’s POVI pulled back, not letting his lips touch mine, then moved back more slowly, forcing an apologetic smile onto my lips in place of his kiss. “I’m sorry,” I muttered, chewing on the inside of my cheek and glancing over at my sons.“No, I’m the one who should be sorry.” His throat bobbed. “And, just to clarify, in case it wasn’t obvious, although I did think it was obvious–“My smile pulled a little wider. “Just tell me, Colin,” I said.“I’m sorry,” he finished, blushing as red as his hair. “I know you’ve been through a lot. I don’t… I don’t know what came over me.” He shrugged, displacing his mug of tea and sloshing it across the tray.I leapt up and rushed into the en-suite, grabbing a hand towel in my hurry and blotting the spill. “There,” I said, gesturing weakly at the mess pooling atop the silk bedding. I met his eyes.His lips twitched.I looked back at the bed. God, it was awful – a half-soaked towel, stained with tea, and the spill still seeping across the covers.Co
Jane’s POVI felt uneasy as we walked outside, heading to the westernmost part of the pack. I was on edge with every step, expecting someone to start pointing and laughing at me, to call me a stupid Omega, to hit me, to whip me, to kick me.It was worse still when I watched my sons running around in the long grass. They looked so carefree, so unaware of the danger that lurked in every person that passed. This place was hell on earth. I couldn’t believe I had failed them so badly that they’d ended up here.It didn’t look like hell today, though. There was gossamer summer sunshine casting everything in a golden glow. People smiled at me politely, even bowed their heads respectfully, as they passed. But over the top of the reality I was seeing, memories of the past kept flashing by. There was nothing but sun on the grass one minute and snow the next. I felt myself making this same journey on all fours, labour cramps killing me slowly as I dragged my weak body across the frozen ground.
Jane’s POVWe fell into a routine of resentment as the days we were forced to spend at the Storm pack turned into weeks. Well – when I said we, I meant me. In truth, I’d never seen my sons so happy. Except maybe for when they’d broken Ed’s windows, but that wasn’t the sort of happiness that could bloom and grow into something lasting. This, though? This was.For the first time, they had a real home. There was always food on the table, other kids to play with, and a warm bed to fall into at night. I spent the summer reading to them, laughing with them, and I almost hated Hunter a little less when I saw how happy my boys were. Almost – but not quite.Alpha Colin, to keep up the pretence that he was my mate, had moved into the bedroom with us. We’d been given a new, larger one, that was somehow even grander than the first. My boys had their own, separate, adjoining room, which they loved. We’d never had this much space before.Colin had insisted he sleep on the floor. I’d offered to tak
Ava’s POVI am Ava Burns – maybe. My daddy, Hunter Burns, was one of the most powerful Alphas to have ever lived. My mommy, Amy Walter, was his Luna. Every member of the Storm and Riverrock packs loved me, because they believed I was my father’s saviour. Or so they wanted me to think. I knew they were lying to me, that they hid their hatred behind their snide smiles and saccharine-sweet remarks. It wasn’t just the pack wolves, either; I thought my own mom hated me, too. She managed to hide it sometimes, usually in public, but I often caught her looking at me with disgust in her pretty green eyes. My eyes were blue. I wished I had Mommy’s eyes, not Daddy’s.I never understood why until I heard Mommy and Daddy arguing one day. My mom’s voice was so shrill, so harsh, that I’d cowered into a corner, huddled into a ball, and pressed my palms to my ears in fear. I’d rocked back and forth, trying to drown out the sound of her rage.Daddy had stood up for me. He’d always been there for me;
Jane’s POVI patted Ava awkwardly on the back. I wanted to lift her into my arms and tell her everything would be all right, but I didn’t want Amy to get any more clues about my true identity. If I acted like I knew Ava at all, surely she’d guess there was more to me than met the eye?But Amy seemed so annoyed at her daughter that she barely spared me so much as a glance.“Oh, I’m so sorry, Luna Eremita. Come on, Ava,” Amy scolded her, tugging her off my leg and pushing her towards the classroom. “She’s a clinger, this one. Terrified of starting school, too.”I smiled tightly. “Well, that’s understandable. School can seem scary.”“Not for the daughter of an Alpha and Luna, it shouldn’t.” She arched a neat eyebrow at me and then nodded to my boys. “They don’t seem scared.”“I’m excited!” said Ares with a bright grin. “See, Ava? You don’t have anything to worry about. Now go inside.”Amy shoved Ava before grabbing my arm and towing me away. My belly swooped with nerves. Where was she t
