Jane’s POVI forced myself to smile, trying desperately to stop my uncontrollable tears.“No, that’s not it.” Hunter frowned, seemingly overwhelmed. “My apology came from the heart, Jane, I promise.”“I need the antidote for your own good,” he went on. “Amy can’t die – at least not right now.”“Yeah, Amy is your Luna. I get it.” I sniffled. “She’s higher up the pack than me. Her life is worth so much more than mine. It’s me who should die!” I met his gaze unfalteringly, though tears carved my pain down my cheeks. “I’m sorry I’m not dead,” I spat.“No, that’s not what I meant. I’m doing this for you, not her. Amy’s death will bring you and your kids a lot of trouble.” He shifted in his seat, his eyes darting from me to the squeaky linoleum floor, as if he were uncomfortable with this conversation. Well – he’d been the one to start it; if he was uncomfortable, so be it.“I’m not afraid of trouble,” I said levelly, trying to hold his gaze, “I want her dead. She tried to strangle Ares.
Jane’s POV‘Oh my god,’ I breathed. ‘Ina?’A silver wolf had burst from within me. I stared down at her, completely dumbfounded. ‘What? Hang on – did you say Alpha? I’m an Omega. I’m Jane, and I already have a wolf. Her name is Nina, which is one more letter than yours…’ I shook my head. ‘Who are you?’‘What? You already have a wolf? Then how can I be here for you? The Moon Goddess sent me here – well, okay, actually, I just got attracted to the smell of pizza and went over to smell it… but I’m sure that’s what she wanted me to! Now I’ve found you, my Alpha, and as you can see,’ she fluttered her lashes, ‘I’m just a beautiful Alpha she-wolf.’ She lifted her head to the sky and howled.‘But I… I did have my wolf, on the night I turned eighteen.’ I stammered over the words, so dazed and confused that I felt numb all over. ‘Her name is – was? – Nina. I’m sure it wasn’t you…’I was struck with worry about Nina. She’d been gone for so long. Had she got the wrong person and end up being som
Jane’s POV‘No!’ I roared.Ina leapt down, trying to grab my boys, but she was too late.Reg was faster. He jumped, grabbed them in his front paws, and then rolled onto his back, cushioning their fall. Protected by his thick fur, Ares and Owen were fine.It didn’t slow the furious beating of my heart, though. I kept picturing them falling, kept imagining what would’ve happened if Reg hadn’t been quick enough to save them. I shuddered.A beat later, I realised that Ina was falling. She smashed into the ground beside Reg, whimpered, and scampered to her feet. Reg rolled over and put the two pups beside S’s wolf. The Shadows crowded around us, blocking out the daylight on all sides.‘Sorry, Jane!’ chirped Ina.My heart sank. ‘For what?’‘I’m going to leave!’ With that, she pounced away in the opposite direction to the hospital. She slammed into one of Hunter’s Shadows, knocking them to the ground, and then her paws struck the grass fast and she pounded away. ‘Without your babies.’Reg wa
Jane’s POV“So she is you!” Hunter stepped closer to me, his upper lip curling. “S, tell the Shadows they can stop searching.”Why couldn’t he just leave me alone? The second I saw him step out of my house, my anger burned white-hot; it blazed through me like an inferno. I just wanted one moment of peace. He was always around, always getting involved where he wasn’t needed or wanted. He’d poisoned our children – and now, what? Was he going to arrest me? Kill me? I bared my teeth at him.Ina shifted out again, my anger filling her veins. ‘What?’ she gasped. ‘Those are your children with him? You had them together?’ She struggled to get her mind round it. ‘How could he try to kill them?’She howled at him. It was no greeting; it was the bloodthirsty sound of vengeance.Hunter was so calm. Too calm. Ina gnashed her teeth, sizing him up; he looked right back at us, staring through Ina as if he was trying to use x-ray vision to see through her into me.He took another step towards us. I fel
Jane’s POV“Hunter, are you sure?” I looked up, holding his gaze as I worried my bottom lip. “Do we really have to do this?”He covered my eyes again. “Don’t look at me like that. Your eyes are cute, but I don’t want to trust them right now.” I felt his weight shift as he leant in, pressing his lips to mine gently. He didn’t bite or suck; he just kept them there, their pressure feather-light.I knew he was waiting for me to make the decision. Pushing up onto my tiptoes, I peeled his hands away from my eyes. “Okay,” I breathed, swallowing a lump in my throat. “I’ll give you what you want, and you’ll keep your promise.”As I wound my arms around his neck, I was hit again with how tall he was. I ran my fingertips over his broad shoulders, wetting my lips in anticipation; he grabbed me by the waist, tugging my body flush to his. My kisses followed the path of his arched neck – I left a blazing trail of tender kisses to the knot of his throat, scraping my teeth lightly over the sensitive
Hunter’s POVWhen I held Amy and saw Jane’s cold blue eyes, I knew she’d misunderstood. But it didn’t matter if she hated me – not if she was alive. That was all that mattered to me right now. I had to keep her safe.This was my fault. I never should have shown my interest in her so blatantly, especially not in front of Amy. That was why she’d ended up tangled in the knot of my mess.Jane was just an Omega. She wasn’t able to defend herself the way I could. Hell, Ivan’s silver spike could’ve killed her. He could’ve done it with less – even a bloody nail ripped from the fence. She had no idea what she was up against.I bit back a sigh. Reg, however, let out a loud sigh, uncaring who heard. My heart pinched at the sound. I’d never seen him look so sad. ‘What are you sighing for? Didn’t you want to try and make her hate me? Well, now she does.’He sighed again, even more dramatically this time. ‘Well, Hunter, I was trying to make her see flaws in you to more clearly show the good in me.
Hunter’s POVI went back to my apartment to wash the blood from my body. But even the soothing hot water of the shower couldn’t cleanse the stains from my memory. My blood mixed with Carl’s and Ivan’s, and I watched with an old ache in my heart as it swirled down the plughole.I hated to let myself bleed in the middle of a fight. It took me back to my nightmares, and I struggled to claw my way back out of them. Since I’d left home, my insomnia had only worsened. Memories, blurred at the edges but sharp where I least wanted them to be, plagued me in the quiet, lonely hours of the night.My reflection eyed me coldly in the gleaming metal of the shower. I stared at it listlessly, helplessly, wondering if I deserved to be haunted by the ghosts of my past.I’d never had the strength to avenge her and, with no way to kill my father, I’d allowed myself to take the coward’s way out, pretending he didn’t exist rather than facing him like the Alpha I was.But the things that Ivan had done remin
Hunter’s POVThousands of thoughts flashed through my mind. I tried to make sense of what I’d seen, tried to understand what it meant for me, but I kept circling back to my father. If I were him, why would I have done this? And what would I do now? My head pounded, the weight of my unanswered questions slamming full force against my skull.I was almost relieved when S spoke, his calm voice cutting through my inner turmoil. “Alpha, the doctor said Luna Amy is in a very bad state. Without the antidote, both she and her baby could die.”That was a problem I could solve. “Right,” I said, forcibly relaxing my tensed shoulders. I had to put Ivan and the butt-birthmark mystery aside. Amy and the baby needed me.And I needed that baby, too. He could be useful to me. Shameful though it was, I had to use him. I had to use him to find out who Ava’s kidnappers really were, and to work out what they wanted.“S, are Ava and the two boys okay?” I asked, heading to the stairs and away from the blood
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