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
Amy’s POVNobody could outsmart me. Nobody.And especially not an Omega.I smiled smugly as I pressed my ear to the door. Not that I needed to – Jane and Colin were being loud enough that the whole of the Storm pack could hear them. It was just like that little slut to spread her legs without a care for who was listening in.‘Or maybe it had something to do with the aphrodisiac you slipped her,’ said my wolf, Eve, her voice every bit as smug as mine.‘Maybe.’ I smiled to myself. ‘Anyway, I’ve heard enough.’‘Enough to know it worked.’ ‘That it did.’ My smile widened into a grin. ‘That it did.’* * *It had all been too easy. Jane liked to think she was a clever little thing, but I was always one step ahead. ‘One? You do yourself a disservice, Amy. You’re always at least ten steps ahead.’ ‘You’re right. It is more like ten.’I smoothed a hand over my blonde curls and met my bright green eyes in the mirror with a perfectly coy smile. I hadn’t gone to get Obie back from Daisy, or the
Jane’s POVOh my god.Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god–‘Girl, you’re giving me a headache!’ cried Ina. ‘Think something else, for the love of the Moon Goddess, pleeeease. I can’t take another second of this! So you had sex with Colin. So what? The guy is hot!‘It’s not just that,’ I replied, trying to get my jumbled, panicked thoughts in order. ‘It’s everything. It’s how drunk I got, how out of control I felt, what Amy told me, and, yeah, okay, the fact that I had sex with Colin.’I peered at him. Everything looked picturesque this morning – too picturesque, if you asked me. Golden sunlight fell across the bed in perfect slants, bringing out his freckles and making his hair shine a glossy auburn.I wanted to want him. It made sense for me to want him.But, in the cold light of day, I knew I didn’t. My heart still ached for Hunter, if I were being honest with myself. Know I knew why I’d despised him so intensely, it made me wonder if we’d had a chance at happiness tha
Hunter’s POVReg’s paws thudded hard against the earth. We were running around Lake Pear, the Alpha’s exclusive area in the Storm pack. I didn’t want to be disturbed – not today.Not after Amy had told me that she’d overheard the new Luna having sex with Colin over breakfast, her eyelashes all fluttery and a soft smirk painting her lips. She’d put it between saccharine sweet wording about how nice it was that they’d finally rekindled their passion, after the so-called Eremita had told her all about how she’d fallen out of love with her mate, but it told me two things that she hadn’t meant to let slip.The first was that Amy was trying to manipulate the fake Luna in some way.The second made me realise why that was. It was because Amy knew who Luna Eremita really was. That was a fact that made me feel sick. ‘You don’t know that for sure, Hunter,’ Reg pointed out. ‘You never really know what Amy is up to.’‘I know,’ I bit out. ‘I know her and I know what she’s up to.’ Then I barked at
Hunter’s POVThe scene that unfolded before me would confuse me later, but as I raced towards Jane, driven mad by the scent of her blood, desperate to find her, to make her safe again, I didn’t take any notice of the strange group of people surrounding her.S was there, his face almost worried, just a tiny line marking the spot between his eyebrows, a cold cloth in his hand as he rested it on her forehead. He kept looking down at her like he wasn’t sure how he felt, so I felt no remorse in knocking him aside and stealing the cloth from his hand.I almost said her real name. Almost. But a crowd was gathering around the immediate circle surrounding Jane, so I managed to force out, “Luna Eremita,” instead of saying Jane. A woman I vaguely recognised stepped forward, but I took no notice of her in my panic. “Alpha Hunter,” she said, a little breathlessly. “She was coming towards me and she just collapsed.”The twin boys jumped up and down. “Alpha, we don’t know what’s wrong with her!” cr