LOGINCalla's POV
I take huge lungfuls of breath. I do not stop until my heart rate returns to normal.
He is even more intimidating than I thought he would be. He also didn’t seem to like me much.
How the hell am I going to live with him—for how many years?
The door bursts open and I whimper in fear as Blade Blackthorn frames the doorway.
Why is he back?
Does he have more to say to me? Or perhaps he wants us to mate now?
Oh God, I’m not ready for that. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.
As if he can read my thoughts, he enters the room fully. He shuts the door and my heart skips a beat.
I’m terrified but there’s nowhere to go. All I can do is stay still as he crosses the room and hauls me into his arms.
Never could I have pictured us standing so close to each other. His hold is intimate.
He’s got the most piercing black eyes I’ve ever seen. Like a bottomless pit. Endless like the night sky.
He’s well over six feet tall and built hard like a wall of granite. And those tattoos.
They terrify me, the way they wrap around every inch of his neck. I’m willing to bet that his whole chest and back are covered in tattoos.
He doesn’t seem real. He’s way too good-looking. Way too intimidating.
And then, he’s kissing me.
My brain short-circuits. There are no words for what I’m feeling right now. There’s nothing I can do but let it happen.
He’s kissing me with an urgency that catches me off guard.
What happened to waiting until the next full moon? Why are his lips so pillow soft?
It’s all happening so fast.
Blade lowers his huge frame to the ground. He’s on his knees in front of me.
He’s gripping my hips hard enough to bruise. He holds me in place, as if he expects me to run away.
Even if I wanted to run away, where would I go? I doubt I’d be able to get far.
I hold my breath, watch transfixed, as he inhales my crotch area through my dress.
With frantic movements of his fingers, he hoists my dress up and pushes my underwear to the side.
I’ve never been handled so roughly before.
Never had any of this done to me. I’m not exactly surprised though.
It’s not like I expected a viscous brute like the Ash Creek Alpha to treat a lady with softness and care.
Blade buries his face between my thighs and I nearly jump out of my skin.
I’m shaking so bad and it’s a wonder I’m still standing. That’s when I notice the right grip he’s still got on my hips.
He takes his first lick of my pussy. He slides his tongue along my pussy lips, right before he settles on my clit.
I grab onto his shoulders. My heart’s racing. This is crazy.
Blade starts out slow at first and works up the pace.
It shames me to admit that I’ve touched myself a few times in the past.
The times I did it, I felt pleasure. Nothing like this though.
Oh my God.
The Alpha of Ash Creek has got his mouth on me and I seem to like it.
It’s so messed up.
Without warning, his tongue sinks deep into my core.
I can’t help it.
I moan.
It is alarming. It is shameful. I want to hide.
I writhe against him; struggle to get out of the bind his arms have got around my hips. It’s impossible to get him off.
He’s resilient. He continues to feast on my warmth. He sticks his tongue in deeper; alternates between tongue fucking me and pelting my clit with open-mouthed kisses.
“P-Please,” I beg. It comes out as a whimper.
Without taking his mouth off of me, he brings his eyes up to mine.
Intense black eyes glint with devious intent.
My mouth opens in a wordless gasp, as he dives in for my core again.
He rams his tongue in over and over again. His teeth graze my throbbing clit and I nearly lost it.
I tighten my hold on his shoulders while he continues to eat me out.
When I feel like I can’t handle the pleasure building up inside me anymore, that’s when I come.
I arch my back and let out a loud moan. My body trembles in wave after wave of shocking sensations.
His mouth is still latched onto me. He doesn’t let go until he’s swallowed every last drop of my come.
I want to crawl into a hole and die.
I think he’s about to take me to bed but he merely readjusts my underwear and drops the hem of my dress.
I avoid his eyes. I can’t bear to look at him right now. I think I might just lose it if I have to stare into those endless orbits.
“Shy, are we?” The taunting voice that meets my ears isn’t the same voice I had heard earlier.
This one is softer. Teasing. More sensual.
I look up.
For the first time, I noticed the differences in his face. It’s subtle. I only notice due to how close we’re standing.
Unlike the Blade I’d encountered earlier, this one has crinkles around the corners of his eyes. Laughing lines.
It dawns on me that this is not Blade.
This has got to be the twin that Bianca mentioned.
Even as the truth dawns on me, I’m hoping it’s not true.
There’s no way I’d have just done all of that stuff with a man who’s not my Alpha.
“Judging by the look on your face, I’m guessing you’ve figured it out.”
He swipes the corners of his mouth with his thumb. He does it so effortlessly that it makes him look even more attractive.
I step backwards. He prevents my escape by grabbing my arm. He holds me in place. Brings his face within inches of mine.
I fear he’s going to kiss me. I dread it.
“Hello Calla…it’s nice to meet you.” His double meaning is clear.
He’s so different from Blade. Yet so identical.
Brynne Blackthorn.
The Alpha’s twin brother had kissed my lips, between my thighs, and made me come.
I rip my arm from his grip. Disgust fills my face. Anger too.
I can’t bring myself to say anything to him and so I do the only thing I can think of to do.
I run.
