Ugh, everything hurts.Every limb and bone ached like I’d been hit by a tractor trailer, even my eardrums rang painfully. Light flashed behind my eyes, blinding me before I had the chance to open them. There was this wetness all over me, and I couldn’t tell if it were blood or sweat. I couldn’t smell it—not through the flames.Adley—her face came to mind, frozen in panic. Somehow, I found the strength to open my eyes, and instantly regretted it. There was too much to take in, from the burning furniture and the noxious stench it unleashed into the air, to the collapsed ceiling and fallen beams. The fire was everywhere, devouring everything. I could see that much from where I laid sprawled out on the floor, my right shoulder pinned down from a fallen china cabinet.“Adley—” I screamed above the crackle of flame and the shrill piercing sound of a fire alarm.I heard nothing, not even the shift

When I finally opened my eyes, it took me several minutes burrowed beneath the blankets to work through everything that happened. I spent most of that time trying to remember what I had done the moment of the explosion and wondered if it had any effect on the man that started it. As I relived the last few hours, I stopped short when Dain whisked the two of us away to his bedroom. I could tell from scent alone that these blankets I hid beneath were mine, but that wasn’t what I found odd. I remembered the explosion with perfect clarity, but the memory of being cradled in Dain’s arms felt different. Like a rose-colored filter had been placed over it, dulling some things while enhancing others. I remembered feeling weightless in a pool made of midnight tiles, cradled in his arms, but couldn’t remember the pain as he pulled the chunk of wood from my stomach. Rayna stretched as she finally woke but asking her would do no good. She had been knocked out cold

I saved myself from swooning or worse, tearing this shirt off my body and leaping into his arms by remembering why I was here. As I looked at his arms, thick with muscle, I could still see myself being carried in them—vulnerable in more ways than one.Without the toned muscle and slender figure of the other she-wolves in town, I became aware of my body from a young age. My breasts made most tops provocative, and my soft stomach refused to flatten and tone no matter how many meals I had skipped or sit-ups I’d done.“You think I’m going to get naked and play with you after what just happened?” I narrowed my eyes at him.Dain’s smile was feline, “you did last time.”“It—it doesn’t matter. Don’t pull that shit again.” My voice wavered and my eyes darted to the far side of the bathroom as I issued my warning. Which was probably pointless considering he had no boundaries and had decad

I was more than pleased to drag Adley along when Dain sent Leslie to let me know tonight’s dinner was now moved into his suite. It was the least he deserved considering I spent the better half of an hour scrubbing dirt from my body and extracting every twig from my hair.After four piss-poor attempts at removing them with magic, I was now left with four small yet unassuming bald spots. With Dain’s words playing on repeat in my head, I couldn’t properly focus on what I was doing. It was much harder to carefully detangle my hair with magic, than it was to simply tear the leaves and twigs out.Dain’s eyes found me the moment he opened the door to his suite. I could tell from the clusters of stars and how bright they were that he was far from letting go of what happened earlier. I could also tell from the muscle that ticked in his jaw that he hadn’t missed the blonde standing at my side, a wide grin on her face.“Oh, don’t b

All throughout dinner I looked for signs of fatigue in Dain. Healing Adley had nearly killed me, though I was wounded to begin with. He looked better than alright. Smirking and grinning as though the Russo’s hadn’t made a serious move just hours ago.“You don’t have any clue what they were looking for, do you?” I asked Adley a few hours after finishing dinner, back in the safety of my suite.My stomach was stuffed, mostly from the flaky pastries Dain kept pushing my way, insisting I try his childhood favorites. Somehow I wasn’t surprised to learn that he was a picky eater as a child. His eyes narrowed playfully when I told him it was fitting.I was curled up on my side of the bed, watching as Adley rummaged through her suitcase. Skirts and lacey underwear slid across the floor as she tossed them behind her, digging through the little zippered compartment in the back.“If I had to guess, they were probably looking