Annette walked out of the building housing her cousin's studio, and she instantly felt a shiver coursing through her.Annette immediately grasped the gravity of her situation. She realized that she was in danger.Alarm bells went off in her mind, and she felt a rush of fear running through her body, and every fiber of her being urged her to escape."Come on, guys, take a look at what we have here." Said a deep male voice mockingly, and Annette cautiously turned to face them. She found herself enclosed by what resembled a group of bad-looking guys who kept throwing lustful glances at her. Their skin was pale and dirty, like they had been on the street for quite some time and hadn't taken proper care of themselves or had a bath in months. They had high cheekbones, a sharp jawline and delicate nose. Their hair was of different styles which looked dirty and unkempt, adorned in various bright, luminous hair colours.They were tall and lean with an athletic body and pointed ears. They were
As she observed the battle, an elf lunged at Xavier with a blade from the back.Annette flinched in fright and called out to him in warning. Xavier twisted with lightning speed, sidestepping the elf. He moved faster than she expected, which surprised her. He rose from the ground, balancing on his legs, his paws stretching outward as his claws tore through the elf's abdomen.Blood spraying all around them and pulling at his feet. He lunged forward, his fangs sinking into the elf's neck, ripping his head from his neck in a single motion.His fur was soaked with blood, his fangs were red with blood dripping down his mouth and running down his jaw and neck.Annette felt her face drain of all colour; a wave of nausea surged up her throat at the brutal and violent act.She watched as the life drained from people in front of her. She stood frozen as death was unfolding right in front of her."Oh God," she whispered in sheer horror. The steps and streets below were bathed in blood. The were
It was at least an hour later when Xavier pulled open the door and slid into the backseat of the limo next to her. Worn out emotionally, she stayed curled up in the corner, watching him warily as they were driven back to the Michaelson building. He didn’t look at her once, not once, and the set of his jaw told her he was still furious. The silent treatment continued as they headed inside, Annette forced to trail after Xavier like a puppy who’d disappointed its owner. No one in the foyer looked at her, not even the uppity receptionist. Anger and grief hung so heavily in the air that she, a mere human, could practically taste it. How many of them were related to the wolves who’d died?She followed Xavier into the lift, her throat thick with tears as the doors closed behind them. Somehow, she had to make this right. “Xavier,” she started, reaching out to touch his arm. “I’m s—”“No,” he snarled. Knocking her hand aside, he shoved her against the wall, his big hand closing around her th
Sliding her hands between them, she pushed at his stomach. Her fingers pressed against the rock hard abs and she almost lost her train of thought as the need to explore beckoned. With an effort, she kept her focus and managed to put some space between them. He nipped at her neck, the small pain from his human-blunt teeth making her gasp as she eased her hand between their bodies to stroke him through his pants. He stilled, hands flat on the mirrors either side of her head and his lips millimeters from the skin of her throat. Not waiting for her next move but a primal force barely restrained. Tension and anticipation thickened the air, making it difficult to breathe. She found the button in his waistband and rolled the tip of her forefinger around it, stretching out the moment. Then she flicked it free, her movements speeding to yank the zipper of his fly down with a harsh metallic rasp. She needed to touch him and instinct told her that she didn’t have long to do it.His cock sprang
She’d fucked up, good and proper. Wolves, people, had died because of her, and she’d lost Xavier’s trust. He’d left her in the lift. Just walked away, leaving her to trail after him, but it was no good. He’d shut the en-suite door on her as he’d showered. When he’d dressed, he’d thrown a keycard on the bed. “So you don’t play any more games with my people. Damien blames himself, you know? One of the dead wolves was his nephew.”Misery clogged her throat as she stood by the door, arms wrapped around her waist. As if it couldn’t get any worse, now she had a face to put to those who mourned. When Xavier left, she dragged herself through the motions of showering and dressing. Stretchy, comfortable clothes with her hair dragged up into a messy bun. She didn’t plan on going anywhere but the sofa, after a trip to the kitchen to raid the freezer for ice-cream. Rocky road, chocolate, hell, plain old vanilla would do. She needed something sweet to gorge on before the tears collected in a lump
Keeping her cell plastered to her ear, she watched the streets flash by. It seemed to take forever to reach the studio, but it could only have been a few minutes before she was paying the driver and racing up the steps of the apartment building.“James! James, where are you?” she called out, shouldering her way through the open door to the studio with her heart in her throat. Her gaze scanned the floor, still splattered with ceramic work and sculptures, expecting to see the tall form of her cousin stretched out on the floor unconscious, or worse.Nothing. She moved farther into the room, craning her neck to check the corners and between the clay drying rack in case he’d fallen and the debris from the place being ransacked had fallen over him. The door clicked shut behind her and the lock turned. Frowning, she straightened. The door had been open when she’d walked through. “Hello, Annette.”She whirled around to find James standing with his back to the door and a smirk on his lips. R