Calla's POVI waited until the camp went quiet.The fires had burned low across the hollow. Somewhere out in the dark, a wounded wolf was still moaning, the sound was thin and steady, the way it had been all night. Two more tents stood empty at the eastern edge … the wolves who’d slept in them were on the cart now, or in the ground. No one had said it out loud. No one had to.Inside the tent, Brynne slept.I sat beside him in the dim light and looked at him for a long time. The lines of his face had gone soft in sleep, all the Alpha hardness melted off him. He looked younger like this. I had everything ready. The gloves were on, drawn up past my elbows to hide the veins. The knife was tucked in my back pocket. The little pouch with the vials sat against my hip, and a small bundle of food and a waterskin waited by the tent flap. There was nothing left to do but go.But I couldn’t make myself stand up yet.So I leaned down instead, and I kissed him.I meant it to be quick. A goodbye h
Bianca's POVI turned over in bed and stared at the wall.I had been awake for hours, but I couldn’t make myself get up. The morning light crept across the floor, and the palace stirred to life around me… footsteps in the halls, voices, it was just the ordinary noise of a place trying to pretend everything was normal.It wasn’t normal. Nothing had been normal since the news about my sister spread.I finally pushed myself up and dressed. I needed to do something with my hands, something useful. I always helped around the palace in the mornings … in the kitchens, with the laundry, wherever they needed an extra pair of hands. I liked the work. It kept me busy. It made me feel like I belonged somewhere.But the moment I walked into the kitchens, the talking stopped.The women I’d worked beside for days now turned away from me. One of them pulled a basket of bread out of my reach like I might poison it just by being close. Another whispered something to the girl next to her, and they bo
Calla's POVThe pain woke me before the light did.It started in my wrist, the way it always did now, a deep burning that crawled up toward my shoulder. I lay still on the bedroll for a moment, breathing through it, listening to Brynne’s slow breaths beside me. He was still out cold, sprawled on his back, dead to the world. He’d drunk enough last night to fell three men.I eased myself up without waking him and reached for the small pouch I kept tucked in my dress.It was Brynne’s idea, the remedy. A few days ago, when the pain first got bad, he’d cut his own palm and let a little of his blood drip into a cup of water and crushed herbs. Alpha blood is strong, he’d said. It won’t cure it. But it might hold it back.It had sounded strange to me at first. Mad, even. Drinking his blood like some creature out of an old story.But it worked.Not completely. The veins still spread. But when I drank it, the burning dulled. The fever eased. I could think straight again, could stand without
Calla's POVBrynne stormed out of the tent first.“Fuck,” he said under his breath. Then louder, to no one. “Fuck.”I slipped out after him, keeping my hood up. He was walking fast, his shoulders tight, his hands still curled like he wanted to hit something. The whole camp seemed to lean away from him as he passed. Even the wounded went quiet.I had to half-run to keep up.He didn’t head back to his tent. He cut across the hollow toward the far edge of the camp, where a larger tent sat with its sides rolled up and a few rough tables set out front. It was the closest thing this place had to a pub … a supply tent that someone had turned into a drinking spot, with barrels in the back and tired soldiers hunched over cups. The smell of cheap ale drifted out into the cold.Brynne walked straight in and slammed his hand on a barrel.“Drink,” he told the man behind it. “All of it.”I stopped at the edge of the light.I should stop him. That was my first thought. He was the Alpha. He had a
Calla's POVThe meeting tent was bigger than Brynne’s. A low fire burned in the center, and the air was thick with smoke and the smell of too many bodies. Brynne’s commanders stood along one side. Across from them, near the entrance, the enemy’s messenger waited under a white cloth tied to a stick … the flag of truce.I stayed close behind Brynne with my hood low, just like I’d promised. Just another guard. Just a shape in the shadows.Then the messenger turned his head, and the firelight caught his face.I froze.I knew him.I knew him so well it made my blood go cold. I had seen that face a hundred times. In Tyson’s halls. At Tyson’s table. Standing at Tyson’s shoulder while Tyson spoke to me soft and kind and told me I was safe.He was Tyson’s right hand. His closest man. The one who never left his side.And he was standing ten feet from me.My heart slammed so hard I thought everyone could hear it. I wanted to run. I wanted to disappear into the ground. Coming here had been a m
Calla's POVI pushed open the flap of Brynne’s tent and stepped inside.“Oh, fuck. What the hell.”Cass was sitting on the bed. The one with the scar across his jaw and now he just looked scarier. He sat there like he owned the place, elbows on his knees, watching me with calm eyes. The little fire in the corner threw shadows across his face.My hand went straight to my back pocket. Brynne had given me a small knife earlier, just in case. My fingers closed around the handle.“What are you doing here?” I asked. My voice came out steadier than I felt.Cass smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile.“I have a little message for you, dear Calla.”My stomach dropped. He knew my name. Brynne had told me to keep it secret, and this man was already using it like it was nothing.“From who?” I asked. I kept my hand on the knife.“Oh.” Cass leaned back, slow and easy. “Just our future Alpha. Tyson.”The name hit me like cold water.My knees went weak. I had to lock them so I wouldn’t drop. Tyson. Out
Third Person POV Blade’s chest heaved against hers, the heavy oak door still rattling faintly from the force with which he’d slammed it shut. His body caged her perfectly…tall, broad, radiating raw Alpha power…yet the second his thumb brushed the delicate skin beneath her ear, something inside hi
Calla’s POVI had never been a woman who packed slowly.In another life, before Ash Creek, before Blade Blackthorn and breeder arrangements and gilded cages dressed up as fairy tale rooms… I used to help my mother pack up the house every time my father’s debts caught up with us. We moved four time
Calla’s POVI don’t want to let her go. Every instinct I have screams at me to keep holding her but I force myself back, pressing myself against the foot of the bed as the healer drops to his knees beside Adele.His name is Godfrey. He’s been the pack’s healer for thirty years. I have never seen hi
Calla’s POVThe word lands like a stone thrown into still water. Engaged.For a moment, I don’t breathe. I don’t move. The phone feels impossibly heavy in my hand, and somewhere far away, I can hear Bianca still talking … rapid, breathless words that blur together into meaningless noise.“Calla? C







