Russo’s POVAfter I’d gotten the call from Justin, it took a few minutes for his words to sink in. We were free. We were safe. It had been so long since I’d had those things that it hardly felt real.Lisa must have felt the same because, after her initial tears of relief, she set about cleaning up the mess we’d made doing the ritual. The church might have been abandoned, but leaving our pentagram and offerings behind seemed tactless.I silently got to work, helping her. She loaded up the expired materials, and I searched the closets until I found an old mop and bucket. While the ink we’d used did mop off the floor, something about the ritual had etched the symbols into the cement, leaving rough outlines even after the drawings were removed.Well, I was the best I could do. If anyone bought the place, they could always cover the marks with carpet or hardwood. Once everything was clean, Lisa and I left.She paused on the stairs out of the basement. “We can’t just throw the remnants of t
Helens POVReuniting with everyone at my house passed like a whirlwind. We had to trade hugs and stories of what we had all accomplished.At first, I had worried that maybe my friends wouldn’t consider my contributions to be anything. I felt like they had all done so much more than me. Randy and Justin led the warriors and got rid of all of the Huntsman’s henchmen. Lisa and Russo had done the rite, which had burned the beast back to hell.And then there was Julianne and me. We had just been captives.But somehow, Justin and Randy, and Russo and Lisa all considered rescuing the Huntsman’s other captives to be just as important as anything that they had done. For the tiny part of me that wanted to argue against them, I shut it up.Any recognition was better than having them blame me for not being helpful or, worse, for jeopardizing our plan by getting caught in the first place. I wouldn’t have been able to take it if they all hated me.Justin and I had taken a nap when we got home since
Helen’s POVLisa reached across from the chair she was sitting on to the couch where I sat and gripped my hand. “I didn’t say anything about the Huntsman to scare you. I can see it on your face that you’re terrified. But I don’t think that there’s anything he could do to actually turn you into a demon.”Her expression remained serious. “But that doesn’t mean that you might not have gained some power that we don’t understand. I don’t think that this has ever been a thing before. I’ll have to do some research, and, now that it’s safe for them to come out of hiding, I will definitely consult with witches and wizards who are far better trained than I am.”“I’m still fairly young, so there’s a lot that I haven’t run across before, even though I have plenty of raw talent, which I can go ahead and admit now. I’m sure the Huntsman would have been happy to get his hands on me and train me up the way he trained Martin.”She shuddered. “Not that I ever would have worked for him. But I had to hid
Helen’s POV“I’m not worried about the Huntsman coming back,” I admitted, guilt beating at my chest. I” keep having dreams about having sex with him.”My voice had dropped to a whisper, and shame filled me to the core of my being.“Like he’s raping you?” Justin growled.“Worse,” I admitted. I felt sick to my stomach.“I feel horrible about the nightmares,” I said. “Because in the dreams, I like having sex with the Huntsman. I want him to fuck me. It’s like when I was under the spell, Martin cast over me. Somehow I feel like the spell is still there in my sleep, and I don’t want those feelings.”“I want the images of us in bed together to go away. Every time I wake up, I feel like I’m going to vomit. Can you understand why I didn’t really want to admit that to you?”“Justin, the last thing I want you to think is that I desire the Huntsman in any way. He abused me. He locked me up, and he raped me. He put me under a spell and took advantage of everything I had. I just . . . I don’t want
Helen’s POVThe contents of my lunch spattered into the toilet. I flushed it, leaning on the rim, gasping for breath. For a week now, I hadn’t been able to keep much down, and I had a feeling that meant good news.After all, it had been almost two months since I had mated with Justin. Pulling myself off the toilet, I went to the sink and rinsed my mouth, then patted my face dry with a towel.I hadn’t said anything to him, and he was busy most of the time, so I doubt that he noticed. Justin woke early and would go to work before I woke up and started acting sick.I had missed my period last month. But if I was wrong in my assumption and I had a stomach virus, then I should be getting my period at the end of the week. If I did miss another period, I was going straight out to get a pregnancy test.Just the idea made my stomach turn again, but with excitement instead of nausea. Justin was so excited about the possibility of a pup that he and I had been mating that way every single time we
Russo POVI got a set of frantic texts from Lisa telling me that we had to meet right away and that something desperately important had come up. After everything that had gone on in the last two years, her desperation made it hard to breathe.In my mind, I knew that Martin and the Huntsman were both dead, but getting that fear to relax was proving difficult. Every time I heard something out of place at night and every time somebody said they had news, my mind immediately assumed they meant something bad.I watched my own kind slaughtered and then watched the Huntsman trying to route the witches and wizards. I’d seen the aftermath of what he’d done to the lycans and what he was trying to do with the werewolves.Needless to say, after all that unpleasantness, it was hard to imagine that things would just continue to be as good as they were. I was blissfully happy with Lisa. The two of us were planning a wedding over the summer. We were thinking August but early so that all of the flower
Russo’s POVLisa tipped her head, taking in my kiss. All sorts of soft and beautiful feelings welled up inside me, begging for an outlet. Our kiss quickly became more passionate as I tried to express myself.I had never loved anyone more than I did at that moment. The gift Lisa had given me, even without meaning to, was something that I couldn’t express in words. I wanted to show her how much she meant to me, how much this child meant.“Wait a sec.” I stopped, pulling away from her.“Yes?” Her gaze was so sexy it hit like cupid’s arrow, slamming through my heart.“I really, really want to sleep with you right now,” I said. “But . . . do you think it’s okay? We won’t hurt the baby, will we?”Lisa burst out in wild giggles. “No. I don’t think we’ll hurt the baby. Nature does a pretty good job of protecting everything inside me. In fact, I’ve heard that birth experts say if your baby is overdue and you’re looking for a natural way to induce labor, an orgasm will do the trick. So, if you
Justin POVI tapped my fingers on the polished wood of my desk, trying to sort my thoughts. Randy had gone back to his own office on a phone call with one of our new business partners, somebody in a pack halfway across the continent. But thanks to the internet, we would be doing business with them.For the last two months, Randy and I had been trying to piece back together my father’s kingdom. He spent so much time with the infighting that he’d neglected any other duties that a king should do. Then as everything fell apart thanks to him and the Huntsman and everything, what he’d left behind for me to rule was a total disaster.Randy and I had tried to piece back together what we could in the heat of conflict. And while everybody was happy enough to be part of the True Mates pack, it wasn’t running the way that I wanted it to. Our pack wasn’t the sort of legacy that I would want to leave to my future children, children whom Helen and I were still working hard to conceive.I’d had no id