Kane's POV: The day passed in a haze. I wanted to confront my father, but Glenn wouldn’t let me get past him. “You are not thinking clearly, and you have no proof.” “You know he did it!” “Yes, but we can’t just go accusing him…we’ll build a case against him, be patient.” I paced up and down my apartment, sweat dripping from my body. I never thought I’d be this upset about Shay dying. I always thought it would be a relief, but I was broken up in ways I couldn’t explain. “It’s the loss of the bond,” Glenn said. He sat on the couch, watching me with weary eyes, getting ready to jump in if he needed to. “We barely had a bond.” “But you had it all the same, even if it wasn’t as deep as a true mate bond.” “Richard is going to blame me for this, and rightly so. I should just have abjured her.” “You couldn’t have known your father would go that far to get what he wants.” I stopped pacing and stared at my chancellor. “I should have. He’s done much worse in the past.” After that, thin

“Willow,” Agatha says and turns to me. “Are you not paying tribute to the gods?” “No,” I say flatly. “Why not?” Because, the gods have never done anything for me, that’s why. Because the gods left me to rot in Crystal Rose’s dungeons. Because the Gods gave me a father like Daniel fucking Jones. And now, as if the first twenty-one years weren’t bad enough, they fated me to a werewolf. “None of your business.” Kane looks at me with a little frown on his face, but he doesn’t say anything. “If you don’t pay tribute, the gods will not bless you,” Agatha says. I snort loudly. “They’ve never blessed me. I doubt they’ll start now.” “You are wrong, girl. You should be grateful. They’ve given you more than most of us get.” I fold my arms around myself. My joy at finding the witches has quickly turned to regret. They’ve been attacking me relentlessly ever since I stepped foot in their village. Like I’m not broken enough. If it weren’t for the fact that we needed the information Agatha has

I don’t know what happened or why. As soon as I started licking the blood from Kane’s chest, I felt their magical hold over me slip away like a bad dream. “On three,” he whispers. I nod, barely moving my head. The witches are walking around the altar, chanting their spell, stepping out of the circle one at a time to lay their offerings beside us. “Three,” Kane says. I roll to the left of him as he rolls to right, shifting as he falls off the altar. The witches scream and rush away from him. For a moment, I forget that I’m supposed to get on his back. His exquisite, golden wolf transfixes me. The rarest of them all. The biggest and strongest wolf to walk this earth. Born only once every hundred years and known to us as the Alpha of Alphas. Wow. Well fuck, don’t the gods have a twisted sense of humour? The witches realise their mistake at the same time that I realise what my mate is. They drop their offerings and start running for the exit, fall

The whole day I feel restless, pacing around the cabin, then the garden, then back into the cabin. I’m irritated and uncomfortable with myself, crawling in my own skin. I eat without tasting the food, my mind constantly on Kane, then the push from my father, trying to catch me unawares so I will tell him where I am. Every so often, a wave of sadness hits me, but I recognise it for what it is. Kane. It’s faint, but I can feel some of his emotions bleeding through. I am still unreasonably jealous of the dead she-wolf. I try to shake it off, but can’t. Maybe when he stops talking about her, it will pass. “Willow,” someone calls from outside. Agatha. Readying myself for a magical fight, I step outside to confront the old woman. “What do you want?” “You completed the spell,” she says, giving me a big grin. “Yes, but you couldn’t harvest the energy.” “It’s all right…we have what we need.” “I’m not going to war with Moon Flowe

Kane's POV: “What could you possibly need from me?” my mother asks, cold as always.I don’t have it in me to play her games today. “Does father know you’re a witch?”My mother goes quiet. Just when I think she’s not going to answer, she asks, “How did you find out?”“I met your grandmother.”“She’s still alive?”This is the longest conversation my mother and I have ever had. “Yes. She lives in the forest by my cabin.”“She was always kind to me. I used to hide from my father in that cabin. She cast the repelling spell, so he couldn’t follow me.”That explains a whole lot. “I can cross the boundary.”She goes quiet again. I wait for her to say something. “I know. I took you to your grandmother, and she cast a spell to hide your magic…even from yourself. S