Xavier crashed through the door to James’s studio with more brute force than finesse. Knocking the splintered wood out of the way, he strode into the open-plan space. It was still as trashed as the first time he’d seen it, but instead of the smell of drying clay, the smell of blood and fear crawled into his nostrils. A bellow of rage exploded from his throat and he launched himself across the studio, following the distinctive feminine scent that hung in the air. Annette’s scent. He’d been called as soon as she’d left the apartment and thanks to an eagle-eyed guard, they’d managed to call to the right cab firm to get the address she’d been taken to. They might as well have saved themselves the call. He should have guessed she’d come back here. Reaching the destroyed door to the bathroom, he braced himself against the door frame as the scent of blood became almost overwhelming. Annette’s blood, he realized, as his keen gaze picked out the slumped figure in the bathtub. A moan rattle
Death wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. There was a distinct lack of bright lights and absolutely no sign of the pearly gates or thankfully, the other place.Death was…quiet. Peaceful. Comfortable.Too comfortable.Expensive feather bed kind of comfortable.She was pretty sure the afterlife was more harps and clouds than feather beds, so what gave? The more she thought, the more sensation slipped through the blackness. Her body on the soft surface beneath, the pressure of a warm duvet above. Perhaps this was Heaven 2.0, a version never reported in near-death experiences. Anything was possible, right?That didn’t explain the voices that filtered through the fog to reach her ears.“Should’ve left her to die,” a sharp female voice said. Instantly, Annette disliked it and its owner. The whiny, petulant tone said bitch. “There’s no way the pack will accept her. She’s a transformed wolf. She will never be anything more than a beta. And hell knows, we have enough of them.”Pack. Transform
Annette managed to avoid Xavier for most of the day by escaping to the library. Not hard when he also appeared to be doing his best to avoid her. Probably didn’t want reminded of his mistake. The more she thought about it, the more she became convinced what they’d had was just a bit of fun for him. That she was just a human plaything to be put aside when his duty to mate for the pack came calling. Asshole. She’d thought that about him so often in the last few hours, she should really append it as a prefix to his name. Scowling, she realized she’d re-read the same six sentences of her book for the last hour or so. With a sigh, she closed it and stood. It was a new one by her favorite author, one she hadn’t gotten around to reading yet, so to find it on the shelves of Xavier’s library had been a surprise. In fact, there was a whole shelf dedicated to romance, so someone in the house must be a fan.Not Xavier though, she couldn’t see him reading anything so frivolous. Perhaps somethi
Of all the screwed-up, shitty situations to find herself in. Still fuming, Annette stormed through the manor like all the hounds of hell marched at her heels. She had no real idea where she was going, and to be honest, she really didn’t care. All she wanted was to get as far from Xavier as physically possible. Her expression was like thunder, so dark and ominous that the staff scattered before her, even though they were full werewolf and she, apparently, was not. At the moment, though, she really didn’t care. One more asshole mentioned pack law and she’d tear them a new one, werewolf or frigging not.By the time she’d worked her way down to the kitchens, her usual refuge in times of stress, her anger had turned to misery and a hard knot formed in the back of her throat. Hearing voices ahead, she ducked into a storeroom and pulled the door shut. Leaning against it, she closed her eyes. As a human she hadn’t been good enough for Xavier, she’d known that— accepted that. But to find out
“You were dying. What would you expect I do… Leave you there?” His expression was hard, like a whip. “Give me some credit, Annette. I wouldn’t let you die. Not while you’re in my care.”He hadn’t answered her question. His expression said he wasn’t going to. Anger flared and a snarl rumbled in the back of her throat. It wasn’t a human sound; that made no sense, but she was too pissed off to care.“Dammit, Xavier.” She slammed her hands into his broad chest and shoved. It was like trying to shove a cliff but he rocked back on his feet, surprise in his eyes. “Just give me a straight fucking answer.”He grabbed her wrists, yanked her up against him as he turned, pinning her between him and broad desk. The heat simmering through her veins turned volcanic, supercharged, and shot through her veins. Her body went pliant in his grasp, her curves against the hard muscled planes of his larger form. Damn traitorous thing.“Answer?” His voice was no less a snarl than hers had been. “I’ll give
