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Broken Bond 41
VANESSA My hands tremble as I wait for Callum to arrive at the cabin. It’s the same place I waited during each of the full moons when he was gone, blindly hoping he’d walk through that door and everything would be okay again. He never did, and it never was, but tonight’s different. Tonight, we planned to forgo the full moon run with our respective packs and meet here instead. Tonight, I know he’s actually coming, but even that knowledge does little to calm my frantic heart. We could’ve picked somewhere else to meet, but this felt right, almost poetic. This place is full of cruel memories, but they’re ours. We can’t pretend that part of our story never happened or gloss over the hard times. They all make up the patchwork of our messy, imperfect path of coming together, of finding our way back to one another. It hasn’t been easy, but can you ever fully appreciate the happy ending if you didn’t claw tooth and nail to get it? I wait in the dark, surrounded by the ghosts of our past, th
Broken Bond 42
CALLUM “Okay, Levi has really stepped up his jungle juice game,” Nessa comments, plucking a cherry from her red plastic cup and bringing it to her lips. She sinks her teeth into the fruit, tugging off the stem and smiling in satisfaction as she chews. If by ‘stepping it up’ she means adding actual fruit to the concoction as a garnish, then sure. Though Levi’s jungle juice recipe is still basically jet fuel disguised as fruit punch. Tastes great, but has a nasty kick that you don’t feel sneaking up on you until it’s too late. Still, the people here can’t seem to get enough of the stuff. I sling an arm over Nessa’s shoulders and lean back on the sofa, taking in the familiar scene at the packhouse tonight: a bar set up in one corner, large speakers in the other, and a sea of bodies crowded in between. The flow of liquor is seemingly endless and the pungent aroma of marijuana smoke lingers in the air. Girls are dancing throughout the room while guys vie for their attention, but I’ve onl
Broken Bond Epilogue
VANESSA***Four and a Half Years Later***My knee jumps nervously as I sit rigidly on the edge of the bed, my mind turning over anxious thoughts while I stare at the red glow of the numbers on the bedside clock. He should be home any minute now. It isn’t unusual for Callum to take short trips to Denver these days since he’s apprenticing with a tattoo artist there, but the wait for him to return this time has been particularly brutal. The past two days have felt like the longest of my life.Even before the bedroom door opens, I know he’s back. It’s just like in those early days when I could feel him before I saw him. Our souls are magnetized to one another’s, and through the bond they’ve become even more fused and interwoven. There was a time when I’d given up hope that I’d ever feel this with him again; when I woke up alone in the cabin after he left, when I felt the bond being torn from my skin under the next full moon. But then fate saw fit to give us a second chance. I’m still not
Broken Bond 1
CALLUMA lot of little boys idolize superheroes. I’ve always identified more with the villains.It’s not like I had designs on growing up to become some sort of evil mastermind, but some part of me has always recognized that desperate darkness that lurks beneath the surface of the villain in the story. The tortured soul behind the manic façade.Nobody roots for the villain, and nobody has ever rooted for me, either. My stepdad ensured that by painting me as the black sheep of the family from the moment I took my first breath. I was always the problem child, the nuisance he was forced to live with but never wanted. The product of an anonymous hookup that my mother regretted before I was even born, because she met the love of her life when she was six months pregnant with another man’s child. A man I’d never meet, because apparently, he didn’t want me either.Ain’t life a bitch?The villain in the story never comes out on top, but you’ve gotta admire their tenacity. The world’s against
Broken Bond 2
VANESSAI’ve never been a big drinker, but if all alcohol was masked by the taste of cherry Kool-Aid, I’d probably be a lush. I’m a big fan of cherry anything. Cherry lip gloss, cherry gum… even just straight-up maraschino cherries from the garnish tray at the bar where I work. I’m not sure what else is in this jungle juice, but it’s officially my new favorite drink.Vienna has vacated her spot beside me in favor of joining Levi on the other side of the couch, and a blonde guy slips in to steal her place, tapping my cup with his own. “Want a refill?”I turn to meet his hazel eyes, giving a little shake of my head. “Nah, I should probably pace myself,” I say, all too aware of how easily the first half of this drink has gone down. “I’m driving.”“Fair enough,” he replies easily, reclining back on the couch and stretching his arms, not so subtly propping one onto the top of the cushion behind me. It’d be a smooth move if he wasn’t so painfully obvious about it. “I’m Miles, by the way.”“
Broken Bond 3
CALLUM When the party finally starts winding down, Nessa and her friend take off, and I’m oddly disappointed when she goes. Not that I expected her to linger in hopes of an invitation to stay. A lot of girls pull that move at the end of the night, but that doesn’t seem to be Nessa’s M.O., if she even has one. I still can’t figure that girl out. Everyone has damage, but she must be really good at hiding hers, because I’m stumped. She just seems so… pure. And I have no idea why the fuck she chose to spend her evening with me, of all people, because I’m decidedly not. So, I can only conclude that she’s either a danger junkie or honestly can’t see the monster beneath my skin that’s so apparent to everyone else. Either way, she held my interest all night, and a girl hasn’t done that since… ever. When she leaves, it’s like she takes all the energy in the room with her. I’m about to call it a night, but then Miles sparks up a joint and I’m compelled to linger a little longer. It’ll help me
Broken Bond 4
VANESSAHere’s the thing- I don’t give out my phone number to guys. Ever. So imagine my surprise when I was stocking the coolers at work this morning and my phone vibrated against the bar top with an incoming text message from Callum Conway.His number wasn’t saved in my phone, but I immediately knew the message was from him, and it didn’t take long for me to figure out how he got ahold of my digits. The sneaky devil must’ve sent himself a text from my phone when he was checking out my music last night. If it were anybody else, I’d probably be annoyed with the underhanded way he went about getting my number, but instead I found myself smiling down at my phone, heart pounding as I considered how to respond.Exchanging messages is harmless, right? At least that’s what I kept telling myself as we texted back and forth all morning while I smiled down at my phone like a fool. I might’ve gotten away with it, too, if I wasn’t working the same shift as my best friend. Vienna knows I don’t giv
Broken Bond 5
CALLUMThe Cedar Ridge ski resort is a winter tourist trap that sits just outside the edge of the six-pack’s territory, owned and operated by the six shifter packs that reside within. Since we generally keep to ourselves, the ski resort was built as an income stream to keep our towns afloat, as well as the Cedar Ridge brewery just down the road. The ski resort is shuttered in the summer months, but the brewery is open all year round so we have consistent revenue. It’s a smart setup, but it also tempts us into wandering off-territory more than we probably should.My boys and I spend a lot of time at the ski resort in the winter, though we generally stay away from the human tourists as best we can since one of the fundamental rules of shifter culture is to keep our existence a secret. We’ve all been snowboarding for years, and we take full advantage of the fact that we’ve got a full-service ski resort right in our backyards. The runs here are second to none, and while the guests staying
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