Ahhh! Poor Hunter! Poor Jane! My heart is breaking for them both. We're so close to the end now. Well, Hunter has already met his... I said there were eight chapters left probably more than eight ago. I'm sorry! The content plan is exactly the same, but the chapters were all so long I thought it was better to split them up into shorter ones to make them better value for you guys and better paced for the story. There are only a few loose ends left to tie up now though. Thanks for reading! I appreciate you all so much.
Jane’s POVI shifted out. “No!” I wailed. I fell to my knees, then crawled over to him. My fists pounded the cold, metallic floor with every weak, shuffling movement I made.“You can’t be gone,” I whimpered, tears streaming down my cheeks, a lump forcing my throat to close around the words. “You can’t be.”But I knew that he was. The mate bond writhed and shrieked within me, screeching out for the severed other half of its soul.“Hunter?” I choked, grabbing him gently. His head lolled back as I moved him. His eyes were open; their blue irises were cold, so cold, and his pupils were unseeing. Cuts nicked his face.I pried him away from his father. Hunter’s body was merged with Reg’s: his hands were furry and clawed, but the rest of him was human. I wished he had human hands I could hold.It was that thought that shattered me entirely. I would never be able to hold his hand again. It was silly, and childish, and pathetic, but it was that notion that broke me. Not that I had lost my ma
Jane’s POVTime passed strangely after that.There were noises out in the hall. Noises I probably should’ve listened to, made something of, but…What was the point? Hunter was gone. My heart, my soul – my life – was dead.My throat closed up around the words I’d spoken. I’d bared every important moment of my life to the Moon Goddess, bound my prayer in my story, and she hadn’t listened.She hadn’t listened.I knew Ava was still with me, still clinging half to me and half to her daddy, and that was the last straw for me. Her pain became glass shards, which scraped at the raw edges of my own wound.For a while, my hurt was so immense that I felt nothing at all. If Nina or Ava spoke to me, I didn’t hear them. I was numb, frozen to the spot, Hunter’s lifeblood going cold and sticky on my palms.Beneath the frost of my numbness, though, a fire roared. I was terrified to start feeling again, to start moving. The second I moved my aching legs and stood up, time would start again.And the sec
Hunter’s POVKim ran towards me, his jaw wide, his canines glinting in the weak sunlight. Owen and Ava clung haphazardly to his back. Fear flashed through me. I started towards them–But they were safe, and Jane was safe, and I was safe, and we were home. I sucked in a long, slow breath, and a forced a smile as they neared me. The smile took hold, tucking itself into the corners of my mouth, and by the time my children had reached me I was grinning at them. I opened my arms wide, and the three of them ran straight at me. We tumbled to the ground, rolling in the grass, laughing; Kim licked my face, and Ava and Owen scrambled into my arms.“Hey, kids.” I pulled back and ruffled their hair. Kim rolled onto his back, his paws sticking up in the air. Ava rubbed his belly.‘Wow,’ I said to Reg dryly, ‘he really is your son.’‘I saw Ares eat a salad the other day – and enjoy it.’ Reg shuddered. ‘I love him, but that really threw me.’I pinched the bridge of my nose. ‘Don’t remind me. Then
Jane’s POV “Hunter?” I frowned at his back as he marched me up the stairs to our bedroom. “What’s going on?” He shot me a reassuring smile over his shoulder, but didn’t slow his pace. “I just need to talk to you.” We’d moved out of the pack house. It held too many memories for us both. Now, we lived in what was basically a small mansion on the edge of the forest, not far from Rose and S’s house. It was light and airy, all warm wood and draping ivy paired with gleaming, modern appliances and crisp, cream-painted walls. The kids had a room each: Owen’s filled with state-of-the-art tech gadgets, Ares’s with workout equipment, and Ava’s with easels and canvases and a drawing tablet. They had everything they needed, and more space than Owen and Ares had ever had, but most nights they dragged their mattresses into each other’s rooms and slept huddled together. We were safe now, but we’d all been through so much. Too much. I hoped my kids were young enough that they’d recover from the t
I am Jane Ellis, an Omega in the Storm pack. My parents had died when I was very young and I’d grown up here alone. As an orphan, I’d been made an Omega – one of the lowest of the low, my duties dull at best and humiliating at worst.“Aw, she looks sad,” one of the Warrior Wolves cooed. “Maybe we should give her a break.”I wanted to believe him. But I knew him better. “Maybe you should,” I joked weakly. “Oh, little Jane,” he purred, his fingers curving around my neck, “as if we’d ever go easy on you.” Maybe they wouldn’t hate me so much if I could shift. Today was my eighteenth birthday, and I still couldn’t shift into my wolf. It was hard for me to be brave with half the pack bearing down on me, but I gritted my teeth and stared resolutely over their shoulders. My bottom lip started to quiver. I bit down on it. Hard.The boots I’d been cleaning lay discarded on the grass. They wouldn’t get told off for disrupting me; I’d get shouted at, and worse, for allowing them to distract me
I borrowed some of Daisy’s clothes and hurried outside, desperate to find my mate. Nina became increasingly quiet as I searched and, as the sun settled high above the horizon, she whispered to me that she needed food. I went back to my room in the pack house, stomach growling. I rushed up the last few steps, so focused on the toast I was planning on making that I didn’t see the man standing outside my door, arms crossed and smirking. I walked straight into him.“You’re late for your duties, Omega,” he sneered. “Where have you been all night?” I tried to stand up for myself. “I–”“You know I don’t actually care, right?” he scoffed, cutting me off. “I’m just here to punish you.” I stuck my chin out. “You don’t need to. I haven’t done anything wrong.”“You disappointed the Alpha. It’s the Succession Ceremony today. Everything has to run smoothly.” He shoved me back against the wall. “Being our slave is your only use in life, and you can’t even serve us properly.”‘Nina?’ I probed arou
I always left very early, before Hunter woke up, after every treatment. He was wild with the poison racing through his veins; he gripped me hard enough to turn his knuckles white and his eyes were frenzied, blind with lust. I dragged myself up, exhausted and weak.I never let on what happened between us, though. Gradually I realised that he didn't just hate me, he hated all Omegas, and he’d already thrown me in the dungeon once. I couldn’t let that happen again.If he knew, he might think I was using my body to seduce him, not cure him, and I wouldn’t be able to bear it. Worse still than the dungeon was the thought of him looking at me with hatred, and it was that slim bit of pride that kept my mouth shut.Dragging myself to the kitchen, I winced with every step. I was particularly sore after last night, my thighs aching and my back bent out of shape. “Here she comes,” muttered Phyllis, one of the other Omegas.“Morning,” I said, forcing a smile. “Bitch,” another hissed, their back
Every day I stayed in that dark basement. There was only one tiny window, one slanting beam of light that fell across the floor every day, and I stared out of it at the snow like a fool. I’d thought he’d felt something for me. I’d thought – It didn’t matter what I’d thought. It mattered that I’d been an idiot, that I’d fallen for his gentle touches, for the forehead kisses and the strong arm wrapped around my waist at night, for every time he’d saved me, and now I was stuck here.Stuck here, in a dimly lit basement with no company but my own thoughts. I cradled my belly, looking wistfully out at the snow. I did nothing but act as his medicine, make him medicine, or talk to our baby. It was so quiet in here that I could hear every one of my shallow breaths, and the sound drove me mad. It was so silent that I started to miss the back-breaking work I’d been forced to do before. At least I’d had people talking to me then – even if it was to call me names. Anything was better than this.