Table of Contents

Part 5: Broken

Author's Note

Chapter 1 ~ Reeve

~ Bettina ~

Chapter 2 ~ Conlan

~ Bettina ~

Chapter 3 ~ Reeve

~ Mather ~

Chapter 4 ~ Bettina

About the Author

Sneak Peek at Part 6

~ A wounded alpha among alphas, a pack in pieces ~

Reeve ~ I would’ve died to protect my pack from Lysander’s vicious rogues. But my wolves came for me. Except I’m not sure how much of me is left…

Bettina ~ I should never have left Reeve behind. Now the nights I’ve spent with the sexy, tempting males of his pack have left me confused about what I want. About who I want...

HEART OF THE PACK is a paranormal shapeshifter BBW romance serial in seven parts. The stories contain adult language and graphic sexual situations. Rated M for mature and W for wild readers only.

Sign up for Elsa Jade’s New Release & Sale Alert

ElsaJade.com

Copyright © 2016 by Elsa Jade

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as factual. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be scanned, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

Author’s Note:

In earlier Author’s Notes, I mentioned the Oregon wolf known as OR-7 who was starting his new pack in southwestern Oregon just as I started these stories. Coincidentally, OR-7 was born in 2009, which is when I published my first book. We’ve come a long way, baby! According to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Oregon had a dozen known wolves in 2009. At the end of 2015, there were more than 100!

OR-7’s collar went silent last year, but a trail camera earlier this month (I’m typing this note in November, 2016) caught a glimpse of him still roaming the deep, rich forests of Oregon.

As the wolf population rebounds, there have been losses among cattle ranchers, sheep herders, and wolves. It’s hard to balance the needs of the many (people) with the needs of the few (wolves) but I hope we will always find a way to protect our open spaces and our wild brothers. Like wolves, like imagination, we all need to run free sometimes.

~ Elsa

Chapter 1 ~ Reeve

The brittle November sunlight brightened the streaks of bloody gore on my skin even as it bleached the last dregs of strength from my bones. I stumbled and almost dropped the featherweight female we’d rescued. Her chains, which I’d draped over my shoulders, slipped forward to strangle me.

But a steadying hand slipped under my elbow.

Bettina.

Instead of energizing me, her touch was a stark reminder that she shouldn’t be there at all. Her cinnamon-sugar scent, soured with fear, almost choked me, tighter than the chains. I’d promised her once I would never drop her, and now? Only a frozen numbness kept my grip clenched on the scrawny girl in my arms.

I wanted to kill my pack for putting Bettina in danger.

But before I could do that, we had to not die.

By the time we stumbled out of the forest, the explosives buried in the leftover road construction debris had guttered out. The booby trap had served its purpose.

At what cost?

When we emerged, Lowe was at my side in an instant, whining under his breath, his furry ears flattened. His nose touched Annalee, and she let out a muffled shriek, yanking her legs out of his reach.

The links of chain wrapped around her bare ankles jammed into my broken ribs, and white-hot streamers of agony blazed along my nerves, as if she’d thrust one last road flare into my chest. The vision in my good eye fritzed out.

I dropped her. God, I dropped her.

But Mather was right there—in his two-legged form, as he preferred—and she fell into his muscled grasp. His bicep was so big she looked like a baby, cradled in his arm. He shoved his other hand under my armpit, dragging me upright.

It was only because Bettina was on my other side that I didn’t go to my knees.

“Nice to see ya, mate.” Conlan’s brisk accent razored across my still jangled nerve endings.

“Can’t hardly see shit,” I muttered.

His grip replaced Mather’s under my arm, not much gentler in his haste. “Lysander pulled back. He must think we have more explosives ready to go.”

As I drew an aching breath to respond, Bettina’s fingers tightened on me. “Do we?”

“Nope,” Con said, almost cheerfully. “Blew the wad.”

“We got what we came for,” Mather interrupted. “Plus a little something extra. We’re out.”

He was right. We had to get out. There were too few of us, with two vulnerable females, and me useless. But my blood—what was left of it—turned to icy sludge at his words.

Was the Rogue Mountain pack out?

My whole life, I’d tried to remind myself that what happened to my pack after my mother’s death was not my fault. I’d been too young then to hold the dominant males together, my wolf untried.

This time, I didn’t have that excuse.

If Lysander took Rogue Mountain…

The ghosts would be right to haunt my last breaths.

~ Bettina ~

I knew I wasn’t helping Reeve at all. Mostly, I clung to his arm, letting Conlan hold us both up. But I’d never been so cold, my teeth chattering a hollow dirge in my head, my knees shaking almost as bad.

Why had I ever left my warm bakery and pretty cupcakes? If I’d stayed to wash the dumpster after work, maybe none of this would have happened.

Conlan slung Reeve—and by extension, me—toward the back seat of the waiting truck. Annalee was already on the other side of the bench, huddled into herself. Mather wedged his big form behind the wheel and cranked the ignition. Conlan was still pulling his door closed when Mather spun the truck and hauled ass.

Behind us, the rattle of lighter tires told me Domingo and Lowe must be following us in Reeve’s BMW Z4.

Please let them be all right.

Whether I could even pretend to hope for the same for the rest of us in this back seat…

I sucked down a breath even shakier than my knees. “Will they come after us?”

I didn’t have to explain that I didn’t mean Reeve’s battered Beemer.

“Yes,” Annalee whispered. “He’ll come.”

Mather met my gaze in the rearview mirror. “Not right away. We put a hole in him while you went after Reeve.”

I wasn’t sure if Mather meant a literal hole in Lysander or a dent in his awful pack. But it hardly seemed to matter. When I remembered how Scratch had risen despite the pummeling Reeve gave him, my stomach clenched even though there was nothing in there to hold onto.

Too big. Too tough. Too vicious.

Why had I ever bothered being afraid of miserable little Tommy?

For some weird reason, thinking of my abusive ex pushed me past my shock. I turned to Annalee, giving her the cautious once-over the ER admitting nurse had given me on the night that had been the most terrible time of my life, barring Mom’s death and Oma’s.

Until now. God, when I tallied up my tragedies, I thought I should get a cookie for still standing.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” I asked Annalee, and then added lamely, “Anywhere else?”

Her eyes, pretty as citrine gemstones, were half-lidded, and for a moment, I thought she’d passed out.

Then she gave a little shake of her head. “Nothing permanent.” Her dark lashes fluttered down and locked tight. “Except the beast.”

Since I had exactly zero consolation to give her on that score, I twisted back to look at Reeve on my other side.

“You going to ask if I’m hurt?” The wolfen music that usually hummed in his voice was gone.

“Even I’m not that dumb.” I tried to keep my words light, to make up for the brooding bleakness I heard in him.

“You are.” His icy stare from his one good eye drilled into me, deflating my little bubble of precarious calm. “For coming after me.”

Before I’d suggested this rescue, I knew he’d be mad, but the fury oozing from him like colder, bitter blood pierced all the way to my heart. “You’re welcome.” My voice cracked with the pain.

“Little one,” Mather said softly. “Be still.”

Oh no he didn’t. Being told I was stupid was bad enough. Being told to stay silent? “We got out,” I reminded them tightly. “We won.” I glared at Reeve. “You can’t be mad about that.”

The males were silent. But Annalee, her eyes still closed, hissed out a scoffing breath. “Ain’t a win, not until Lysander is dead.”

The look Reeve cast her sent a shard of something sharper and uglier into my chest: jealousy. They understood each other in some way I couldn’t. Wasn’t sure I wanted to, not if it meant confronting Lysander.

The strange draw I’d felt to these men—not men, I reminded myself, or not just men—wavered. Reeve had saved me from Lysander. I’d saved him back. That meant we were square, done…right?

I slumped back in my seat, angling my shoulder away from Reeve so I didn’t accidentally touch him. It was easy not to touch tiny Annalee, curled as she was against her door as if she was halfway to jumping out.

Apparently none of us wanted to be here.

The drive back to the chalet was silent and stupid.

As our caravan of two crept down the narrow dirt road, I straightened at the sight of a big, lightning-blasted pine. The top had broken off, but another branch had twisted upward to fight toward the sunlight. I recognized the distinctive tree from our journey to retrieve Reeve; we were heading back to the chalet.

I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Won’t this be the first place Lysander looks for us?”

Conlan angled in the front seat to look back at me. “This is our territory. We fight for it.”

Except he wasn’t actually looking at me. His wary green gaze was focused on Reeve.

Who didn’t respond.

Okay, maybe silent was smart.

The magnificent house, which had seemed so imposing the first time I saw it, now looked not enough like the fortress I wanted. Maybe if it had a moat. With crocodile shapeshifters. Was that even a thing?

I needed something to eat. Obviously my blood sugar was crashing.

As if he sensed how fragile the silence was, Mather coasted to a stop between the trees. The Z4 pulled up just beyond Reeve’s window, Domingo driving and the wolf that was Lowe in the back seat, his nose leaving a streak across the glass as he peered anxiously toward us.

For all that Annalee was closest to her door, Reeve was the first one out. He snarled at Conlan who was a half second behind, reaching for his arm.

“Don’t.” Reeve’s growl sent a shiver down my spine.

I startled when the other door popped open and Mather reached in to take Annalee into his arms. She clutched her chains and ducked her head against his shoulder.

When I glanced back toward Reeve, the doorway was empty except for Conlan. Domingo was out of the Z4, staring toward the trees where I guessed Reeve had disappeared.

Which left me sitting in the truck, alone in the back seat, like the single most useless creature ever. The November wind snaked through the open doors, finding every hole in the ripped tank top I’d donned for my disguise as a helpless female. Yeah, such a great disguise.

The used-to-be-white cotton wasn’t the only thing that felt shredded.

“Knock it off, luv,” Conlan said.

“What?” I pulled my feet up onto the seat, hugging my knees. Between Annalee’s mud and Reeve’s blood, I didn’t feel like I was making any more of a mess.

“You tucked a pistol down your panties to go after a monster,” Conlan shot back disapprovingly, “and now you’re just gonna sulk?”

“I’m not—”

“You are.”

I was, but didn’t I deserve that moment? He reached in, and I leaned back, snapping my teeth.

He pulled back, his eyes widening a little. Mine probably did too.

Trying to use my words, I drew a slow breath. “Con, the last two nights have been really”—terrifying, amazing, horrifying, ecstasy-inducing, utterly confusing—“something. Maybe I’m not taking it as well as you’d like, but you don’t get to tell me how to feel about…” I waved one hand vaguely. “Anything, actually.”

Resting his hand on the seat, he pushed his head farther into the cab. As if he wasn’t particularly worried about losing that part of himself to my snappishness. “I don’t want to tell you how to feel,” he said. “I want you to tell us.”

His intent gaze and his broad shoulders blocking the wind warmed me a little.

Or maybe that was the return of my anger. I seethed at him. “What are you even talking about? I can’t—”

“That’s what the female of the pack does, what she is,” he interrupted. “She balances the instincts of the wolf against the thoughts of the man and keeps us centered. She is the feeling heart.”

“I feel like I let him down,” I whispered. “Even though we got him and brought him home.”

Conlan eased one knee up onto the seat, sliding closer to me. The heat of his body took the last of the chill off the air. “That’s what he is feeling. And I can tell you, no way will he be able to say it as easily as you just did.”

