Owen’s POVMommy was in her own head that night. She didn’t let us see her upset, but we weren’t stupid. Something had really hurt her feelings. She was quiet over dinner and sat with us while we did our homework. Instead of focusing on helping us, though, she sat with her head in her hands over a blank sheet of paper. Occasionally she’d scribble something on it, only to cross it out a second later.Ares and I shared our patented Something Is Really Wrong look but didn’t say anything straight away. After a few looks, though, we asked what was wrong, but she wouldn’t say. Mommy was like that; even though we wanted to look after her, she always asserted that she was the one who looked after us.We still wanted to cheer her up, though. I didn’t like seeing her sad.So, the next morning, at Alpha training, Ares and I devised a way to solve all of our problems. It seemed so simple to us.But it turned out that we weren’t the only ones there with a plan.* * *“Good morning,” drawled Hunte
Jane’s POVI hadn’t been able to face Hunter this morning when he’d come to get the boys for Alpha training. I still felt awful about how I’d behaved last night, but it had taken everything I had not to shatter in front of them. I’d tried to help them with their homework – not that they ever really needed it – but I’d ended up staring blankly at the piece of paper I’d been planning to use to map out my muddled thoughts.In the end, I’d not even told Ares and Owen that Colin had gone. If I’d started to tell them, I would’ve cried. They didn’t deserve to have their own mother sobbing about her problems to them. Everything was hitting me all at once. I felt like I’d survived the hits I’d taken so far, like I’d managed to bounce back after each and every one, but this was the final straw for me.Even Colin had been out for himself, out to get me. After sleeping on it, I knew I had to pull myself together – and fast. After training was over, I would demand Hunter told me everything he kn
Hunter’s POVAres and Owen never showed up at Lake Pear to talk to me. I wondered if it was some sort of trick on Jane’s part, making them behave like they liked me only to spurn me later on. ‘Yeah, that could totally be it!’ said Reg. ‘I mean, they seem way too nice to do something like that, and so does Jane.’ He sighed wistfully. ‘Sweet, lovely Jane. So, no, maybe that isn’t it at all, buddy.’‘Such helpful insights as always, Reg.’‘Thanks, Hunter!’I let Reg shift out for a run around the lake. Maybe they’d got delayed, and I wanted to be here if they arrived late. But after an hour of laps and still no sign of Jane’s boys – my boys, I corrected, and felt a jolt of pure joy go through me – I decided to go back to the pack house.I trotted back, still in Reg’s form, letting him take the lead. There was a worry nagging at me, a tiny niggle at the back of my mind, but Reg’s endless, inane chatter silence it pretty effectively.‘Now I’m a daddy wolf, do I need to learn how to chang
Jane’s POVIt was my worst nightmare made manifest. ‘Nina, we have to find them. Is there any way we can track them without their scents? They must have been taken from here.’ I shook my head to myself. ‘But why were they out here? Was it training? I have to talk to Hunter.’I hated that, hated it more than anything. I didn’t want to rely on him, but I had to know more before I ran off, half-crazed, high on hope and desperation but with no plan in place. I’d wasted too much time already; my next move had to be deliberate, purposeful.Nina didn’t reply.‘Nina?’ I frowned. ‘Are you listening? We have to go, we have to find them–’Her loud howl eclipsed my words. ‘Nina?’ I tried talking to her again, but then I felt it, too.It was more potent than anything I’d felt in years. The faintest trace of an old smell, long forgotten but immediately remembered, filled my nostrils and then filtered down into the belly of my soul. It was woodsy, like pine sap and dew-damp moss, like the fresh sce
Hunter’s POV She was everything. I gripped her hair, her shoulders, her slim waist; I couldn’t get enough of her. I drove my hardness into her slick core, and it still wasn’t enough. “Jane,” I groaned, my hands clenching into fists in her perfect black hair. Her hair, the way it should be. The way it had been. I never wanted the illusion – or was it the reality? – to fade. As pretty as her new face was, it wasn’t hers. Huge blue eyes stared up at me, heated with lust, softened with love. I had never seen Jane look at me like that before, without so much as a drop of hatred in the perfect ocean of her eyes. My knees bit into the forest floor, bits of twig and dried leaf scrabbling against my skin. My muscles clenched. Sunlight spilled over our joined bodies, kissing us with its heat. “Perfect,” I grunted. “You’re – perfect.” She smirked up at me, and then her lips sought out mine again. Our tongues tangled, our hands entwined, and there, in the woods, uncaring who might see or h
Jane’s POVI felt the hold Amy’s hypnosis had on me snap the moment Hunter bit down onto the curve of my neck. His teeth dug in; blood spurted from the wound; like a burst of bright white light, it flared and then vanished.Since Nina had come back to me, it felt like I’d been taken by the hand, led towards a deep, clear lake – and away from the clutches of the hypnosis. Step by step, I’d been eased away from its cruel grip. Then, when he’d marked me as his, I’d not only reached the lake’s edge but dived right in.It had washed away everything. My innate hatred for him was gone. My heart could feel as it chose now, and it chose him.He held me. I lay, serene, in his arms, embraced by the soft heat of the mate bond as much as I was by him. I palmed his muscular chest and listened to the gentle whooshing of our breaths. In and out. In and out. In and–My sons were missing.I froze.I’d forgotten about them. In the heat of the moment, I’d completely and utterly forgotten that they were g
Jane’s POVI stared at Daisy, watching her face crumple as the truth settled into silence. It was so thick I could’ve reached out and touched it. My back went rigid and my shoulders locked.Hunter filled that silence, his voice bemused as he cut through it. “I know she’s my daughter,” he said, looking between us like he couldn’t understand why we were so tense. “You were the one who brought her to me, Daisy. You know she’s mine. I don’t understand.”I did, though.“You took her to him?” I breathed, clutching at the edge of the sofa cushions. It couldn’t be true. I had to have got the wrong end of the stick. I’d jumped to the wrong conclusion, that was all…Nina’s hackles rose as she caught on. ‘No, she didn’t,’ she denied, her voice soft but sharp as a knife. ‘She was your friend. I remember that. We went looking for her. She was your friend,’ she said again, disbelief and horror going to war in her tone.“Jane?” Hunter frowned at me, looked down at my clenched fists, tried to take my
Jane’s POVI followed Carl around to the back of the pack house. It was pretty, all rose bushes and trailing ivy, and made prettier still by the gossamer sunshine dancing across the myriad of leaves and flowers.I ignored all of that beauty. I could’ve been walking into a dark and dingy cellar for all I cared. My mind was too distracted, split apart into factions: my missing sons, my stolen daughter, Daisy herself, my mate bond with Hunter, and Nina’s arrival. Everything had happened so fast I’d barely had time to take a breath between it all. And now Carl was here. That was just great.But if I could be clever, and use my words carefully, and see if he knew anything about my taken sons, and daughter, I realised a painful heartbeat later, then this new distraction would be worth it. I hoped.My mind spun as I realised that not only my sons had been taken, but my daughter, too. In all of the hurt and betrayal I’d barely started to consider the real ramifications of Daisy’s deception.
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