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
Hunter’s POVI stewed over the knowledge that the real Alpha Colin was on the loose the whole way back. I had told S to keep searching and to send some of the Shadows after him; he would have left a trail, and a trail could be followed. I had to make sure he stayed well away from me and my business.If Alpha Colin came here, I was screwed. If he went back to the Desert Assassin pack, I had no doubt that word would spread all too quickly and I would, again, end up screwed. I’d worked way too hard to let that happen. No matter what, I had to finish what I’d started here with Jane. * * *My new plan started to come together after Jane texted me something vague about someone that needed help. Joy swelled in me - real, genuine joy - at the thought that she was using the phone I'd given her to ask me for help. She was starting to fall for me, I could tell. It wouldn't be much longer and I could reveal who I was to her - on my terms, of course - and we could finally leave this dump behind.
Hunter’s POVGetting Yuan outside was easier than I’d anticipated. Getting S to agree to look after him, though? That was the tricky part.It was rare for S to disagree with me. Hell, he’d followed me into the desert and had done everything I’d asked, even after I’d decided to pretend to be Alpha Colin. S was a good soldier.“Alpha, I am not sure he will survive the journey.”“Then run fast,” I replied flatly. “Here, take him. We don’t have much time as it is, S.”He was never one to fidget, but S almost looked as though he might. “You want me to take him to the old man’s place? Are you sure?”I held his gaze. “Positive. And once you have, S, I need you to get any information out of him you can. After that…”He nodded. “I know my orders, Alpha.”“Then see to them.”* * *Keila caught me as I was sneaking back inside.“Ohhhhh Colinnnnnn!” she cried, lifting up her hands as though she were lifting a heavy, multi-layered skirt rather than skin-tight leather pants she actually had on. Her