I glared at him. “Easy? It hasn’t been easy to figure out that all I’m good for is a cup of coffee that’s gone in ten minutes and a muffin that makes people moan about the goodness and then moan about having to jog it off.” I tightened my grip on my ankles, and the pine needles embedded in my socks pricked the pads of my fingers. “I let down my mother by making her same bad choices in men. I let down my grandmother when she took me away from all that and I still managed to fuck up. I let myself down. So yeah, I don’t doubt Reeve thinks I let him down.”

“No.” Conlan surged across the space between us and got in my face. “He thinks he failed the pack.”

Too bewildered to pull away, I stare at him. “How? By saving me?”

His lip curls in a soundless snarl. “By needing us.”

“But…I thought that was the point of having a pack. You’re…together. You always have each other when you need someone.” The promise of such a connection was what had lured me in.

Conlan snorted. “Try telling that to an alpha prime.” He let out the rest of his breath in a slow sigh. “As for home… I think this hasn’t been home for him, truly, since his mother’s death broke his old pack.”

I shook my head in confusion, but I knew what Conlan meant. I’d noticed the starkness inside the house, beautiful but empty. It was how I felt when I looked at the one photo Oma had of me as in infant in Mom’s arms—I didn’t remember her, and all that was left was an echo of loss. Was that how Reeve felt inside too?

The sun, higher now, peeked between the trees, and my anger and hurt dissipated a bit, like a morning fog, still clinging in the gloomy places. I was alone and Reeve had his pack, but somehow we’d ended up in the same place, doubting ourselves.

“C’mon, luv.” Conlan held out his hand. “You can’t hide out in the truck.”

“Yes I can,” I grumbled even as I put my fingers over his.

“But you won’t.” He squeezed lightly and then yanked me, smoothly and remorselessly, out of the cab.

My head spun a little, and I longed for a cappuccino in one of the bakery’s wingbacks before I turned on the open sign. For once, I’d let Nickie and Sheba run the place while I lounged with the morning paper…

News flash: that wasn’t going to happen.

I straightened my shoulders as I turned toward the house.

“Er, no.” Conlan spun me the other direction. Toward the shadows under the towering trees. “You gotta go find Reeve.”

“What?” I peered nervously into the forest. The sun was high enough, so why was it still dark under there? The memories of fleeing Reeve’s cabin with Lysander’s pack on our tail and then of creeping into the trees to find Annalee flooded me like the curdled scum washing out from a dumpster.

I didn’t want to go in there.

Wrapping my arms around my middle to ward off the chill, I scowled at Conlan. “How am I supposed to—”

He grabbed me by the shoulders and yanked me to his chest. I oofed in surprised, and since my mouth was open, he took that opportunity to tongue me, hard.

His warm, firm lips slanted over mine, burning away fear and outrage in a sparkle of pure desire. With my arms trapped between us, all I could do was lean into him, breathing the wild, musky scent I was beginning to associate with werewolves.

And something darker, wilder yet. Blood. I tasted it on his breath. He’d been hurt in the fighting somehow, but refused to show it.

Oh, I knew that impulse too well. Don’t let anyone know you’re wounded because they might hurt you more. I didn’t want to be that way anymore.

Fighting his grip, I freed my arms. But when he started to draw back, I reached up to frame his face with my hands. Skimming my fingers up into his spiked blond hair, I held him fast while I returned the kiss, tongue stroke for tongue stroke, breath for gasping breath. The sparkles behind my closed eyes turned into full-on stars, and I finally had to break the kiss.

When I pulled away, his cheeks were flushed bright and his green eyes as glassy and hazed as an ocean-tumbled chunk of beer bottle.

“Tell Mather you’re hurt,” I told him. “If I come back with Reeve and you’re dead, I will thrash you.”

“Find him,” Conlan murmured, “and you can do whatever you want to me.”

“I will,” I promised.

I released him and walked into the trees.

Chapter 2 ~ Conlan

I called on every muscle in my body to stay strong and not follow Bettina when she walked away even though I listed toward her, the wolf yearning to fall into her orbit wherever she went.

But she was the one who needed to bring Reeve back to us. If she was going to be our mate, for true and for always, she needed that power. As for me…I’d never really served much of a purpose anywhere.

I knew that empty look I’d seen in Reeve’s eyes before he’d bolted. I’d felt it myself, but not for awhile. He’d made this place our refuge. If he couldn’t hold it together…

I forced myself to head into the house, not chase after Bettina.

Mather had wrapped the new girl in a blanket and perched her on a chair beside the kitchen table. Only her head, topped by tight, brown curls caked in mud, and her feet, similarly dirty, protruded from the woolen shield. The chains lay in coils on the floor.

For a second, I thought the big male had ripped them loose with his bare hands. The knuckles of his fists were blanched as if he’d considered it. But then I caught sight of the bolt cutters also on the floor. The heavy handles were thicker around than the girl’s brutalized ankles poking out from the blanket.

My wolf, still peeved that we hadn’t followed Bettina, came snarling back, wanting to savage the ones who had hurt this small woodland sprite.

Her golden-brown eyes spiked to me and widened in alarm.

“Cage it, Con,” Mather murmured. Though his voice was low, there was an edge of fury in it that might’ve sliced through the chains quicker than the cutters. “I already had to send Lowe out for scaring her.”

Lowe was always a wolf, even on two legs. But I considered him the kindest of us all. Apparently kindness didn’t matter to her, not when it was offered by a beast.

I couldn’t blame her.

I let out a slow breath and tamped down my enraged inner killer. “Hallo,” I managed with a careful smile. “I’m Conlan. Nice to rescue you.”

Her gaze flicked between me and Mather. “Where”—when the word wobbled, she cleared her throat—“where is the lady?”

I tilted my head. “Bettina? She had to see to some things. She’ll be along…soon.” With Reeve in tow, I hoped.

“This is Annalee,” Mather said. “For obvious reasons, she’s having a little trouble trusting us.”

Right, well, if she couldn’t stand sweet’n Lowe, I wasn’t sure what the rest of us could do to put her at ease.

If Bettina had been here… I sidled toward the refrigerator and popped open the door. I hadn’t really been watching her that close last time we were in this kitchen—or maybe I’d been watching her too close and not seeing what she’d been doing—but how hard could pancakes be?

I assembled the same ingredients and looked them over. Yeah, okay. I got started. At least the butter smelled good melting in the pan. I glanced over to see Annalee’s delicate nostrils flare.

“So, Annalee,” I drawled. “Do you have people?”

Her gaze rose from the pan to me. Apparently the sight of a male with spatula in one hand and an egg in the other took some of the threat out of being a werewolf because she met my eyes steadily. “Not anymore.”

I gave a brusque nod at all the rest she didn’t say—I knew it well enough—and mixed the wet ingredients into the dry with more force that was strictly necessary. “Gotcha. Well, Mather already told you, you can stay here, no doubt.”

“No.” She darted a look at him. “No, he didn’t.”

Mather’s dark skin brightened with a flush of blood. “That was remiss of me. Of course Rogue Mountain welcomes you. I should have said so.”

I smirked at him. “Focused on other things, were you?”

His glare could’ve turned the pancakes to ash. “I was. Such as how to free Annalee from Lysander’s pack bond.”

If he was any other male, I’d have said he was lying. Or at least omitting. Even the most considerate Y chromosome had to note the graceful beauty under Annalee’s grimy exterior. But Mather and his monster were just that kind of humane. How he’d managed to keep that benevolence intact under the scars, I’d never understood.

I stuck my tongue out at him as I flipped the pancake. It was thinner than Bettina’s, not as fluffy, but maybe that would be okay for little Annalee.

She looked at the treat when I slid the plate beside her blanket-wrapped elbow on the table. “There is no…bond. At least that’s what he said. That’s why he always kept me in those…” She lashed out at the chains, and dainty as her feet were, she still kicked the heavy steel links halfway across the kitchen.

I raised my eyebrows.

Mather made a soothing noise. “It wasn’t your fault. You wouldn’t be able to stop the pack bond. The first time you shifted—”

“I haven’t.” She slipped one slender arm out of the blanket’s fold to grab the pancake. “I haven’t ever shifted. And I won’t.” She bit fiercely into the perfectly-if-I-did-say-so-myself golden disk.

I wanted to laugh at the expression on Mather’s face. Or stab myself with the spatula. Two unbound, unshifted female werewolves in our pack? We were doomed.

Mather pulled up a second chair and sat heavily, as if he couldn’t take anymore either. “I realize we haven’t been acquainted long enough to share our intimate histories but—”

“Lysander kidnapped my friend and me,” Annalee interrupted, obviously desperate to tell her story. “We’d just gotten ice cream at the convenience store.” She looked down at the small portion of pancake left in her hand and dropped it to the plate. “It was almost midnight, and we shouldn’t have been out still, but all day it was so hot. The streets were sticky…” Her fingers trembled before she curled them into a fist, and I realized just how young she was when she raised her gaze, her eyes shimmering. “That wasn’t barely more than three months ago.”

I didn’t want to ask, and from the way Mather pressed his fingertips to his forehead he already knew the answer, but if we’d left someone behind… “Where is your friend, Annalee?”

“Dead.” The harsh slap of her voice made me wince. “She turned half creature and she died screaming, words I couldn’t understand. Sounds I’ll never forget.” Annalee pulled her arm back into the blanket and hunched her shoulders like a turtle. A snapping turtle, probably. “I won’t do it. He cut the weave right off my head and stuck a knife through my legs, but I wouldn’t change. Not for him, not for anyone.”

Day-um. I’d thought she was too young and delicate to handle anything but the weakest strain of lupoviridae. But she’d held off a wolf.

Not just Lysander, but her own.

She couldn’t last forever, though. Fighting the virus would burn her out, and she’d die anyway.

I drew a breath, but with a faint shake of his head, Mather shut down the warning I wanted to give her. I bristled, even though I knew he was right. If Lowe’s gentle beast terrified her, what would she think of the wolf—omega or alpha or something in between—that had somehow kept her alive in Lysander’s clutches?

Until her wolf rose, Lysander couldn’t easily track her though the bond. But the additional stress on our small pack might be too much to take.

“Fuck the pancakes,” I muttered as I turned back to the stove. “I’m pulling out the venison steaks.”

I had the bad feeling we’d need all our strength.

~ Bettina ~

With the taste of Conlan on my tongue as courage, I got deep enough in the forest to where I lost sight of the chalet behind me before I realized that for all my bold words, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

“Reeve,” I hissed. “Dammit. Don’t make me…”

The breathless stars in my head after that kiss still gleamed in my mind’s eye, bright enough that I could almost count them. No, I could count them, glinting like heartbeats. One bright at the center and four more arrayed like most of the ends of a five-pointed star. But the last point—the one at the top—was missing.

Reeve. That fifth point was Reeve, and the other four were the rest of his pack.

And I was the center. Or supposed to be. No pressure or anything.

But where was Reeve? How could I reach him?

I sank to my knees on the thick bed of pine needles. The trees stood silent and imposing—and judgey—as a cathedral. But damp. The water wicked through my holey jeans and, I swear, straight up to my eyeballs.

I buried my face in my hands and burst into tears.

Not proud to break, but the release felt cathartic, letting out the cold trying to freeze me from the inside. Except for the searing moments in the arms of his pack, that cold had been with me since I drove away from Reeve, leaving him in Lysander’s cruel grip. Now Reeve had left me, which seemed fair enough, considering. But still. I wept until I felt one with the forest: chilly, soggy, and probably growing moss.