“No, how the hell should I know how many can take a bite?” she admitted. And she didn’t have a clue. She knew werewolf carefully controlled who they bit, that they had to have permission from the pack alpha. Her auntie, wanting to sink her claws deeper into the Michaelson fortune, had petitioned Richard to turn them. All of them. She hadn’t even thought to ask her son and niece whether they wanted to be a werewolf or not. All she’d seen was a way to ensure she kept her place and access to the money she liked so much. Annette would have; she knew that without thinking. Anything to learn more about werewolf and perhaps get closer to Xavier. But the request had been denied by his father. Repeatedly. Eventually even Josephine had gotten the message. They weren’t good enough to be werewolf. A message which had been driven home hard and fast, and she still felt the sting of today.If she wasn’t good enough, why had Xavier transformed her?“Why?”Even standing on the other side of the desk
Annette couldn’t be a werewolf. No way, no how.Sure, she’d woken up after her near death experience with abilities she hadn’t had before. Things like seeing smells, vision like a hawk, and hearing so accurate she could pinpoint a mouse farting three rooms away. So far though, there had been no hint of fur (apart from her legs, which were in desperate need of a shave after a week of inattention). New abilities though, didn’t mean she was a werewolf. She’d read somewhere that people who suffered head trauma sometimes gained completely new skills—like being able to speak a new language, play an instrument, or suddenly became an uber-smart math whiz. Acquired Savant Syndrome or something. Yeah, that had to be it. The accident that had nearly killed her had obviously left her with some side effects. A frown creased her brow. No one would tell her much about the accident either. All they would say was that she was lucky to be alive, and if she wanted more details then she needed to spea
He wasn’t strong enough to let her go. He couldn’t have her, but still he couldn’t release her to start a new life without him. Dammit. He closed his eyes, the weakness shaming him. He should send her away, but he couldn’t. Not yet. A presence behind him made him open his eyes and look up. He didn’t need to turn. The wolf, always alert, had already picked up the scent of another werewolf Male, with the unmistakable frisson only generated by another alpha, and a familiar scent.George. His second cousin, or something like that, on his father's side. An alpha himself, he’d joined the army right out of college and returned last year, bringing valuable medical training they sorely needed. Sure, Xavier could hire a private doctor, but there was nothing like a battlefield surgeon who understood how the werewolf body worked. “Any signs?” he asked over his shoulder.“Nothing yet. I have Ruth watching her for any changes.” George joined him at the window. Taller and broader in the shoulder,
Xavier had been born into money, old werewolf money, and from the moment of his birth only the best had been good enough. The most expensive toys, the finest clothes, and the most prestigious schools, were all things that were his simply by the happy accident of being who he was. His food had been prepared by a Michelin starred chef and his tennis coach had been a former champion… Nothing was too good for the Michaelson heir. Looks had followed. Puberty changed angelic boyhood features into something harder and more masculine. His body once gangly, feeling not quite his as he navigated with all the hapless manner of a teenager, filled out and brought the werewolf genes into play. Add in the animal magnetism of his newly emerging wolf and he’d never had a problem getting women. Instead, it was more a problem getting rid of them. They’d thrown themselves at him even back then, a situation his teenaged self had reveled in. Girls, women… Hell, his first time had been with a middle-aged
Death wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. There was a distinct lack of bright lights and absolutely no sign of the pearly gates or thankfully, the other place.Death was…quiet. Peaceful. Comfortable.Too comfortable.Expensive feather bed kind of comfortable.She was pretty sure the afterlife was more harps and clouds than feather beds, so what gave? The more she thought, the more sensation slipped through the blackness. Her body on the soft surface beneath, the pressure of a warm duvet above. Perhaps this was Heaven 2.0, a version never reported in near-death experiences. Anything was possible, right?That didn’t explain the voices that filtered through the fog to reach her ears.“Should’ve left her to die,” a sharp female voice said. Instantly, Annette disliked it and its owner. The whiny, petulant tone said bitch. “There’s no way the pack will accept her. She’s a transformed wolf. She will never be anything more than a beta. And hell knows, we have enough of them.”Pack. Transform
Xavier crashed through the door to James’s studio with more brute force than finesse. Knocking the splintered wood out of the way, he strode into the open-plan space. It was still as trashed as the first time he’d seen it, but instead of the smell of drying clay, the smell of blood and fear crawled into his nostrils. A bellow of rage exploded from his throat and he launched himself across the studio, following the distinctive feminine scent that hung in the air. Annette’s scent. He’d been called as soon as she’d left the apartment and thanks to an eagle-eyed guard, they’d managed to call to the right cab firm to get the address she’d been taken to. They might as well have saved themselves the call. He should have guessed she’d come back here. Reaching the destroyed door to the bathroom, he braced himself against the door frame as the scent of blood became almost overwhelming. Annette’s blood, he realized, as his keen gaze picked out the slumped figure in the bathtub. A moan rattle