Jane’s POV“What I mean to say is, I know how you feel about him – because I’ve found myself looking at Hunter that way, too. That’s how I know you’ll understand and, to be honest, why I wanted to talk to you about this. Everyone else I know with a mate is so smitten it makes me sick.”Oh.I was quick to carry on lifting the little bottle of poison, directing it to my own lips instead of hers. That was a sure-fire way to give my identity away if there had ever been one.I took a small sip, safe in the knowledge that I’d built up a resistance to it and would feel none of its effects, and pocketed it once more. “I thought the two of you made a perfect couple,” I lied.She frowned at me, her eyes following the path the poison had just taken. “What is that?”“Headache medication,” I lied smoothly. “I get a lot of migraines, so Daisy makes them up for me. I have two six-year-old boys,” I said with a smile and a shrug.She wrinkled her pretty face. “I suppose that is the one benefit of Ava
Jane’s POVI went very, very still.It was impossible not to react to that, even though my mind was screaming at me to stay in character, to laugh it off, to mock this idiot Omega who’d let herself be tricked by the ever-so-clever Luna Amy. I’d been… hypnotised? How? By whom? When?The other question was much harder to consider, but it seemed even more important than those.Had I ever truly hated Hunter? Or had it all been because of Amy?I realised I hadn’t said anything, hadn’t even breathed, so I forced a too-loud laugh and touched Amy on the arm. “No, you didn’t!” I said, the sound shrill and desperate. I laughed more to try to cover it up.“I did.” She grinned, her eyes wicked. “It was so easy, too. She moved to Moonrise City after spending years hiding out in the human world with her two sons.” Something in her gaze flickered as she said it; my heart dropped. “You have two sons…” she said softly.I had to own it. I wrinkled my nose. “I’m glad that’s the only similarity I bear t
Jane’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
Hunter’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
Jane’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
Jane’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
Jane’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
Jane’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
Hunter’s POVEverything moved in a blur. My eyes were fixed on my father, his mutated wolf filling my field of vision as he moved swiftly towards me. But, from the corner of my eye, a sudden burst of movement snagged my gaze.Jane sat bolt upright. She looked like a zombie, her wounds unhealed, her eyes blank – but she was moving, scrambling to grab the kids, crying out my name as my attention was forced back onto my dad.His jagged claws caught the edge of my shoulder. I shifted out before he could claim the upper hand, letting Reg’s powerful body burst out of mine.My father sneered down at me. The knobbed ridge of his spine seemed to snap as he bent low, his sickly orange eyes meeting mine. I could smell his stale breath. “You always were weak,” he said, his voice a hollow growl. It didn’t sound like it had; it was all wolf, vicious and as broken as he was.Suddenly, I wasn’t a grown man, a strong Alpha, a mate, standing before a weak and unwell old man who had clearly gone to desp
Hunter’s POVIt was too late. My hand was on the doorknob and it was already swinging open.There was no turning back now. Reg wailed. ‘I can smell her blood! Jane’s hurt! Jane’s dying! Jane’s dead!’The buzzing in my ears drowned out his mournful howls. Everything was moving in slow motion as I finished easing open the door. I took it all in whilst observing nothing other than the most heart-breaking thing I’d seen since… since...The present was so horrifying it eclipsed even my darkest memories.Jane was lashed securely to a metal table. My heart broke and, somewhere through the haze of my heartache, all I could think was: she must be so cold.Her limbs stuck out at odd angles. Blood covered her. But worst of all was her face. It was empty. It was like someone had made a perfect physical copy of her but had left out the most important part: her soul. The waxy figurine atop the metal table looked like Jane, broken and bruised but still my Jane, only without the bright spark of de
Hunter’s POVI expected for my world to spin off its axis at those words – but it didn’t. In fact, I felt very little. Nothing at all.I’d never clicked with Obie. I’d always been drawn to Ava but never to him. In my mind, she’d been my daughter and Obie had been Amy’s son. Huh. Now I knew why.That was why I fixed Carl with a cold stare and said flatly, “I know.”Compared to the other revelations I’d been through lately – hell, even in just the last few hours – this barely made me bat an eye. Maybe it was because I cared about Jane and Ava and her sons, but maybe it was because, deep down, I really didn’t care about Amy or Obie. ‘Hunter!’ gasped Reg. ‘How can you think that about a poor, innocent baby?’‘That’s the thing. I don’t think anything about him. Anyway, he’s nothing to do with me. Not really. That takes the matter out of my hands, don’t you think?’Reg muttered under his breath that I was horrible and unfeeling, and that was probably also true, but I still couldn’t make my