Helen’s POVI jerked awake, drenched in sweat and heaving for breath. Not that I liked being tortured in the moment, but somehow waiting for pain to arrive was almost worse. I wish you’d just gone back to bloodying me up during my dreams, I thought.I had to find the Huntsman, and I had to stop him.I looked at the clock. It was only 5:00 a.m. I hadn’t been asleep for very long. I was going to have to find a way to get some sleep for real. Surely there had to be a way to keep him out of my head and out of my dreams.Wait. Maybe that idea held something.The Huntsman couldn’t get into my dreams if I didn’t dream. I would just have to find a way to induce dreamless sleep. And then, perhaps, I could get some rest in peace. The only thing I had in the house that I knew would work was alcohol.I went down to the kitchen, and I found a bottle of hard liquor. It was going to take something stronger than wine to knock m

Helen’s POVA larger smile took over my face. “Honestly, I could probably use some help. I was up until 2:00 in the morning last night trying to decide how I wanted to decorate my bed upstairs. It took me hours and I didn’t even come to a decision. And all I was trying to pick where sheets and a comforter. I can’t imagine how much trouble it would be to try and decorate the rest of my house or pick clothes for myself. I don’t think I’ve ever picked clothes for myself. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”A happy look shone from her face. “I would love to go shopping with you. I know all the best places and we can find you some really cute clothes. You have a beautiful figure.”“We can’t go too crazy,” I warned. “Our incomes come from the pack and our lands here around the village. I’m not going to drain those resources for my own vanity.”She nodded. “Th

Helen’s POVI turned my back on the book and looked between Julianne and Russo. “All right, everyone think hard. We have to find a way to figure out what sort of being fathered the Huntsman.”Julianne pressed her lips together and thought. “We could go back in the historical records and see if anything unusual happened in 1893.”“Perhaps that might give us a clue or maybe we can dig through the historical records and trace his mother,” Russo suggested.“There's got to be clues somewhere,” I said. “Let's do both of what you suggested. I think one of the computers is hooked up to the human internet. Russo, are you any good with that sort of human technology? Can you look up the information on his history?”Russo nodded. “I got good blending in wherever I could find a home. Part of that included residing amongst humans for a while. I can handle their internet and their databases.&

Helen’s POVRusso studied further down the page, eyes skimming over material about my heritage. “Listen to this,” he said. “This is interesting. It says here that members of your pack can gain strength and the purity that the rest of the werewolf community considers ideal by sexually joining with pure members of their pack. If the members of your ancestral pack continue to breed with one another, or breed with mates of solid coat colors or took multiple partners, then their offspring would continue to gain additional colors in their coats.”He huffed a sigh. “Weird. The pack you are descendent from places a higher value on more colors. It’s the complete opposite of the rest of werewolf kind.”He pointed to the screen, and I read the paragraph too. Sure enough, according to the research that this professor at the werewolf university had done, the pack I was descendent from placed a higher value on multicolored coats. Rather than having one single wolf-mate that they were drawn to, they

Helen’s POV“So, how did your first day of research go?” Justin asked me.I put my hand over my mouth to finish chewing and swallowed before answering. “We found a little bit more on the Huntsman. It will help us some. But the biggest dead end that we found is his lineage.”“What do you mean, his lineage?” Justin asked me, his brows coming together on a creased forehead.“She means that we discovered the Huntsman isn’t fully human,” Russo told him.“That’s right,” Julianne added. “But in all of the records that he made of himself, the only mentioned of his father was to call him a beast and say that he would never be mentioned because the Huntsman wouldn’t do anything to mark any sort of remembrance for the man.”“Sounds like you’ve been busy,” Justin said. “Did you find out anything else good?”“No,&rdqu