Snuffling, I wiped my palms down what was left of my jeans—

And shrieked when a hand settled on my shoulder. I whipped around, flinging up a fragrant arc of pine needles.

Reeve caught my flailing fist in one hand, halting my hysterical—and sadly ineffectual—attack.

I glared at him, my heart stuttering from the surprise. And something else. Of course he’d show up when I was at my most pathetic. I jerked my hand out of his and swiped my knuckles across my eyes again. Which I knew was only calling attention to my weakness but let me surreptitiously wipe my nose too. For all my practice, I’d never been a pretty crier.

“Why did you run away?” I almost winced at the shrill note in my voice. Apparently if I couldn’t hit him with my fist, I’d strike out with words. But I was just so mad at him for leaving.

That shuttered expression, stuck on his face since we’d found him, didn’t shift. “I had to get some clothes.”

The baggy cargo pants hanging loose around his hipbones barely qualified as clothes, and he hadn’t even bothered with a shirt. “I didn’t realize that was a thing with you guys.”

His gaze raked me once. “Yeah. Seems like you caught on quick.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a comment on my redneck refuse disguise…or me getting naked with his pack. Either way, humiliation sleeted through me. “Okay, if that’s how you want—”

“Bets,” he growled.

He reached for me, but when I recoiled, he let out an explosive curse and swiveled away to rake his hand through his shaggy black hair. Even as he did so, he winced and lowed his arm, clamping one hand over his ribs. His face and forearms dripped water, so he had obviously rinsed up wherever he’d stashed the extra clothes. But as gory as he’d been before, his quick wash only revealed the vicious cuts, bruising, and bite marks all over his exposed skin.

Even mad and resentful and exhausted, I couldn’t ignore how hurt he was. “You should go back to the house,” I said softly. “Let Mather check you out.”

“Mather.” Reeve’s jaw flexed. Above the contusion on his cheekbone, his one eye was still swollen closed. “There’s nothing he can do. I just have to wait for the wolf…” His breath caught as he pressed at his side. “Go,” he hissed.

I pushed to my feet. “I’ll go,” I told him. “When you do.”

“Bettina.” His growl this time was even more threatening. But if he thought merely saying my full name was going to get him anywhere—besides back to the house—he was sorely mistaken. More sorely even than he looked.

“We came for you,” I said, my throat tightening. The moment felt as fraught as the first time I made a baumkuchen tree cake, pouring layer after layer of batter over a rotating spit, building like circular tree rings. But one wrong move…and the beautiful symmetry would be burned or sloughed off, ruined. I couldn’t let that happen with Reeve. His pack was counting on me. “Against all odds, we got you back, and we don’t want to lose you again.”

His mouth twisted, splitting open a cut in his lower lip. “I am lost.”

I squinted at him in confusion. My sob-puffed eyelids felt almost as swollen as his. Anyway, I felt blind. “What…”

“My wolf. I can’t find it.”

I shook my head. “You can’t… The wolf is you.” Or so I’d thought. So they’d told me, making me think I couldn’t escape the coming change.

But if Reeve had lost his wolf…

He swore and twisted away. I thought he was going to run again, but he only paced between me and the nearest tree, back to me and then another tree.

As if he was tracing the jagged points of a broken star.

“The wolf was fighting to challenge Lysander, and I couldn’t let it.” He might’ve been talking to me or the dark forest, I wasn’t sure. “I needed to distract him until you got away. And I couldn’t do that as the wolf.” He wheeled to face me, his stony expression starting to crack, emotion bleeding through like his split lip. “Because I knew I’d lose.”

Oh god, I’d done this to him. Luring him back to me with my weakling tears, I’d forced him to confess his fears. Then I made it worse by saying, “You wouldn’t have lost.” Except my voice wavered.

With him standing back in the shadows of the trees, his one eye was a dark, almost flat gray, missing the silver glints I’d come to know. Black ice, a dangerous patch that could send his pack spinning out of control.

“Lysander has more wolves than I do and no qualms about using them,” he said. “And they’ll do anything he tells them.”

“Mather and Conlan would do anything for you,” I countered. “And Domingo and Lowe too.” I raised my chin, not caring about my tear stains anymore. “And me.”

But he only shook his head violently, black locks flying. “I won’t ask it.”

“You won’t have to,” I said. He might think winning was what mattered—most of the world would probably agree with him—but I knew better. Sometimes willing mattered more than winning. “Because we’ll do it anyway. Just like we came for you even though we knew you’d be pissed.”

That brought him charging back to me. He gripped my arms, lifting me to my toes. “No,” he snarled. “Not again. I won’t risk it. I won’t risk you.”

“It was my choice,” I informed him as I flattened my hands on his bare chest. “Our choice. You might be the alpha among alphas, but you don’t get to take that away.”

His heart was pounding so hard it vibrated against my palms, echoing down into my veins.

“I could force you,” he said darkly. His bad eye was slightly parted, but showed only a gleam of crimson.

I stared up at him and shivered at the reminder of Lysander’s deadly gaze. “You won’t. That’s not you, not your pack.”

Both his eyes closed in anguish. “They may not be my pack anymore. Not if I can’t find the wolf.”

“It’s there.” I skimmed my hands up to frame his face, cradling his clenched jaw.

After an endless moment, he tilted his head into my caress. “When I saw you… Dammit, Bets.” His head hung lower. “I wanted you away from that fucking psycho, not back where he could get his claws in you again.”

I hushed him. “It’s over. We’re safe.”

“But for how long?”

I tilted forward to angle my forehead against his. “For now. Reeve, I’ve had so many things happen to me, bad things, that now is all I’m asking for, I swear.”

His ragged sigh ghosted across my lips, and it seemed to me as natural as breathing that I would catch his surrender with a kiss.

I angled lower to slant my mouth over his, and his next breath—a low groan—filled me with a heady elation that felt very much like a win to me. Especially when he pulled me tight against his chest so now I felt the slamming of his rampant heartbeat through my whole body. The reverberation unleashed a quiver low in my belly. My nipples beaded behind the thin, torn cotton of my tank top, aching for his touch.

And now needed to be right now.

A flick of my tongue caught the faintly metallic tang of blood. He’d told me swapping the virus strengthened the bond. If I’d helped bring his man-shape back to Rogue Mountain—his hard, hot, sexy manly shape—maybe I could lure the rest of him home.

A deep, long kiss. I wanted him to taste me too, so that with our hands tied behind our backs or one eye closed or whatever else happened to us, we’d always find each other, know each other.

We sank to our knees in the pine needles. His hands skimmed restlessly up and down my bare arms, sending waves of sensation streaming through my body. I grabbed the hem of my shirt and broke the kiss long enough to strip the cotton over my head. The cold and wet of the forest—not to mention the exposure—should have stopped me, but I was burning up. Burning for Reeve.

He growled and leaned down to set his teeth against the side of my neck. I tilted my head to give him my throat, moaning softly so I knew he’d feel it through his mouth. My pulse raced, swirling hotly through my veins, every nerve alight with desire.

“Reeve,” I whispered. “I want you.”

His rasping groan was the answer I needed. I struggled out of the damp denim trapping my legs. Kicking loose of my shoes and jeans, I felt free. The wind and shards of light gleaming between the pines made my skin come alive.

I threw myself against Reeve’s chest and kissed him hard. The buttoned fly of his cargo pants popped open beneath my fingers, and the hot girth of his erection surged into my hand. He groaned as I stroked over the bulbed head and down the shaft, and my pussy clenched at the sound, as if he was already inside me. Our tongues wrapped tight and wild as blackberry vines, the sharp edges of our teeth like thorns.

And then I tore myself loose and I ran.

Deeper into the forest. The light followed, pursuing me over the soft, hollow earth. My bare feet thudded like a distant drum, echoing my heartbeat, and my hair streamed back. This time the wind was of my own making, colder but sweeter, its fingers against my scalp raising goosebumps down my spine.

But part of me was focused over my shoulder. Because I knew somewhere back there—

He was hunting me.

It should have been frightening, too much like when we’d fled through the woods at his cabin and been separated.

Except this time I wanted to be caught. This time we’d find each other.

He took me down from behind. One hand closed like jaws on the back of my neck, but even as we went to the ground, he took the brunt of the fall himself. Pine needles pinwheeled around us, wreathing us in the dark, lusty scent of the forest.

My breath caught at the feeling of his big body encircling mine, holding me fast. We came to a halt with him on top.

That was my doing.

Staring up at him, I dug my heels into the earth and arched, flattening my body against his from thighs to chest. His naked skin was hot, feverishly so, and I reveled in the heat.

He glared down at me. Through the slit of his swollen eye, I caught a glimpse of icy blue amidst the broken blood vessels. “I thought you said you wanted me”

“I do.” I canted my hips into his, lest he doubt me.

“Then why’d you run?”

“So you’d chase me.”

He huffed out a breath. “I’m lightheaded from blood loss. What’s your excuse?”

“Wanting you,” I reminded him.

His breath was softer this time, not much more than a sigh, and he tilted his forehead down to touch mine. “Why? I failed you.”

“You found me,” I corrected almost as softly. “After Lysander bit me, and when he came after me again, you were there. You saved me. I…I haven’t had much of that in my life. If I do the math, I think I’ve had as many people hurt me as be kind.” I ran a fleeting finger over the crescent scar on my breast—my earliest hurt, and from my own mother. “But in my worst moment, you tipped the balance to the good, and I’ll never forget that.” My throat ached, but I was out of tears. Instead, I ran my hands down his lean flanks and cupped the taut muscles of his ass. “Plus, you have this rocking bod and you’re willing to roll me.”

I saw my little attempt at a joke had fallen flat when he lifted his head to look down at me and his jaw was clenched tighter than his glutes.

“I didn’t save you.” The edge in his voice sharpened the denial. “You saved yourself. All this time, I’ve been too chicken shit.”

“To roll me?” I asked weakly.

“To think about letting you close. I couldn’t risk it.”

“Because of what happened after your mother died.” I brought my arms up around his shoulders, holding him close even as I ducked my chin. “I understand that your pack comes first—”

“No.” He put one hand under my chin, levering my head up to meet his gaze. “That’s just it. You come first now.”

The ferocity of his stare sent a zing down my spine. It was too much: the fight, his rescue, now him telling me… I wasn’t sure what he was saying. It was one thing if he wanted a female werewolf to balance his pack. But if he wanted me to believe he wanted me for me…

Since I wasn’t sure what I was saying, I went to my easy place. “For now, we’ve won, and the rest can wait. So do it,” I challenged him. “Make me come.”

The wolf was all hunger and instinct. Maybe I could lure back Reeve and his wolf with temptation. My arms still wrapped around his shoulders, I lifted myself up to kiss his throat. His pulse banged against my lips with the same rhythm as his hips nudging mine. His rigid cock pressed to my belly, and a hot thrill spiraled up from my pussy.

I butterflied my knees, cradling him at my core. When he lifted his head to look down at me—both eyes open now and gleaming—I knew he must feel my slick wetness on his balls. He stroked his cock slowly down the nest of my curls and paused with the blunt head poised at my opening.

Breathing out a soft whine of need, I spread my knees wider, inviting him in.

