Having just left Tanny’s studio apartment with little more information than he’d had when he left the Silver Moon Bar, Jason was surprised when his phone started to ring in his jeans pocket. For a split second he hoped that it was Lara, calling to tell him that she knew he was asking around Silverdale about her and that she wanted him to stop. Yet the moment he saw Layon’s name flashing across his screen, his heart sank. Offering one final acknowledgment to Tanny who was waving farewell from the apartment window, he clicked the answer button and pressed the phone to his ear. “Hey, Layon, I haven’t managed to get any new information on Lara’s disappearance yet but…” “That’s going to have to wait,” Layon’s voice cut him off abruptly, and he had to bite the urge to growl at his first. The last thing he wanted to do was wait to find her. If it had been up to him, he would have found her days ago and she would be in his arms right now or running through the woods on the Silverdale es
“You know, if you are going to keep coming down here and bugging me, you could at least tell me your name,” Lara grumbled, struggling to speak past the growing dry lump in her throat. Still tied to the chair in the dark, damp, and disgusting basement, the Italian werewolf had been her only company for days. She was growing increasingly uncomfortable, thirsty, and hungry. Only her wolf was helping to keep her strength up with its aggression and its desire to rip out the asshole’s throat. “Well, I do suppose you are right,” the black-haired man shrugged and smirked at her. Lara struggled not to breathe a sigh of relief when she saw the plastic water bottle he was holding in his hand. “It’s not exactly like you can run off and go telling anyone about me, is it?” Lara bit the inside of her dried lip to stop herself from snapping at him that he was the biggest dick she had ever met in her life and that was saying something because some of the men in her own pack could be pretty bad
Still in his designated room at the Silverdale Manor, Jason was most surprised when his phone began to ring, and he crossed the room from where he had been getting dressed to pick it up from the bedside table, only to find that it was Harrison calling. With a raised eyebrow, Jason thought, Why would the New York alpha be calling me? Though they had known each other throughout their studies at Silverdale University, he and Jason had never seen eye to eye, and it had only ever been Layon's decision for them all to hang out together. Sure, he visited with Layon from time to time and the packs had grown closer since they helped Harrison take back what was rightfully his, but still Jason couldn’t understand why the werewolf would be calling him. "Only one way to find out," he grumbled aloud before pressing the answer button and pressing his phone to his ear. "Hey, Harrison, what's up?" "I tried to call Layon, but he wasn't picking up,"Harrison's voice sounded fairly urgent on the pho
All Lara could do was pray that Jason had managed to get away before Tyson and his men returned from wherever they went off towhenever he wasn't down in the basement trying to talk and torture information out of her. He hadn't been gone very long before Tyson hadjoined her again, and Lara found herself keeping one ear pricked for any sign that his men might have captured Jason. Yet there was no sound ofgrowling or snarling or even the tell-tale smell of blood coming from the open door at the top of the basement stairs.She was still reeling from Jason's appearance. Not only had she been astonished that he had actually been able to hear her wolf calling to him, but she had also been terrified by the state of him. Although in the near darkness she had struggled to actually see his handsome face, she had sensed the damage left by Tyson's men after their attack on him. She could practically feel it as though they were wounds upon her own skin and it made her feel worse than she alre
Rushing directly to Layon's office at the manor, Jason found it empty and followed his best friend's scent from the door of the study through the manor and out into the gardens where he found Layon and Angel walking up the lawn from the copse of trees beyond. A wave of jealousy hit Jason the moment he thought of the fact that the two of them had likely been sharing a shift, transforming into wolf form and frolicking through the trees with little care for anything else. He would have given anything to do that with Lara. We've come a long way from hating each other’s guts, he realized, his insides twisting as he half wished he could go back to a time before he had approached Lara at the Silver Moon Bar, before he had helplessly fallen for her, before his wolf finally realized that she was his… Growling to himself to stop getting distracted, he began to race down the lawn toward Layon and his mate, determined to finally make them listen. "Whoa, Jason! You smell like a trash heap!" An
“Jason?” Lara groaned, barely able to lift her head when she distantly heard voices. Having been hallucinating due to the lack of food anddehydration, she had no idea whether she was actually hearing anything at all. The heart palpations she had been experiencing for the last day or so were growing worse and her hands and feet were so numb that she could nolonger even move her fingers or her toes.Yet she was holding on to hope, praying that the next time the basement door opened it would be Jason coming to rescue her. She strained her ears trying to listen beyond the door and to the floor above and when she did, she heard the words. “We’ve caught one of them.”Her heart instantly skipped a beat before continuing with its annoying, off-rhythm beating. Trying to wriggle just a few inches to move closer to the door, to be able to hear just a little better, she strained her ears as much as she could.A second voice sounded, “He wants to speak with you.” Lara’s skin began to crawl
He wasn’t sure whether his reckless plan was a good one or not, but as he was shoved out of the warehouse, Jason realized it was too late to turn back. After having allowed himself to be caught on the foreign pack’s territory, he faced down against their alpha with no trouble at all. What came next, however, might prove to be twice as difficult. Struggling to remain calm as he was led out into a barren field at the edge of the estate, he tried to reach out with his mind, feeling for Lara’s mind just as he had felt her when her wolf had been calling to him. Even as he was lashed to a post with wolfsbane-soaked rope, all he could think about was Lara. Was she alright? Was she in as bad a state as she had been the last time he had seen her? Was she even conscious? Because he certainly couldn’t sense her right now as he faced off against the three werewolves who had been ordered to ‘test’ him. He didn’t like the thought of whatever it was they were about to do to him and from the wol
The next time the basement door opened, Lara was confused. The last thing she had heard before she passed out from sheer exhaustion and dehydration had been Tyson and his men leaving behind Jason and the others. No footsteps thundering above her head had woken her as they usually did when she passed out because even exhausted and hallucinating,she was still on edge and prepared for whatever else would be thrown at her.What she wasn’t prepared for at all was Jason creeping down the basement steps toward her. She smelled his scent almost as soon as heopened the door, laced with blood and herbs, and she guessed that whatever had happened after he had been brought in front of Tyson, it had been quite painful.At least this time he had brought a torch with him, and when he crouched before her, he laid it on the floor so that they could see each other.She bit her lip the moment she caught sight of him. His clothes were torn and there were claw marks and bite wounds all over him, the