ADAN The others had been sent away on their assignments. Only Adan and Kerr remained behind in the mansion after they concluded their meeting with the inner circle. Only the two of them knew precisely what was happening tonight, and where, and how. They had set up their control room with two leather armchairs facing a big wall-mounted TV, on which a video feed was streaming live. The camera was attached to their assassin’s glasses, and right now the feed showed nothing but an empty room. The assassin was as still and quiet as a living person could possibly be. The video held perfectly steady. The man’s breathing was slow and shallow. He had been lying in wait inside an air duct for nearly fifteen hours before the prince finally arrived at the orphanage, and had squeezed his body out of the chamber, inch by inch, only after the Gamma warriors had swept the building and determined it was all clear for Nolan’s arrival. Now the assassin wa
NOLAN“And how is Yena doing? I just adore her, you know.” Cindy put her hand over her heart and pressed her lips into a smile. “She really made quite an impact on me.”Nolan’s eyes slipped briefly away from Cindy’s. “Yena is doing great. Thank you for asking.” He manufactured a polite smile before meeting her eyes again. She didn’t notice his hesitation. The room was bustling with voices and activity, distractions everywhere.“Please tell me that you’ll bring her along the next time you come to visit,” Cindy said. “The children just loved her, too. Oh, and I’m sure she would enjoy seeing all the art they created after she came here and gave them that drawing lesson. They really haven’t stopped talking about it since.”“I will be sure to let her know that,” Nolan replied. “She’ll be happy to hear it.”A meek, very small boy
Nolan landed flat on his back.He knew he’d been hit. The bullet had sent him flying backward.His ears were ringing painfully from the gunshot blast. The high-pitched squeal was brutally loud, rendering him deaf to all other sound.But he didn’t feel the injury. There was no pain in his body. He figured he must be in shock.He didn’t like that he didn’t know where he had been hit, or how bad it was.He blinked, trying to focus his eyes. The ceiling above, the only thing in his line of sight, was a blur of gray. Then it started moving. It looked like ocean waves moving over the surface of the water. Then it looked like a watercolor painting. Nolan tried to move his legs. Tried to plant his feet on the floor. Tried to roll onto his side.Nope. None of those things were going to happen.He did manage, with incredible difficulty, to slowly lift up one of his arms. It felt like he was tryi
NOLANHe returned to consciousness, or as close to it as he could get, a little at a time.Sounds came first. Voices. Cindy, and others. A machine was beeping. An engine was droning. A siren was wailing.When Nolan finally got his eyes open, he confirmed he was in an ambulance. He still couldn’t see anything clearly. But he could see the white lights and the hurried movements of blue-uniformed medical personnel as they hovered over him, doing whatever they were doing, trying to save his life.“He’s awake!” Cindy cried.“Nolan,” one of the medics said, coming close to the prince’s face. “Can you hear me?”Nolan’s mouth didn’t work. His voice didn’t work.“Blink once if you can hear me, Nolan.”His eyelids fell down like lead curtains. He forced them open once more.“That’s good, Nolan. My name is Camron and I’m an emergen
YENA My phone started going off, something I hardly even noticed at first. The little pinging sounds didn’t register as important, in the midst of everything that I was thinking and feeling. They just joined in with all the other miscellaneous noise out there on the tarmac.But the notifications did not stop. They were persistent, coming in one after the other, and started forcing their way into the center of my attention.And then I realized they weren’t just from my own phone, actually. All kinds of different electronic chimes and buzzes and rings were sounding out from all around me and Evan. Everyone’s phones were blowing up with calls and notifications.I looked around. Every person in the crowd was now doing same thing—they had their phones out and were either holding them to their ears or staring, slack-jawed, at the screens.And then, a few at a time, they all started looking at me expectantly.Even my
YENAI had never run as wolf before.It was exhilarating.And Lily was right—she did know where to go. I didn’t have to think about anything. I just put my trust in her, like she asked, and let her lead the way. The instinct was so strong, it felt irresistible. I was being drawn in one direction. Pulled, almost. Like there was a magnet somewhere dragging me forward.All I had to do was keep putting my paws to the ground, keep running, and I would get to Nolan.I had healed him before. I could heal him now.He was in a very bad state, yes. But I had the cure in my veins. I knew that I did. I knew that if I could reach him in time I could do it. I could bring him back, make him whole again.The airport, the crowd of people there—everything vanished into the distance behind me.My wolf body felt light as air, full of power and energy.The city passed me by in a blur of sensations. Every smell
EVANThe royal staff that had been fussing over him and Yena earlier were now coming up to Evan, ready to serve him. He was taken aback. His mind had been on deeper concerns than what he was going to do now, so he didn’t know what to tell them.“How can we help you, sir? What do you need?” they were all asking. “What can we do for you? Would you like us to retrieve your luggage? Would you like us to call you a car?”“Yes, thank you,” he said slowly, suddenly very grateful for these people and their helpful guidance.“Right away, sir.” They got all of his and Yena’s belongings piled up in a cart and were pushing it alongside Evan back through the airport, heading for the exit. Daring glances around as they moved through the throngs of people, he realized all regular business in the airport had come to a stop. At this moment, every werewolf in the nation was pausing their lives to watch the news, waiting as the fate of their world hung in
My chest still heaving, I walked over to the side of Nolan’s hospital bed and climbed up into it, trying to catch my breath. His huge frame filled the entire bed. I had to straddle him.And I could feel, as our bodies came into contact with each other, how very close to death he was. His usually hot skin was cold to the touch. The bandages wrapped all around his chest were red-soaked, wet and tacky and getting darker every second.“Oh, Nolan,” I mumbled over and over. I placed my hands carefully on either side of his face, stroking the scruff on his cheeks. A tube was stuffed into his mouth and down his throat. It connected to one of the machines and was doing his breathing for him.I had to take it out.Nolan needed to drink my blood, and he wasn’t going to do it with that thing in his mouth.I went ahead and just grabbed the tube and wrenched it up and out from his throat before I could overthink what I was doing. A deep, gravelly gaspi