“Bettina,” he rasped. “You make me want…”

The longing in his voice roused a deeper ache in me than the need between my legs. “What?”

“You,” he said. “You and everything I thought was gone forever.”

That was…a lot. Did he really think I could offer that much? “You have me,” I told him. I could give him that at least.

He sank into me slowly, each heartbeat ratcheting up the sweet tension in my pussy, but when he loomed above me, the rest of my body melted like buttercream frosting on the tongue at his dominant stance.

Alpha prime. I hadn’t understood the words, not in my bones. But now I felt it, felt his power. I remembered Mather’s tongue, Conlan’s cock between my thighs, the phantom caress of Lowe’s lustful gaze, and the sound of Domingo giving voice to our pleasure even from far away. Reeve didn’t eclipse those memories; his touch gave them a crystal-edged depth, like moonlight shining on the Rogue River, like a shot of espresso gave chocolate an extra fullness. When we locked gazes, the sun angled up behind him, streaming through the trees and touching his black hair with highlights of gold. But it was his eyes that captured me.

Bright as silver stars, I saw the wolf staring back.

Chapter 3 ~ Reeve

As Bettina arched beneath me and gasped, the wolf sprang up from my depths. The rush of power burned through my veins, and all my senses blazed. At the scent of her sweat-dampened skin, my balls tightened, one thrust from coming.

I had thought I’d lost her, but she was right here under me, giving herself to the beast. I throttled the urge to ravage her, though the feral spark in her whiskey eyes told me she’d match me, bite for bite. Instead, I eased back until she moaned and clutched at my ass. Then I returned, slow as the arc of the sun. She writhed, screwing herself on my cock. The clench of her pussy was a sensual trap, one I wanted to fall into, ready and willing.

But not until she fell first. I teased her, driving her toward that edge. I nipped at her lower lip and her sharp inhalation scraped her chest against mine. I bent double to lift the full mound of her breast to my lips. My ribs ached at the contortion, but the broken bones would have to spear through my heart to stop me from tasting her. Her flesh was a soft and warm weight in my hand, the light sprinkling of freckles like tiny red stars around the crescent moon tattoo that covered her wolf-born scar. I dragged my teeth lightly over the stiff, distended peak, flicking my tongue.

She let out a strangled scream and bucked into me. I clamped my lips on her nipple and sucked hard, as if I could pull her bold spirit into me, to join the wolf. So close, my mouth on her breast, her hands buried in my hair, our hips grinding.

When the orgasm came, it blindsided both of us, a brutal ambush that captured us in taut-muscled, violent stillness for an endless instant. Her strength, inside and out, held me in place, but then the pleasure swept over us both. She jackknifed into me, and I straightened with a groan that was almost a howl. My gut and thighs flexed, and I buried myself balls deep in her slick heat.

Fierce pleasure I’d never known before raged along my nerves, and the pain of the slashes and bites that had gone through muscle to bone was washed away in the gust of release.

But as thoroughly as I was caught by the intensity of my orgasm, she captured me. With her head tilted back, her eyes half closed in ecstasy and her hair knotted with pine needles and winter light, she was wildness given lush form. I wanted her with a passion that sent my cock surging into her once more.

She spread her arms to the sides, the rising curves of her breasts gilded by sweat and sun, and cried out again as another orgasm seized her. The wolf sang along with her, delighted.

Had I ever really thought I could let her go? My arms trembled. To hide the weakness, I lowered myself atop her and rolled, hauling her with me. The loam cooled my heated skin, and I curled my arms around her protectively. If her wolf had risen, we could shift and our fur would shield us.

Except, of course, being a wolf was no guarantee of safety. If anything, she risked more when she finally turned. The truth of that thought chilled me more than the wet dirt.

“Don’t,” she said without opening her eyes.

It was too late for don’ts, whatever she was thinking. The wolf’s satisfaction and the man’s remorse were an incompatible mess, like a halfway shift gone bad. One or the other must come out on top.

“Don’t what?” I smoothed back a lock of nut-brown hair that strayed across her forehead.

She rubbed her cheek on my chest. “Don’t pull away again.”

I wanted to tell her, considering she was lying on me, it wasn’t like I was going anywhere. But she was too smart to believe me. I wound the bramble-brown lock around my finger.

“I caged my wolf so I could face Lysander,” I murmured. “He beat me bloody but he couldn’t break through. But you… One touch from you and the wolf rises.”

She huffed. “I got more of a rise than that.”

She was doing it again—dropping the sexy joke as distraction. I wanted to call her on it, but what was the point when I couldn’t offer any other sort of comfort?

With her still in my arms, I stood. She squeaked and wrapped her arm around my neck, choking me tighter than Annalee’s chains.

After a moment, she loosened her grip with a rueful chuckle. “I’ll probably never get used to that.”

The wolf bristled a little. “I told you I’d never drop you.”

She rested her other hand on my chest. “And if I asked you nicely to put me down because I know you’re still hurt?”

“Don’t,” I volleyed back at her.

She sighed and rested her head on my shoulder.

She still hadn’t shifted, yet she ruled my wolf in ways I didn’t fully understand. It wasn’t the allure of any female werewolf; Annalee was that and I didn’t feel this pull, the urge to lay myself down for her. Lysander was the most dominant werewolf I’d ever encountered, and he hadn’t been able to command and break my beast.

But Bettina…

What would she do to my pack?

What could she do to me?

***

I carried her a short distance to Ruffian Creek. The babble of the rushing water soothed my restless thoughts as I walked along the bank.

Bettina lifted her head to look around. “Where are we going? I need to get back to my clothes.”

Was she wanting to cover up from what we’d done? Shapeshifters tended to be private, not exhibitionists, but it bothered me that she wasn’t completely comfortable with our closeness.

Which I knew was hypocritical of me.

But I only answered, “We keep a place to wash up and change clothes out here.”

“The house isn’t that far.” She hesitated. “Is it?”

She obviously didn’t realize how far she’d run after challenging me to chase her. “Not far, but sometimes we get too dirty to track everything back to the house.”

“Hunting.” She shivered a little in my arms. Disgust? Fear? Or maybe just cold.

“That,” I acknowledged. “And mushroom picking can get pretty muddy.”

She pulled herself far enough away from my chest to stare at me through wide eyes. “Mushrooms?”

“The primary product of Rogue Mountain Industries is sustainably harvested matsutakes, morels, and chanterelles.” I paused. “And world-class white truffles.”

She blinked. “You’re truffle hunters? I thought pigs did that.”

I gave her a mock glare. “We don’t get that dirty. People used to think female pigs were drawn to ripe truffles because the scent signature was similar to the pheromones of male pigs.”

“No wonder I’ve always preferred frosting to French chef-ing,” she muttered.

I squeezed her lightly. “Really, any pig will do. And those chefs will pay top dollar for the best truffles.” I let out a gusting sigh. “That’s how I got the Z4, may it rest in pieces.”

She snorted and shook her head. “I didn’t see a pig at the chalet.”

“We had one for awhile, but for some reason, she didn’t like working with us.” I flashed Bettina a grin with teeth. “Once we caught the scent, though, we realized the wolf’s nose is as good as a truffle-hunting dog’s. I was lining up buyers for our winter white season when I stopped in town…and found you.”

She gazed at me solemnly. “Now I have to be grateful for mushrooms.”

I dipped my head to nuzzle her hair. And I was grateful for the business meeting that just two days ago had annoyed me so much. If I hadn’t been there…

She reached up to cup my jaw and angled in for a kiss.

I stopped walking to focus on the softness of her lips, the dart of her tongue teasing mine.

After a long moment, I reluctantly lifted my head. “Keep that up and we’ll stay dirty forever.”

“Maybe…” she mused. But when I soldiered on and the round, canvas-sided cabin appeared between the trees, she let out a delighted little laugh. “A yurt. How cute.” When I kept walking toward the water, she stiffened, “If you think I’m washing up in that cold-ass creek—”

Standing on the tumbled river rock bank, I let her legs slide down my body.

She squealed then gasped when her toes touched the water. “It’s warm. Hot, really.”

“Hot spring,” I said. “We have a few on the property. Wait here.”

She sank to her butt on one large stone, her feet dangling, while I padded upstream. The pack had worked hard to alter the flow of the creek just enough to control the mix of cold snowmelt with bubbling geothermal. I rolled a few rocks aside to add more cool; the spring by itself was hot enough to scald.

By the time I walked back, Bettina had submerged herself to the neck. Her hair, darkened to shadows by the water, streamed around her, tugged by the ever-refreshing flow.

“Oh, Reeve,” she sighed. “This is wonderful.”

Seeing her there… It was wonderful.

I slid into the water beside her. The side pool was defined by the biggest river rocks, and though it was only up to my waist at its deepest point, it had room enough for five dirty wolves so there was plenty of space for both of us. But Bettina eased toward me, letting her legs trail out behind her on the current while she moored against my chest.

Her gentle touch roamed the outlines of my wounds, which were healing quickly with my wolf’s return. “When I saw you, I was so afraid…” she murmured.

The memory dulled her eyes for a moment and stabbed through me like a blunt tooth. I’d brought her so much fear. How could the pleasure be enough to counter it?

“I’m alive,” I soothed her. “The bruises will fade after I eat something.” I quirked my lips. “Maybe something baked with truffle oil?”

She didn’t smile back. “But Lysander is still out there.”

My wolf growled, but I kept the menace out of my voice. “True. But we hurt him, and I think we scared him too. He never thought you’d be able to escape him, or that you’d dare come back with an attack.” I gripped her shoulders and surfed her up my chest so I could kiss her hard while the soft weight of her breasts seemed to squeeze something in me despite the buoyant water. It was almost a pain, like the fading memory of broken ribs. “You amaze me.”

“Yeah, it feels like a maze,” she said. “And I’m lost in it.”

“A babe in the woods. Definitely a babe.”

She wrinkled her nose at me. “Seriously, Reeve.”

I clenched my groin muscles, and my bobbing cock nudged her belly. “I am very serious.”

“Mostly seems like you’re teasing.” She spread her legs underwater to straddle me.

“Who’s teasing who?” I rubbed my cock between her thighs.

She took me inside her and I longed to give her everything inside me: my craving, my wolf, my pack. But until she finally shifted, until we knew what was truly inside her, she could be as much danger to Rogue Mountain as Lysander.

And judging by how easily she tamed me…maybe more.

~ Mather ~

I preferred to think of myself as a sane, sensible man.

But sometimes, when I wasn’t careful, the wolf reminded me I was more than that.

Conlan and Lowe had both reacted to little Annalee with the same instinctive protectiveness, their wolves drawn to defend the weak. And pulled closer yet by the hint of slumbering power. She wasn’t wolf-born—I’d surreptitiously checked for the scars when I looked over the worst of her injuries—but she was hiding something more than a beast she didn’t want.

As I walked her down the hallway to a suite, I kept my hands carefully to myself even though she limped from her torn ankles, her pace hampered by the blanket she kept pulled tight as a cocoon. She’d conceded to my ministrations with the still and silent grace of a Nubian carving, but I didn’t need an animal’s keen senses to know she resented every touch.

I paused at the double doors to a bedroom, empty since the dissolution of Reeve’s family. “There’s a private bath in there, and I’ll leave clean clothes on the dresser. By the time you’re done, we’ll have a real meal ready so you can begin regaining your strength.”

