RAE The stranger had snuck into my dreams again. In my lusty dream, that man hadn’t opened his mouth to insult me. He hadn’t said cryptic things like ‘it’s time’. All he’d done was rail me against the door in that private room in the club until I’d lost my mind. I was too tired to move, and sweat dripped from my feverish skin as if everything he had done to me had been real. The real thing would have been mindblowing if he hadn’t opened his mouth to ruin it all. I’d exploded in his arms just by humping his leg like a dog in heat. It was for the best, though. Such extreme emotions were not part of the plan, especially if they were related to an obviously dangerous man. I’d leave the thrill-seeking for Vickie. My body felt tender and my head heavy from all the shots I had done. I stretched to try to loosen the tension in my muscles, and something sharp dug into my skin. My mattress was a lumpy piece of shit but it wasn’t usually this bad. It felt stiff and unyielding under my weight
RAE Not everyone in Eastown was sadistic like the three cows that started the round of laughter. Three Cows. That was what I’d call them. Forget their names; they didn’t need that much effort from me. But it appeared a good number of similar residents had ended up in Beverly’s that morning. With my stupid tingles all over the place, I could sense their pleasure at seeing me laid out on the floor. Like, what did I ever do to them? My back felt like it had split in two, but no one came to help me back up. I was used to the laughter whenever I went on campus, but not at the cafe. That was usually my safe space. “She looks like a beached whale,” Cow One snorted, and the laughter got louder. My embarrassment turned to anger. People had been afraid to say anything wrong to me not long ago. Before the doctor had sectioned me for the last time, I hadn’t feared death. I hadn’t feared anything. My meltdowns had been rather public affairs, and scrubbing those images from people’s memories
RAE“That was messed up, Rae. I spent hours looking for you!” Vickie’s voice echoed in the taxi. My head was pounding so much that I had to hold the phone away from my ear. “I haven’t even slept because I’ve been worrying that something happened to you. I was about to call the police! Why the hell didn’t you answer your phone?”“I’m sorry, Vic. I don’t know how it slipped my mind. I just passed out, and when I woke up, I was already late for work,” I lied.I hated lying to Vickie but how would I explain what had happened?“This is what I mean,” Vickie continued. “You’re so selfish and self-centred sometimes that I have to wonder if you even think about me.”“Of course I do!”“Whatever.”The line went dead, and I sighed as I leaned my head back. I sent her a quick text apologising again and asked her to stop by after we both got some rest. Knowing Vickie, she would have calmed down by then and I’d need to make it up to her. She was my only friend, and I loved her, but I wasn’t the se
RHYSHer lips had scrambled my mind in the elevator. Her scent, her touch. My body was on fire, straining to sate the appetite she had stroked back to life. I was still rock hard and moments from giving in to this feeling I hadn’t had in six years. I didn’t even care if we made it to my apartment. But when I followed her down the hallway, everything inside me numbed. Completely froze up.What the fuck was going on?The urge to give Rae what she wanted died the second I saw her stop at her apartment. Did she live there?Of course, she lived there. Her scent followed me everywhere in this building; that should have been my first clue instead of believing I was losing my shit again. Fate hated me so much that it put the woman who’d almost killed me right across the hall. My beast howled, his pleasure at the turn of events reverberating through every cell in my body. No. No, this was insane! How could I live anywhere near this woman?Rae was trembling as she searched for her key; I cou
SIX YEARS AGO RHYS The forest had more to hunt than the last town a pack had chased me out of. It was too soon to tell if the local pack would allow me to live on the outskirts of their territory. It shouldn’t have been an issue. I was on neutral ground and didn’t bother anyone. I’d been through territories with plenty of other rogue wolves living near them. But they always took one look at me and declared I would cause problems with their Alpha. Never mind that I had only just hit twenty-one and barely come into my strength. Rogue Alphas were never really accepted anywhere. Being packless and sane was a testament to how strong we were. But there were others just like me in the forest. I'd respected their boundaries, but I could sense them. It gave me hope that I'd finally found my place. I caught a scent to my left and crouched lower behind the shrubs. A doe appeared in the clearing and sniffed the air. She could sense the danger but wouldn’t catch my scent—a handy gift from my
SIX YEARS AGO RHYS The woman’s laugh echoed around us. I sat back on my heels, reeling my head back in case she was contagious. Her body still shook with what I imagine was shock, but she threw her head back and laughed louder. “That was insane!” she laughed. The voice. Fuck me. “What the hell was that thing?” she asked. She met my gaze with the most beautiful coloured eyes I had ever seen. She stole my breath. One second, I’d been thinking how crazy she was; the next, I was hit by lightning. In the dying light, her eyes almost looked gold, like Ares’. They sparkled with a hint of excitement even after what she had gone through. And there was something more. Something terrifying. I thought I was the scariest thing in the forest, but this woman... There was danger coming out of every pore. “You shouldn’t be out here this late,” I growled. “Who are you? The Lake patrol?” the woman snorted, and she giggled again. Wet strands of her hair fell across her face. Most she-wolves p
RAESon of a—I knew where I was before I even opened my eyes. The cool breeze on my skin and the hard, cold ground under my body woke me up. I felt grimier than usual, all sticky and wet. I didn’t want to imagine what I could have fallen into while sleepwalking. There were a lot of rubbish heaps between my apartment and the park.I took a second to appreciate that I was finally over that nasty hangover before slowly opening my eyes and looking up at the starry sky. Maybe I was supposed to die here. Something in my subconscious led me here several nights every month because I was meant to be mauled by wolves or whatever that thing was.Not for the first time, I wondered if I should have died in the accident. I had cheated death, so it had finally come back for me. No one else had this much bad luck.I sighed and pushed myself to sit and look around. This wasn’t my usual path. Everything was dark and blurry, but I could tell there were more trees around me than usual. The moon was no l
RHYSRae’s screams had wrecked me. The wolf’s threat was still fresh in my mind, but it wasn’t the beast's emotions that made my heart pound like that. The scent of her fear in the air had twisted everything inside me until all I wanted to do was hunt those rabid rogues.Two of them. How were there two of them?And their desire to rip Rae apart still hung in the air as much as their putrid scent. I wanted to hunt them and finish the job, but I couldn’t shake off what her fear was doing to me. And I couldn’t take my eyes off the blood all over her body. Human blood. Still fresh. Someone was dead in these woods. Rae’s teeth clattered, and her body shook just as much. Her heart was going too fast, her breathing was harsh, and her eyes were unfocused. She was in shock. The sound of humans talking as they walked towards the park spurred me into action. I took off my jacket and wrapped it around Rae. One final look into the park told me the rabid wolves were already near the exit in the