Hunter's POVEven pinning down my own Beta felt like a game of cat and mouse. Carl was avoiding me, though the Moon Goddess only knew why. He sent me obviously edited photos of himself by gold mines, grinning at the camera and throwing up peace signs, with messages attached to the pictures that claimed he was working hard, not hardly working, and that he’d be back once his trip with the R group had concluded.We’d always been good friends, but lately something had changed between us. I knew there was one sure-fire way to get my old buddy back to the Storm pack, though.If Amy were in danger, he’d be here in a heartbeat. I just had to lay my trap and wait.* * *It was getting harder and harder for me to ignore Jane. She didn’t seem bothered by my absence at all, and I’d taken to skulking around my own pack like a spy to try to catch a glimpse of her.My heart tugged whenever I saw her with her sons. She looked at them the way I looked at Ava. She looked at them the way I didn’t look
Jane’s POVI froze.Because if I took another step, I didn’t know what I would do. Since Ina had gone, my feelings for Hunter had been more muddled than ever. The mate bond was stronger – but my hatred for him hadn’t dissipated. I loved and loathed him in equal measure and, as he came towards me, my belly swooped and my heart leapt and my hands curled into fists, ready to punch.“Hunter,” I said, my voice too low, too sultry, for him to think it anything other than what it was: a plea.He smirked at me. “Luna Eremita.”I pressed my lips together into a flat line. “Don’t call me that.”“I’m doing it to keep you safe.” He paused. “I’m keeping you safe.” His blue eyes hardened. It struck me anew how stupid I’d been, not to realise Alpha Colin had been him back in the desert. I knew him so well.But he’d been emotional then, and his brown eyes had been warm and soft. It was like the wall had gone up again the second he’d stepped back into his own skin.See? I should hate him. He’d tricke
Jane’s POVThe kiss was electric. He groaned against me, like a man lost that had finally been found. His hands were everywhere the second they touched me, firm but gentle, desperate but considerate. Sparks flew in my heart.Sparks that kindled the fire burning in my belly.I grabbed his hair – that perfectly tousled dark hair – and yanked his mouth against mine, harder, harder, harder, feeling the clash of our teeth and the soft press of his lips. His tongue slipped in, probing, careful, and I met it with vigour.This was nothing like the sweet, playful kisses we’d shared as Jane and Colin. He was Hunter now, and I Eremita, and Eremita, as it turned out, was seriously angry.And seriously turned on.The clash going on within me mirrored the clash of our external bodies. My heart and throbbing core were aching for him, but my brain was screaming at me to hurt him or get out. The hatred in me relished in every painful pull of his hair, in the way my fingers curled into it and tugged h
Jane’s POVOwen slapped a hand over Ares’s mouth. “Mommy,” he said, overly loudly, glaring at his brother, “what’s going on?”Shame crawled up my spine. What the fuck had I been doing? I hated Hunter, I hadn’t forgiven him – and yet I’d been so desperate for him that I hadn’t even thought to lock the damn door.My cheeks burned as I slipped off of him. “Boys, can you give me a minute?”Hunter yanked the duvet off the bed and used it to cover us both. For a split second – a tiny, single, infinitesimal second – I felt like we were their parents. Both of us, acting together as a team. Sure, it was the worst of circumstances – but for that second, it was kind of… nice.I’d never had a teammate in this. It had always been my boys and I against the world. I’d had to shoulder that responsibility entirely by
Jane’s POVI put my hand over her arm and leant in close, my eyes darting around the grounds to make sure we weren’t being overheard. “What did you hear?”She shook her head; she too was looking around, and the tension swelling around us made the tiny hairs on my forearms stand up. The warm, early autumn air suddenly turned chilled. “Let’s find somewhere we won’t be overheard,” she whispered.I nodded, then pursed my lips as I thought through our options. “We can’t go back to my rooms. The boys are there, and,” my face flamed red, “it’s prone to interruptions.”“We could go back to mine?” she suggested. “S is working, and it’s so secluded by the woods that, now the excitement of us becoming mates has died down, we don’t get many visitors.” She eyed my blush, having only just noticed it. “Are you okay, girl?”That only made it grow darker. I couldn't get thoughts of Hunter out of my head. I could still feel his electric touch, the heat of his body pressing against mine...I forced them
Jane’s POV“She – I – wait – Amy – she – what?” I blinked at Rose. Everything looked fuzzy and warped. My hands and feet went numb and the rest of me froze solid.How could she know?And, more importantly – if she knew, what was she playing at? She’d had so many chances to hurt me, kill me, drug me, and…Oh my god, had she drugged me? That night, in the bar? The same night I’d come back and I’d felt such powerful lust towards Colin?I dropped my head into my hands and groaned. “Oh my god.”“Girl, you’re spiralling,” said Rose, hopping off her stool and hugging me. I leant into her embrace as splinters of ice cracked through my body. I felt like I was being torn apart from within.“What did she say?” I asked eventually, my voice hollow.Rose pulled back and sat
Hunter’s POV‘You really think this is going to work?’ I asked Reg.He nodded firmly. ‘Trust me.’Rolling my eyes at him, I thought to myself that I’d be wiser to trust Pinocchio when his nose was elongated. But I did it anyway. I didn’t have much choice.If this was what I needed to do to win Jane back, then I would do it. I lifted my hand and knocked on the door, calling out the boys’ fake names for good measure.“I’m here for Ramil and Cargan Bree.”If I knew Jane as well as I thought I did, then I knew she’d heard my knock and was, most likely, already up and stood waiting, with her sons already ready to go. She was the most prepared woman I’d ever met; that was why I liked to throw curveballs her way. Seeing how she deflected them was always interesting.Or at least it had been, until she’d put a stop to seeing me altogether. That defensive tactic hadn’t been my favourite.This was my way back in. It had to be.She’d already slipped up yesterday. I couldn’t stop thinking about it
Hunter’s POVI felt like I had something big and sharp and unbearably painful lodged in my throat. Ares had shifted into his wolf form now and was proudly strutting about but the image of that birthmark was burned onto my retinas and it obliterated everything else I could really see.Ares had the birthmark that every Burns boy had. Nobody had ever been able to explain it beyond a weird genetic quirk, but every single one of us, from our bloodline, had that birthmark on their butt.So why did Ares have it?It didn’t make any sense to me.Unless…But no.The timings didn’t make sense. Jane and I… my memories were hazy. Truly hazy, not like when I’d been pretending to have lost my memory in the desert. Had Jane and I had sex back then? I didn’t remember ever having sex with her; I just remembered being drawn to her in a way I couldn’t explain, but nothing more. Reg, of course, loved her, had been mad for her, but that didn’t add up to a kid that could potentially be mine.Or did it?Reg