She leaned away from me, her nostrils flaring although my wolf caught nothing more in the big room than the faint scent of a long-ago mouse who’d run through and quite wisely decided to go elsewhere.

Well, I smelled mouse and Annalee’s mud.

“Strength?” Her lip curled, flashing a glimpse of the tender pink inner lining and white teeth beyond. “What good will that do me when Lysander comes back? It’ll just give him the joy of breaking me again.”

“You weren’t broken,” I said. “Trapped, yes, but not broken.”

She stared down at her feet. “I’ll never even walk normally again. And I was on the long-distance running team in high school…” Her breath caught.

I ached to take her in my arms and soothe the pain that was more than physical. “When your wolf comes, it should heal the damage.” Shifting couldn’t always wipe the slate clean—as the marks on my own skin made perfectly clear—but her wounds weren’t deadly and had been made after she was bitten and infected.

She set her jaw but couldn’t quite disguise the slight quiver of her chin. “I won’t change.”

“We all change.” I gestured for her to enter the room.

For all the damage the chains had done, her feet braced steadily on the planked floor, and she lifted that tattletale chin to a regal height. “Are you going to force me?”

Despite her stranglehold on the blanket, I saw her throat bob when she swallowed hard. The smooth brown skin of her neck was abraded where the metal band had weighed on her collarbones.

My wolf made an end run around my iron discipline and had my vocal cords held so tightly in its phantasmal teeth I could barely force human words through the vicious snarl. “I will kill anyone who hurts you again.”

I caught my breath at my lack of control, especially when I’d so recently chided Lowe and Conlan for the same slip. But this time, Annalee didn’t retreat.

Her golden-brown gaze locked on me for a long moment. “You can’t promise that.”

“I just did.”

Finally she nodded. She stepped backward into the room and closed the door in my face.

I stood there for a second, leashing the beast. And listening for the water in the bath. When I heard the splash, I retreated to give her the privacy she deserved.

Gathering clothes for her, I was aware of a lurking shadow at my heels. “Don’t let her see you,” I told Lowe after I deposited the borrowed items in her room. “But don’t let her leave the house either.”

He chuffed under his breath.

Leaving him to guard our guest, I returned to the kitchen where Conlan was grilling off two hunts’ worth of meat. The wolves would feast well.

As I’d told Annalee, we needed to eat to recover from the fight.

And to prepare for the next.

With my beast back under control, I sank wearily onto the kitchen chair where Annalee had sat. I half imagined I could still feel her body heat…

Conlan peered over his shoulder at me. “How are those burns?”

I grimaced. Trust Con to remind me that I was deluding myself about where that feeling of warmth came from. “Medium well,” I told him. I’d known I was standing too close to the flares even before they exploded, but since I’d had three of Lysander’s wolves close enough to take the brunt, I hadn’t wanted them to back off.

Fortunately, the thick black leather vest had protected my vital organs. What it couldn’t protect…at least it hid most of the blood and char.

He grunted. “You should go take care of that.”

“I will. While Annalee is eating. When Reeve and Bettina get back. And when—”

“When the whole world is orchestrated to your satisfaction?”

I kept my face impassive, not wanting him to see how his needling had gotten through the holes in my various skins. “Any day now.”

For a few minutes, the silence was broken only by the hissing spatter of oil. I closed my eyes and let the rich scent of venison drift past me. That had been a good hunt, the five of us taking down the past-his-prime buck so fast that the creature had died without a moment’s fear and with the sweet spring grass still in his mouth.

I wasn’t usually sentimental about our kills. We were predators, after all, but the run-in with Lysander’s pack reminded me that death was always waiting.

And maybe I was feeling past prime myself.

“Is Annalee going to stay?”

I shrugged at Conlan’s question, biting back an oath when the movement ripped the raw strands of my healing skin. “She doesn’t trust us, but I think she has nowhere else to go.”

“Welcome to the club,” Conlan muttered. He glanced past me and added, “Speak of the devil.”

Domingo gave him a flat stare from where he stood poised in the doorway like the wary wild thing he was. The brooding male was always first to a fight, but when the danger was over, he’d often slip away for days at a time.

I wondered what he sensed that was keeping him close.

“Check,” he said.

Conlan poked the steaks then moved them to a platter and covered them, letting the meat rest. “Almost ready, mate.”

“Not checkmate,” Domingo said. “Not yet. But check.”

“Our king was already captured,” I reminded him. “And we got him back. Took their queen too.”

“Queen or spy?” Domingo asked.

I rose from the chair and faced him. “She’s never shifted. Lysander can’t use the pack bond to find her.”

“He bit her.” Domingo paced a few restless steps. “His virus is in both of them, and that’s enough to anchor a connection. If he did anything else—”

I growled, low in my throat. The sound was echoed by a clear voice behind me.

“After the chains, he never touched me.” Annalee walked slowly into the kitchen, eyeing us. At that cautious pace, her limp was almost unnoticeable. Or maybe it was the ridiculously oversized clothes blunting her movements. Where Bettina’s generous curves had given new feminine life to our borrowed things, the black cotton T-shirt and cargo pants swallowed little Annalee.

My wolf didn’t want anything swallowing her and forced us a step in her direction. But her head-flinch at my sudden movement stopped me in my tracks.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I reassured her. “Whatever he did—”

“He never raped me,” she snapped. “And when Scratch tried it, Lysander beat him down. Twice. Said if there was a third time, Scratch wouldn’t have a dick or a throat anymore.”

“How gentlemanly,” Conlan drawled.

Annalee gave me another look—this one long and meaningful—before she crossed to the kitchen chair I had vacated. She’d rolled up the bottoms of the pant legs several times, revealing her bare feet, which she drew up onto the seat of the chair when she sat, hugging her knees.

One more glance at me, wary again. “You said you’d look at my legs.”

Had I said that? I’d wanted to, but I’d been afraid of scaring her. Conlan wordlessly handed me the first aid kit from the pantry. There wasn’t much in it—wolf-shifters either healed or died—but it held the basics.

I cleansed my hands and approached her, suddenly feeling as if I was the wary one. I went to one knee in front of her and, with a glance up for her permission, nudged the pant legs higher. When she clamped the tough knit to her shins, out of the way, her fingers brushed my knuckles.

“Why didn’t Lysander finish the job of claiming you?” Domingo’s voice was edged with a touch of cruelty. In the doorway where Annalee had entered, Lowe lurked, hackles raised.

Annalee kept her gaze focused on me when she answered, “He didn’t really want me.”

“One doesn’t typically chain something one wants to discard,” I murmured.

“He knew he’d made a mistake, that I wouldn’t be what he was looking for.” Her grip on the fabric tightened. “He said no one else would want me either.” Her breath hitched.

I rested my palm on her instep. My hand engulfed her foot. “And yet Lysander has been wrong about so very many things.”

She’d scrubbed in the shower, and the bracing aromatics of camphor clung to her skin. My wolf tried to scent her past the soap, and my nose twitched. I rubbed my face on my shoulder, clamping down on the beast. I didn’t need her scent to care for her wounds.

She’d been pierced behind the tendons, and the injuries were ragged but clean. I smeared the holes with ointment and wrapped both her ankles in gauze and stretch bandages. The muscles of her calves were tensed and too lean, even for her small frame. Lysander hadn’t let her go, but he hadn’t fed her enough either.

When I finished, I gently tugged the pant hems into place. “The flesh will start closing now that the metal is out. We’ll keep it covered and watch for infection, but I think it will heal without the wolf.”

She gave a jerky nod of her head, as if she desperately wanted to believe me but wasn’t sure she should. “Are you a doctor?”

“He knows all things,” Conlan interrupted. “You’re in good hands, sweet pea.”

Annalee slanted a glance at him and pulled a pair of socks from her pocket. While she eased the too-big socks over the bandages, I returned the kit to the pantry and washed my hands.

My shaking hands. Unacceptable. I would not let myself be rattled by that child. I had much bigger—literally—concerns.

Lowe gave a soft yip, as if he was agreeing with me, a moment before the kitchen door opened.

Bettina walked in, clad almost identical to Annalee’s shapeshifter castoffs except for the addition of a flannel shirt knotted around her middle. A half step behind her was Reeve.

The instant he crossed the threshold, I felt what Lowe had voiced: our pack bond shifting into place like a comforting hand wrapping around me, sheltering, supporting, guiding.

Our alpha prime had returned.

But it wasn’t the same as before. I felt the bonds straining to encompass Bettina even though she couldn’t quite reach back yet since her wolf was stubbornly missing. And there was a diffidence in Reeve that had never been present, even when he’d been a lone wolf, his natal pack destroyed.

As young as he’d been when our small pack came together, he’d ruled it confidently, accepting the alpha prime position as his due, by right of birth and territory. But he’d been challenged.

And he’d lost.

I’d told Annalee she hadn’t been broken, that Lysander hadn’t permanently damaged her.

I wasn’t so sure about Reeve.

Chapter 4 ~ Bettina

I glanced hesitantly at Reeve. He’d been so quiet on our walk back to the house, and I didn’t know why.

We’d fought off Lysander, freed Annalee, had multiple orgasms, and I was pretty sure I smelled dinner. What else did he need?

My gut tightened, not just with hunger but a sort of dread I knew all too well.

I wasn’t enough.

I’d never had a long-term man in my life, and the ones that stayed longest somehow managed to be the worst. Looking at you, Tommy. And no-name, sperm-donor-only Dad. I knew as much about being a girlfriend as I did about being a werewolf.

Which was to say, nada.

His pack was gathered in the kitchen, and as all their gazes swiveled toward us, I balked. I didn’t mean to, but I felt the assessing weight and it knocked me backward into Reeve.

I’d been intimate with all the virile males in this room—had sex with three of them and let the other two watch and listen. Shouldn’t that make me the baddest bitch ever? Why couldn’t I be cocky by osmosis and sheer proximity?

Instead of having five times the opportunity to screw, I just had five times the chances of screwing up.

Reeve caught my elbows and propelled me onward.

“Sit, both of you,” Conlan said. “Eat.”

I gave him a shaky smile. “That’s usually my line.”

The corner of his mouth curved up. “I can learn new tricks.”

Good for him.

But could I?

I almost would’ve rather been on the other side of the spatula; at least that was familiar, safe. I didn’t need to think or worry when I was baking. But it did feel nice to be served. Conlan plated a positively medieval mound of steak and mushrooms, and the males around the table fell on it like…

Well, like what they were.

I’d taken the seat next to Annalee, and I touched her forearm while the males feasted. “How are you feeling?”

She dipped her head. “I never said thank you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Yeah, I do. You can’t know…” Her citrine eyes flickered as she darted a glance around the table. “Unless it’s happened to you.”

“Lysander is the one who bit me too.” In between bites, I gave her a quick recap of my last two nights, minus any screaming of the sexual or terrified kind. “So I know where you’re coming from.”

Her gaze locked on mine as I spoke. “Really? I thought… But you’re the sang de cor.”

I tilted my head. “Sang de what?”

She shrugged. “That’s what Lysander called it. The female who balances the pack.”

“Blood of the heart.”

At the harsh words, I glanced down the table to Domingo. He’d chosen the farthest-away seat—of course—but obviously he’d been listening to every word.

“Sounds like pretty poetry,” I said. “Or a death threat. One or the other, definitely.”

Domingo’s dark eyes glittered. “Both.”

