Jane’s POVEvery leaden footstep I took felt like it lasted a lifetime. We went back to my bedroom. My throat bobbed as Colin sat down, the bed dipping under his weight. I wanted to push him back, to kiss him all over, to mark him as mine and claim him as my own.‘Maybe I misjudged you, girl!’ said Ina. ‘You’re as hot as a hot dog on a summer’s day for this guy. And believe me,’ she purred, ‘I don’t blame you. Those muscles?’ She licked her lips.Ina’s voice took the edge off my nerves, but it wasn’t enough. ‘Yeah,’ I admitted in a small, raspy voice to her, ‘I am. But I need to focus. This is too important, and we keep… you know… instead of discussing this.’‘Okay, I wasn’t wrong. You’ve been kissing, Jane, and you’re not even calling that by its name.’ She tutted at me. Colin cleared his throat, then reached for my hand. He held it in his lap, between both of his, and started to toy idly with my fingers, one by one. I caught my bottom lip between my teeth as he started to talk.“L
Jane’s POVI took a moment to compose myself before I flew out of the door. I smoothed my hands down over my rumpled shirt, swiped my thumb under my smeared eye makeup, and inhaled slowly. I was no use to my boys in a state of panic.“Jane?” Colin stood in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Are you all right?”“Fine. I’m fine.” I pulled my shoulders back and straightened my spine. “Come on. We need to make sure they’re okay.”He nodded. A muscle ticked in his jaw; his brown eyes narrowed. It was still strange, getting used to Alpha Colin acting like – well, acting like an Alpha. There was a depth to him sometimes that I couldn’t quite grab a hold of. It lurked under his happy-go-lucky, sweet exterior, like there was somebody else living under his skin.“I stole a phone,” he said. “I had to hide it from Keila, but I can fetch it now. You can call Ed and check on your sons. Do you know his number?”I bit my lip, then shook my head. “God, no. No, I don’t. I should’ve memoris
Jane’s POVI couldn’t lose myself to panic. I couldn’t. My sons’ lives were hanging in the balance.So I focused on what I did know and what I didn’t. Then I could start to ask the right questions. “Ed,” I stammered, “what are they doing there?”“Hell if I know! Eating my food.” He sighed. “They say they’ve been stationed in the desert by an Alpha Hunter Burns, to keep your boys safe. I made them stay outside for the first two days, but I caved and let them in on the third for dinner. I guess I have a soft spot for sad looking eyes,” he grumbled. “To keep them safe?” I repeated numbly. There was a loud ringing in my ears.“That’s what they said. I didn’t trust them, of course – but they’ve done no harm. In fact, they’ve even been helping me with my herb garden.”“Have you seen him?”“Him? Who’s him, the cat’s father?”“The… Alpha. Hunter Burns.” I felt like I was choking as I forced his name out.“Not a peep.”A loud smash rang out down the phone line. Ed cursed loudly. “Those boys!
Jane’s POVIt didn’t take Colin long to get to me. I opened the door with trembling, twitchy fingers and stepped back to let him see the teenage boy who was close to dying on Leif’s fancy silk sheets.“What–” he started to say, but I interjected with the explanation I knew he wanted.“I found something,” I whispered, jiggling the doorknob to make sure it was properly closed.“I can see that,” Colin retorted dryly.I sighed. “His name is Yuan. I don’t know how long he’s been here, but he’s in a bad state, Colin. From what I can tell, they’ve been draining his blood and doing… something, to it. I’m not sure what.” I looked up at him and held his gaze. “He needs help. I have to get him out of here, or hide him at least, but I don’t know where to take him or how to get him there when I do figure it out.” “Jane.” Colin pulled me in for a tight hug. His breath tickled my ear as he murmured, “You aren’t alone in this. I’m going to help you.”I pulled back, my relief so potent it scared me.
Jane’s POVKeila lunged towards me, the shift ripping through her as she pounced. But she didn’t strike. She leapt straight past me with a snarl, spun around – kicking the mirror off the wall and crashing her paw through the bath tub, which shattered into huge chunks of ceramic and clattered across the tiled floor – only to shift back. Her clothes drifted to the floor like dandelion seeds on the wind.“Come on, Colin,” she huffed, breezing past me and grabbing him instead. Before either of us could protest, she yanked him out of the room. I followed them numbly into the bedroom and stared after the pair of them as Keila sauntered out into the corridor, towing Colin with her.She didn’t look back. But he did.“I’m sorry,” he mouthed, his brow creasing.A lump swelled in my throat, so thick and so fast that I couldn’t even move my lips to mouth him anything in return. I wanted to follow him, but Keila’s threat was clear. But if I didn’t, what sort of fate was I condemning him too?I c
Jane’s POVI leapt up as glass shattered everywhere, slivers of silver sparkling in the moonlight as they twirled through the air towards me. I covered my face with my hands; shards sliced through my palms, slick blood coating them and dripping onto the rug. It all happened so fast that there was only shock and a spark of pain to me, the details blurred but becoming clearer as I looked up at the wolf who’d burst in through my bedroom window.I didn’t recognise the wolf. It was big – as big as an Alpha and with the angry red eyes of one, too. Its sandy fur bristled and its muzzle opened, revealing an extra row of huge, white teeth, gleaming wetly in the lamplight, set behind its normal ones.‘It’s Keila,’ snarled Ina, her hackles rising. ‘And, yes, if you were wondering, she does smell like a little bitch.’‘What the hell has happened to her?’ I gasped, eyeing her new, second set of teeth with trepidation.Slowly, I lowered my arms and peered up at her. Keila shifted into her human bod
Jane’s POV“S?” I rasped. Blood choked me; I coughed, the sound rattling and reedy, and blood hissed from my lips, splattering down my front and onto the floor. I blinked. When I managed to focus my gaze on the windowsill once more, S was gone. My head hit the floor. I couldn’t hold it up any longer. Terror sliced through my veins, making my heart beat faster, making me lose more blood more quickly. Had I really seen S? If he was here, did that mean that he was, too? If he wasn’t already, was S going to get him?This was his perfect chance to strike. I was dying; he could do whatever he wanted to me in this state. I tried to cling to wakefulness but it was dimming, even the dull lamplight too bright for my eyes now.‘Hold on, girl!’ cried Ina. ‘Don’t go into the light!’‘There’s no light, Ina,’ I said on a sigh, my eyelids drooping. Everything felt strange, weightless and incandescent. The pain faded and flared, faded and flared, spiking and drifting away on each laborious hollow an
Hunter’s POVI lay entwined with Jane, our legs tangled, my hand splayed across her belly. I didn’t think anything could worry me, not here, not with her.“That’s funny,” Jane murmured, toying with my fingers, looking up at me with a tight smile, “he said I should be careful around you, too.”Damn Leif, I thought. He clearly didn’t trust me any more than his mother did. I just had to hope that Jane trusted me more than either of them. After all, she may not know who I really was, but she did know Colin pretty well now. She knew he – I – had saved her from the auction, from Leif’s whip, from coming here alone. And, if what we’d just done was any sort of sign, she liked me. She liked me a lot.I’d known my plan would work, but the reality of it – the feel of Jane clenching around me, of seeing her pretty face flushed as she rode me, of the way she looked with eyes gone heavy-lidded with lust – was something else entirely to the way I’d imagined it. I’d stopped her from saying my – his