Reeve shook his head. “If Lysander understands the significance of the female’s presence of the pack, why his cruelty toward them?”

Though she’d polished off most of her steak, Annalee pushed the last few bites around her plate. “After dragging me around for months, he was furious that I haven’t changed. He said if a wolf didn’t come to save me from the chains, that meant I was useless.”

Mather rumbled low in his throat. “A wolf did come.”

I blinked at the barely curbed violence in his voice, but when Annalee shrank into herself, I focused on her again. “I haven’t changed either,” I confessed. “So maybe it’s that asshole. His virus is shooting blanks. Infectile dysfunction, you know?”

She gave me a wan smile, as I’d intended, but once I’d said it, my mind raced ahead with the repercussions of what that meant.

If Lysander’s bite hadn’t changed Annalee yet, maybe it wouldn’t change me either. Maybe all Reeve’s worries about bringing me into his pack were moot.

If I never shifted, I wouldn’t interfere with the bond they all talked about. They wouldn’t have to fear me devastating them as the loss of Reeve’s mom had broken his old pack. I could go home, back to the bakery, back to my old life. I’d never have to think about being bitten or running through the forest or werewolves ever again.

No one would ever call me his heart’s blood.

A toxic brew of panic and relief and loss sloshed in my gut until I couldn’t tell which response was the right one. I hadn’t known them long enough to care so much. And anyway, the time I had known them didn’t exactly make for ideal first-date stories. Unless it was a swipe-left warning.

Reeve asked Mather something about the fight at the maintenance yard, but their voices sounded far away as my pulse stuttered an uneasy beat, deafening me to their words. Down the table, Domingo’s head was tipped to his meal but I felt the sharp edge of his obsidian stare, as if he knew the unchecked emotions careening through me. Of course, he did. As the pack’s chess master, he was always keeping his eye on the pieces.

And he knew the queen was second in value only to the king because she could move in all directions freely. But what about a queen who couldn’t shift from her one spot? She was less than a pawn. And if I couldn’t shift…

Domingo pushed back his chair. “We hurt Lysander, but he’ll come at us again, harder next time.” He stiffened at Annalee’s soft whimper but didn’t temper his tone when he continued, “I’ll take the first watch with Lowe.”

Across the table from me, Lowe made a grumbling noise and snatched a hunk of meat Conlan had just speared from the main platter.

Conlan swatted at him, but Lowe hopped down from his seat with a flick of fluffy tail, and it was only at that moment I consciously acknowledged there’d been a wolf at the table.

Maybe I’d been with them too long.

Even minus two werewolves, the rest of the meal was decimated in minutes. Annalee and I made our own fair dent. Hoping to learn more about Lysander’s pack, I told her about him biting me, and she haltingly recalled her abduction with her friend.

“She was affected right away, started changing that night.” Annalee hunched, tucking her chin. I knew that protective stance too well. “So what if you’re wrong about his virus being weak?”

I touched her bent shoulder. “I’m so sorry about your friend. Do you know…” I swallowed hard. “Do you know what Lysander did with her?” If we could direct law enforcement to what seemed like proof of a crime—and it was a crime to bite someone unknowing, unwilling, to pass lupoviridae, just a crime that most humans knew nothing about— maybe they’d go after Lysander. Even if they had no luck beyond hounding him, he’d be on the run and too preoccupied to bother us.

But Annalee shook her head. “I don’t know what happened…after.” She let out a shuddering breath. “When she died, she was just a girl again. Lysander said she wasn’t strong enough to hold onto the wolf.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“I’m not.” She bared her teeth. “Who’d want to hold onto a wolf? At least she’s not…” She swept one hand over her mouth, silencing herself.

I wanted to apologize a third time, and my heart ached for her. Because I understood. Who’d want to hold onto the power and danger of an apex predator?

Maybe someone who’d never had a chance at either.

On her other side, Mather rose and pulled back her chair too. “Annalee, you should get some rest. You’re clean and fed and safe, and that’s enough for now.” When I peered up at him in surprise, thinking he’d want to know everything about the invading pack, he flicked one finger at me, a clear sign to let it go. “You can tell us all about Lysander after you’ve slept.”

Annalee stood with more passivity than she’d shown even when chained to a stump in the forest. When she wavered a little, I realized Mather was right; she was on her last legs.

With a twinge of guilt, I forced a smile. “He’s right. Everything is quiet right now.” I didn’t have to say for how long.

She nodded and turned to follow Mather, looking like a lost puppy behind his large form.

Conlan watched them go, the corner of his mouth quirked in a strange way, like the self-deprecating response to a klutzy move: half amusement, half pain. When he saw me watching him, he stood. “You two should catch some shuteye as well. I’ll clean up.”

“He who cooks doesn’t clean,” I protested.

“I’ll never be so kind again,” he warned. “So take advantage of it. Anyway, you lot did most of my work for me, licking the plates and all.”

Then he ever-so-briefly flicked his eyes toward Reeve.

I wanted to smack myself—or blush. Of course Reeve wouldn’t rest until I did. But that meant I’d have to take him to bed. And all of them would know it…

Not that it was a secret. I knew that, and still my cheeks burned.

I jerked my head in a nod and pushed to my feet. I held my hand out to Reeve.

“Go on,” he said. “You know where the bedroom is. As paranoid as Domingo makes himself, Lysander won’t attack today.” His jaw tightened. “He’ll wait for dark.”

That…wasn’t exactly a “sweet dreams” kind of sendoff. “Don’t make me go by myself,” I murmured.

He caught my hand, but only brought it to his lips to brush a kiss along my knuckles. “You’re fine.”

I was, mostly. And somehow that worried me more than freaking out. Did that mean I was becoming more werewolf, even if I hadn’t shifted yet? Or was I fine because this was almost over for me?

Even though he said I was fine, I looked down and my knees wavered a little just like Annalee’s.

Did Reeve hate me for my wolf not coming? Did that say something about him being alpha prime if his love bites were no more influential on me than Lysander’s rabid one? Or maybe he was happy not to be saddled with a secondhand victim he hadn’t asked for.

I started to pull away, lifting my chin to hide the pang of that thought. And I caught the last split second of Con holding Reeve’s glance and tilting his head toward me. Oh, that dummkopf, thinking he could use the same trick on both of us.

Reeve got up. I didn’t want to be his pity bedtime partner, but both of us needed the escape. Leaving Conlan to wash up, we retreated to the master suite at the back of the house. As we passed through the double doors, I was flooded with a sensual memory of Mather and Conlan taking me in this room. Heat washed through me, an uneasy mix of shame and lust. No doubt Reeve could smell what had happened here since it wasn’t like we’d had time to change the sheets.

While Reeve had been basically tortured…

A strangled moan rattled in my chest.

He stopped and pivoted to face me. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“No,” I rasped. “I’m pretty sure you don’t.” How could he, when I wasn’t sure what I was thinking?

For thirty-six hours now, I’d been in crisis mode, always running without stopping to consider where I was going. In some ways, that was easier. I didn’t have to think at all.

In that instant, I really got the appeal of the wolf who could just act, letting instinct and the moment rule.

Of course, that’s how I’d ended up having werewolf sex.

Reeve half closed his eyes, but from the silvery glitter behind his dark lashes, I wondered if he did know what I was thinking after all.

“I need to say thank you too.” He stepped closer to me.

“I know you’re still mad. I can tell.”

“Not at you. Not anymore. It made me crazy that you risked your life, and I hate myself for not being able to stop that from happening.” He reached up to put a finger over my lips when I drew a breath to argue. “But you brought me back to my pack, which is the only place I want to be.” He smoothed his fingertip across my lower lip then traced upward over my cheekbone to brush a lock of my hair behind my ear, which after our coupling in the hot spring had dried into rather wild brown bramble of bed-head. “With my pack and with you.”

Unable to resist the soft rumble of his words or the even gentler caress of his fingers, I tilted my head into his hand. He cupped his palm under my chin and lifted my face to his.

The kiss was long, lingering, and all my cascading thoughts stilled, centered on him. I leaned into him, tasting the faintly mineral tang of the well water we’d drunk with dinner.

I might not have known what I was thinking, but I knew what I wanted.

I slipped my hands up inside his T-shirt, skipping my fingers over the ripples of his abdomen. While we’d eaten, the swelling and bruises on his face had almost vanished. I imagined the internal damage in his chest and shoulders was still knitting, but he lifted his arms readily, as if the pain meant nothing, to let me skim the shirt over his head. I swallowed hard as I exposed his gorgeous body. And it was mine for the taking.

I ran my hands over his shoulders and down his chest, tracing the bulges and dips of his musculature and hot, satiny skin. Maybe I panted a little.

When he shook back his shaggy midnight hair, both his eyes were clear, moonlit silver. And fixed on me with a hungry intensity no other prey could satisfy.

A thrill—not fear but power—zinged through me. I took a half step back, a primitive part of me wanting to show him I was no easy quarry, and held him at bay with one hand flattened on his chest.

His heart pounded against my palm, insistent, dominant. Alive.

My throat tightened. “You’re alive,” I whispered.

“Because of you.” His word vibrated though my fingertips, loosening the last of fear’s stranglehold on my vocal cords. “Lysander should’ve known he was heading into a trap this morning—I’m sure he knew it—but he thought it was worth the risk. Because of you.”

I grimaced, not wanting to give Lysander any more space in my psyche. “He won’t make that mistake again.”

“Oh, he will.” Reeve’s lips curled too, in a sneer. “He won’t be able to stop himself. But when your wolf rises and closes the bond, he’ll be shit out of luck.”

And just like that, the fear and my vulture-black circling thoughts of doom were back.

What if I never changed? Annalee hadn’t yet. She didn’t want to.

Did I?

Did I want to be bound to someone I’d known for the length of one date, really, if I added up the time we’d spent together when we weren’t fleeing for our lives? How could I even make that call when my choices had sucked so bad in the past?

Reeve stood at the end of my locked arm, not pushing though his stare was relentless. “You don’t trust me.”

“It’s not you.” Damn, I heard how weak that sounded. “Reeve, if Lysander is attacking you because of me—”

“He’s attacking because he’s a rabid thug. That’s not on you.” Reeve clamped his hand over mine, pressing my palm against the bare skin of his chest. “It’s on me to stop him. Forever.”

The thrum of violence in his promise brought my vulture thoughts circling closer. “But what if—”

“I didn’t bring you here to argue about this,” he said.

I scowled and jerked my hand out from under his. “I brought you,” I reminded him.

He took a step backward into the bedroom with a smirk. “Well, I’m right where you wanted me then.”

I had been thinking about how I wanted him… Puffing out a breath, I crossed my arms over my chest, unwilling to let this go when we had to figure out—

I gasped when strong hands gripped my elbows and swept me right off my feet, carrying me into the room. The door thudded shut behind me, and I swiveled my head side to side to glare at Mather on my right and Conlan on my left.

“Right where you wanted them too, apparently,” Reeve rumbled. “Who hasn’t been sleeping in my bed?”

No wonder he hadn’t worried about me getting away. Not when he had his pack standing by.

“Put me down,” I hissed. But I didn’t bother struggling because I already knew that wasn’t going to work.

“As you wish,” Conlan said.

He and Mather tossed me on the bed.

The plush mattress tried to swallow me whole, and I flailed to get myself upright to face them before they pounced.

But all three ranged at the end of the bed, Reeve in the middle, watching me.

I fisted the blankets that I’d kicked up in my panic and licked my lips.

I didn’t mean to give myself away, but they were. So. Damn. Yummy. Like a trio of perfectly frosted cupcakes. Con with his spiked blond hair was some sort of tart lemon meringue. Mather was richer than devil’s food, a double shot espresso maybe. And Reeve was my special blue velvet delight…

My heart pounded slow and hard in anticipation, and the pulse beat hardest between my legs. They thought they had me cornered on this big bed, but they had no idea.

Eyeing them all with the same thoroughness as I’d run my hands over Reeve, I sat back on my haunches. Conlan had kicked off his boots at some point, and he shifted his weight restlessly from one bare foot to the other as he leaned forward, ready to leap. At a flick of Reeve’s finger, he subsided, but his green eyes were almost luminescent with a barely contained energy that charged the tiny hairs on my skin even from this distance.

Mather was totally still. He must’ve washed up after seeing Annalee to her room because he was clad only in thin, silky pants. Beads of water trembled like living diamonds on his dark skin, making a lie of his stillness. The scintillating jewels of water seemed to be strung on the paler lines of his scars, marks of the wolf like the crescent moon carved into my breast, but so much worse. For all he must have suffered, though, his patience and compassion had made these last two nights bearable. No, more than that, his touch had made them pleasurable.

Although he didn’t seem so patient now. His numinous gray gaze pierced me; awareness of his powerful presence tingled along my nerve endings, lighting me up inside like the firefly glint of the water shimmering in his dreadlocks.

Reeve stepped forward, bringing my gaze back to him. His knees bumped the foot of the mattress. “You took them in this bed.”

That wasn’t a question. I lifted my chin. “Yeah.”

“And you liked it.”

That wasn’t a question either. But how could a good girl like me admit that taking control of my own desire was harder than I would’ve guessed…and more wicked than I could’ve ever hoped?

I rubbed my hands down my thighs and gripped the soft flesh there, as if that would stop me from reaching out to the three males watching me with such lustful intensity. “Yes.” I drew the word out slowly, uncertain how he would take it, but unwilling to lie.

I’d done it for him, to try to strengthen the pack’s bond to find him.

But I’d done it for me too, reaching for a connection I’d never experienced, hadn’t even known was possible.

The blue ice in his eyes blazed, and for a second, my heart stopped. I hadn’t deserved Lysander’s attack, but if anything happened to Reeve’s relationship with his friends because of me, I’d never forgive myself.

He lowered his head, staring at me through the thicket of his dark lashes. “Get her, boys.”

I gasped and braced myself as Mather and Conlan leapt from his side like hounds of hell unleashed. Or maybe wolves of heaven. Conlan was first on the mattress. His sudden weight bounced me up into Mather, who steadied me.

“Say the word and we’re gone,” he murmured.

The sense of power swept through me again, sweet and heady. It was power I’d taken from them, not because they gave it to me, exactly, but because I learned it from them. It lived inside me now, even if my wolf never came.

“Kiss me,” I whispered. “Kiss me so I believe we’re all still alive.”

His mouth crashed down on mine with none of the finesse I’d come to expect from him. I sucked in a deep breath to sustain me, tumbling in the dark tsunami of his kiss that churned up feelings from hidden places in my heart. My whole body awash with sensation, I clung to his broad shoulders, and in my imagination, the diamonds of water droplets on his skin steamed off in tiny helixes of desire. He leaned me back so far I would’ve fallen except Conlan was right behind me, his hands cupping my ass as I reclined into his unwavering embrace, my back against his chest.

I dragged my half-closed eyes wide open to look at Reeve.

He watched with those icy, burning eyes. I slid one hand off Mather’s shoulder and unfurled my fingers toward Reeve. Another long second where I felt frozen in his gaze… And then he came to me.

The weight of the three males on the bed bounced me higher. Or maybe that was just my heart, lifting on a rush of exhilaration. My pulse raced through my body in an ever-widening circle until it seemed to flow outward to the trio surrounding me, linking us in a live-wire electrical circuit of craving. My nerves sparked and my naked skin blazed as Conlan untied the flannel from around my waist and eased the T-shirt over my head while Mather skimmed off my pants.

Reeve loomed over me. He was naked too. A few of the deepest slashes and puncture wounds still marked his skin, but they only enhanced his stance as a conquering warrior, his muscled thighs braced. His hands fisted on his hips, emphasizing the mighty thrust of his cock jutting toward me.

If I’d still worried that the sight of the other naked males or knowing what they’d done to me would disgust him, that insistent erection left no room for doubts.

“You smell like the river,” Mather said softly, to me or to Reeve.

“Running wild,” Conlan murmured. “The blood of Rogue Mountain. Sang de cor.”

They lifted me like a pagan sacrifice. Their big, masculine hands, one darker, one paler, spread my knees to Reeve’s avid gaze. His stare was like another touch, deeper yet. Helplessly aroused, I arched into their grasp. My shoulders falling back pushed my breasts and hips higher, an erotic offering to all three.

And they took me apart.

Mather traced his tongue over the crescent scar on my left breast and finished with a swirl around my swollen nipple. He suckled hard, and I let out a yearning moan as the suction roused an answering tension in my pussy. Conlan palmed my other breast, rolling the aching peak with his thumb. His callused pad was a delicate roughness that made me moan again, squirming with need, until he thrust his tongue into my mouth, capturing my very breath.

A nudge heavier and slicker than his tongue stroked at my labia. With my head tipped back, I couldn’t see, but when I reached down, I found Reeve’s cock already smoothed with his arousal. He wasn’t just willing to share me with his packmates, he was enjoying it.

The naughty thrill of tantalizing this trio of powerful males was a reckless rush in my veins. I twined my fingers in Mather’s dreadlocks, holding him to my breast while I guided Reeve to my core. Not that he needed directions. With masterful strokes, he blended his juices with mine until I was weeping with wanting, almost sobbing with need and my pussy drenched. Done with his teasing, I braced myself against Mather and Conlan and thrust upward to Reeve, spearing myself on his cock. He groaned as I took him deep, and the answering growls from the males on either side of me sent a surge of victory through my core. My inner muscles tightened, and I thrashed my head restlessly, captured as much by my own rising hunger as the three males holding me.

My mind whirled with my racing pulse. Each pounding of my heart and Reeve between my legs seemed to push me further outside myself, until I was just a wildly writhing creature of sensation. And yet never had I been so aware of the world around me: Conlan’s hoarse whispers urging me onward, Mather’s wide hands cradling and torturing me with intoxicating caresses, Reeve’s watchful eyes as silver as the moon that hadn’t yet risen.

They orbited around me in an unbreakable circle. Reeve eased out of me with a succulent parting of damp flesh, and Mather took his place, his big frame spreading my thighs wider, the girth of his cock shocking a breathless gasp from me as he sheathed himself in my body in one relentless stroke. Conlan lifted my breasts, the heavy, swollen flesh almost too much even for his big grasp. He pinched my nipples hard enough that I squealed as a bolt of lightning-white pleasure diverged along every nerve. I arched backward, grinding down on Mather’s hips. He growled low in his throat and slammed into me. The pressure against my engorged clit wrenched a needy whine from my lips.

It was too much. It was not enough. It was everything…

Reeve reached between our sweat-slicked bodies and I found how much more I had to give.

Sliding one finger along the crack of my ass, he framed his other hand over my pussy so the pouting nub of my clit thrust past the web of his forefinger and thumb, so exposed, so wanting. The thatch of hair and bulging veins around Mather’s rampant cock teased me mercilessly, and I twisted, impaled on his unyielding erection. My breath sawed through my lips in rasping sobs as I grasped for more…

Reeve lowered his head to my begging flesh. At the hot, wet glide of his tongue, the last threads of reason and my old life that had been holding me together finally snapped. I came apart with a shattered scream. I came with what felt like an unending rush.

Mather’s strangled roar as his cock convulsed inside me was a rough velvet all along my body. I reached for him, to anchor myself, but somehow it was Conlan in my arms. I clutched his narrower shoulders as his cock slid into my still quivering center. I was so slick I wanted to blush but instead the heat rebounded through me, kindling at my core again. I whimpered in disbelief, but his long, lean brand found an untouched place deep inside me that needed more, more…

I clutched at his ass, trying to hold on, but Reeve’s hands were already there, spreading his muscled buttocks. Conlan’s green eyes widened then rolled back at some intimate caress I couldn’t see, only feel the results of as his cock jerked inside me. A handful of strokes, Reeve’s hand between us, and Conlan came with a guttural shout. The scalding gush of his release triggered another stunned contraction in my pussy.

Would I ever get enough?

I slumped back on the hot, rumpled sheets, stunned. Mather and Conlan lay on either side of me, their twinned rasping breaths a stereo symphony of repletion in my ears.

But Reeve still knelt on the bed over us all, his cock as hard and ready as ever.

I whimpered for real this time.

His lips quirked. “Is that enough?”

It should have been. But maybe I’d always been greedy, even if no one else believed I deserved it all, not even me. “More, more, more,” I whispered.

When he dropped to all fours and stalked me across the big bed, I actually shivered. My skin tingled with an awareness that sank all the way to my bones. In that moment, he was the warrior, the beast. He’d run me to ground. I was done.

I opened my legs and he feasted.

***

When I woke, moonlight filtered through the pines outside to limn the bedroom in delicate ghostlight. By its glow, I found myself alone with Reeve. We’d slept the rest of the day away. Since it was so late, I guessed Mather and Conlan had swapped Domingo and Lowe on guard duty.

I looked over the naked male sprawled beside me. Even when I rolled to my side, his breathing stayed slow and heavy with deep sleep. I reached out to brush a curling lock of black hair from his forehead, but I stopped myself before I touched him. Despite my longing to look into his eyes and gauge his reaction to what we’d done, I knew I shouldn’t wake him when he needed to rest and heal. He’d worn himself out, what with getting savaged by Lysander, fighting Scratch to free Annalee, and then coming home to utterly ravage me.

In my head, it seemed obvious that he was more than fine with our wild romp. After all, he’d orchestrated it and played us all like a rock god with his adoring audience. But in my heart…

My own breath caught in my chest as I ran a tentative hand down my body. My breasts and belly still tingled with aftershocks, and when I cupped a palm over my mound, the pubic bone was tender from the sensual assault. The inhalation filled my senses with the musky scent and flavor of sex, lots of sex. The kind I’d never forget.

They’d taken me. They’d worshipped me. They’d even made me forget our troubles.

Amazing.

But once I remembered those troubles, the silent moonlight seemed a little less romantic and a bit more unnerving. Where was everyone? My hackles prickled with unease.

With another glance at Reeve, I rolled carefully to my feet. The clothes I’d taken from the hot springs yurt were scattered everywhere, and by the time I assembled the pieces and dressed, I was sure he would wake. But he was still dead to the world.

I shivered again at that unfortunate wording.

No waking him, then, if he was still so wiped out. I was probably just being nervous anyway. Nothing would get past the pack when they were all together.

Except we weren’t really together, not when they’d tried to claim me but my wolf still hadn’t come.

Biting my lip, I tiptoed out of the bedroom, my knees wobbling slightly with the lingering aftermath of really good sex, and eased the door shut behind me. I padded down the hall to the great room. A small lamp and an ever smaller fire burning in the hearth were the only illumination other than the ambient light coming through the tall windows. In a square of moonlight, Lowe lay curled before the river rock fireplace, still in his wolf shape. His yellow eyes gleamed at me, brighter than the embers behind him. Then he let out a soundless breath and closed his eyes again. But his ears stayed cocked toward the kitchen.

I went that way and found Annalee sitting in her chair at the kitchen table—how quickly we’d chosen our places—holding an untouched cup of tea. The pendant lights over the island were dimmed, dusting a soft golden glow across her wide, high cheekbones. But her citrine eyes were shadowed.

I touched the side of the teapot on the island. Barely lukewarm, but good enough. I poured myself a cup and took the seat next to her.

She didn’t look up until I scooted the chair back, and from her sudden blink I realized she hadn’t even noticed me until then.

“Hey,” I said quietly. “Mind if I join you?”

She looked down at her tea, as if that too had appeared out of nowhere, and took a quick sip. “As long as you don’t mean joining the pack.”

I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure I don’t have the authority to issue that invitation.”

She glanced quickly at me then away. “I’m pretty sure they’d do whatever you ask.”

Maybe she was right. But when I sipped my cooled chamomile, I had to swallow past a lump in my throat.

Because the real question was whether I could do what they needed.

“Well, regardless,” I hedged. “No one is going to ask you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Her fine fingers tightened on the mug. “You probably shouldn’t make promises like that.”

I grimaced. She was younger than me by almost decade, but god, she was a world-weary old soul. Had she always been that way, or was that Lysander’s doing too? “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

She tilted her head, accepting my apology. “You’re still thinking like you were before. But we’re different now.”

I narrowed my eyes. “But you said you haven’t shifted. Neither have I.”

She shrugged, hardly moving the shoulders of her too-big shirt. “Too late anyway.”

“But…” I struggled with the fatalism in her voice. “You came from somewhere else. And your friend… Someone must be wondering where you are.”

Annalee pushed her tea away. “No one’s wondering. No one who matters. Why do you think Lysander picked us?”

I sat back in my chair. “Because he’s a fucked-up monster.”

Her lips twisted, not quite amusement. “Yeah, that too. But he hunts his victims the same as the punk asses on the corner after school—because they know no one will stop them.”

“We’ll stop Lysander,” I said. Maybe I spoke too fast because she shot me a skeptical look, so I doubled down. “We have to beat him.” I dredged up a smile. “Cuz we’re the good guys.”

She didn’t smile back. “What movies you watching? The good guys don’t always win. And anyway, we’re not really that, not anymore.” She threaded her fingers together so tight her knuckles blanched. “Even if we haven’t changed, we’re still possessed.”

I didn’t think correcting her to say “not possessed, infected” was much of an improvement, so I didn’t say anything. But I put my hand over her tensed fist. “We’re also still us.”

Uh, except some of us were fucking three guys at once… I let her go and took a hasty drink of my tea to cover my blush.

“I don’t know if I want that either.” She twisted her head to stare moodily over her shoulder toward the great room. “Why is he doing that? Just staying like that? He’s creeping me out.”

Through the arched doorway, Lowe was a large brindled lump, only his triangular ears poking up from the tidy, nose-to-tail circle of his body. I didn’t doubt he heard every word we said.

“I think I’ve never met anyone so perfectly at home in his skin,” I murmured. “Whichever skin he’s in. Maybe we could both take a lesson from him.”

Annalee groused under her breath. “I have skin problems enough, and Lysander took my weave. I don’t need more schooling, thanks anyway.”

I nodded. Maybe I had a few years on her, but it wasn’t like I had all the answers. Hell, she had more months in this new life than I did. “Have you seen the others?”

“Since I got up? Just that one.” She jerked her chin at Lowe with another glower. “That’s another plus of not changing: they can’t stand it and have to get away.”

I frowned at her. The anxiety that had been with me since I woke ratcheted up another degree. “What do you mean?”

“Floyd told me after…” She rose abruptly, squeaking her chair across the floor, and paced to the kitchen window. “He said it hurts to be close to a possessed female who can’t or won’t change shape.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Except it did. Mather and the others all talked about the bond linking them, the bond they wanted me to be part of. If they couldn’t lock it down because my wolf never came, it would just be an open, empty hole. Worse, maybe: a wound that refused to heal.

“Make sense?” Annalee leaned her shoulder and forehead against the glass. “What, you mean like anything about being a werewolf should make sense?”

I stared past her into the dark night. I hadn’t asked to be bitten. I hadn’t asked Reeve to try to hijack Lysander’s virus with his own, making me one of his pack. But if I was honest with myself at least, I would’ve asked, if I’d known the words. Not just to get away from Lysander but because the wolf pack on Rogue Mountain offered something I’d never imagined could be mine…

A place that wanted me. A place to call my own.

Except now it seemed I wasn’t going to be able to join them. Despite all their efforts, the savagery of the fight and the equally savage but beautiful lovemaking afterward, and no matter what Annalee said, I wasn’t any different than I had been. I was still me: a scared, scarred cupcake baker who’d finally eaten too much of her own frosting and foolishly started to believe the world was actually sweet.

Hadn’t all the years before these last three nights proved that I couldn’t expect more than I already had? How many more times did I want to be schooled?

“I have to get back to work,” I muttered as I pushed to my feet. That was the only thing truly mine.

Annalee turned to look me. “Pancakes for a midnight snack?”

Mather must’ve told her all about us. What had he said about me? He’d been all over me with hands and mouth and cock, but what did he really know about me? Not just the disguised wolf-born scar on my tit, but me?

Really, what was there to know?

I stiffened against the thought that sounded too much like the spectral voice of the men gone from my life—the man who’d fathered me, my ex—and my breath hitched in something almost like panic. I did have a life, a business, and friends. I’d worked hard to get to where I was, and I’d almost forgotten that in the excitement, both bad and good, of the last few nights.

“I’ve been gone too long,” I said more loudly, although who was I trying to convince? “In a few hours, I need to start making the kuchen. Maybe my wolf won’t rise, but my dough will.”

I swiveled toward the door. And found Lowe blocking my way.

Annalee let out a tiny whimper. Lowe flattened his ears, but he didn’t move.

“I have to go,” I told him. “Not just for my own sake. If she’s right, and I’m hurting you…”

He whined even more softly than Annalee.

“Mather told me I could say the word and they’d leave.” I stared hard at Lowe. He might not have been there in the flesh, in any flesh, but I knew he must’ve felt what we’d done. Felt it in the pack bond I couldn’t share. I clenched every muscle and joint in my body from my knees on up to stop the regret welling inside me. “I’m saying the word and I am leaving.”

Lowe turned his big body sideways in the doorway and shook his heavy head in an exaggerated rejection.

“You have to let me go,” I said. His ears pinned harder to his skull, and I straightened to my full height. “Because you know I’m right. When you and Domingo were guarding us, what did he tell you?” Over his subliminal growl, I continued, “I bet he’d say something about how sometimes you have to lose a pawn to keep the game going. And you sacrifice the queen to save the king.”

In Lowe’s sudden silence, I sensed the truth. It sliced through me, so sharp I couldn’t even bleed though I was falling to pieces inside. Like Annalee said, we’d never be the same again. Cookies burn and soufflés fall, and all the royal icing in the world wouldn’t fix that.

Which was how I found myself fleeing down Rogue Mountain in a stolen truck with an abducted girl beside me and in the backseat an unhappy werewolf who refused to be left behind.

Sometimes, all the moonlight in the night sky isn’t enough to light the way to a happy ending.

Keep reading for a sneak peek at Part 6

Wolf Born: Heart of the Pack Part 6: Lost

Learn about every new release ~ Sign up for the Elsa Jade New Release & Sale Alert

About the Author

Elsa Jade, author of sexy shapeshifting romances, also writes paranormal romance, urban fantasy romance, and science fiction romance as Jessa Slade and sexy contemporary romance as Jenna Dales. In all her incarnations, she believes in the transformational power of love and is thrilled to share her stories with like-minded readers.

More from Elsa Jade

Mating Season: Wolves of Angels Rest

Hero ~ FREE!

Joker

Rogue

Warrior

Lost Wolf

Ghost Wolf

Cry Wolf

Fighter

Wish Upon a Werewolf

Mating Fever: Masters of the Flame

Dragon Fever

Dragon Fate

Dragon Fall

Intergalactic Dating Agency: Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides

Alpha Star

Red Shift

Dark Matter

More Science Fiction Romance from Jessa Slade

Queen of Starlight ~ FREE!

Prince of Passion

Assassin’s Hunger

Part 6: Lost

Chapter 1 ~ Bettina

With the exception of the watery winter sunlight streaming through the front plate glass, Tanzerbrot Bakery was exactly the same as the night I’d locked up, walked out the back, and got bitten by a fucking werewolf. I knew it was the same. And yet…

Since baking morning required all hands on deck—see, there was a good reason I’d abandoned Reeve and hightailed it back to town…besides panic and stubbornness, I mean—Nickie and Sheba were both in. They flowed through the domestic dance of baking and working the till. They chatted with each other and the customers, all easy body language and eye-crinkling smiles, as usual. Maybe a little more than usual since no doubt they’d had an easy work day yesterday without me around.

I was the sour note.

I dropped a whole damn tray of brötchen. I burned the back of my wrist on the upper element of the oven. When I accidentally put hand soap in the commercial dishwasher and triggered a tsunami of white bubbles across the kitchen floor, Sheba tossed me and my admittedly over-loud cursing out into the alley while Nickie mopped up.

I slumped against the back door, my floury, throbbing hand pressed to my lips to hold back any more expletives.

Or tears.

The small awning over the back door kept most of the misting rain off me, but at least I could blame the weather, even unfairly, for my damp cheeks.

Sheba gently eased down my hand and wrapped a cold towel around the burn. She brushed back a lock of hair that had escaped my bun and bandana and met my miserable gaze. “Want to talk about it?”

I opened my mouth and realized this was part of what Annalee had meant about never being the same again. My throat seized up rather than try to say the word “werewolf” to someone who…wasn’t. Maybe my wolf hadn’t risen, but the instincts of a wild thing remained.

I shook my head. “Carmen told you what happened the other night, didn’t she?”

Sheba bit her lip. “Those feral dogs jumped you.” She smacked her head with her wide-open palm. “And then I brought you right back out here. I’m sorry. You’re probably PTSD-ing. No wonder you gave Elliott the wrong change.”

I didn’t even remember shortchanging my neighbor down the street. I was suddenly so glad for my loyal employees covering my back. Since he ran the town clinic, of course he’d asked about the dog bite—Carmen had passed along my lie that I was going to the ER in Medford after the attack—and I’d been so flustered I would’ve gladly given him the whole till to make him stop talking about it.

“You and Nickie are great for taking care of things while I was gone.” I hugged her.

She hugged me back. “Jeez, it was one day. I think we can handle one day.”

“One day. Yeah.” I snuffled. Oh god, if she or Nickie had been the one closing up when Lysander attacked… I would never have forgiven myself.

Of course, I would’ve never known.

One of them would’ve been in Reeve’s arms right now, or waiting for Mather and Conlan to come… While I was making the doughnuts.

Want to read more?

The trouble continues in Wolf Born: Heart of the Pack Part 6: Lost

Learn about every new release ~ Sign up for the Elsa Jade New Release & Sale Alert