Bella must have been on high alert as she practically ran up to him and pleaded for a dance. He was so relieved to discover she wasn’t his mate that he agreed, even though it was a waltz. As he moved about the ballroom with her, Liam closed his eyes, imagining the woman in his arms was someone quite different. He even smiled, leading the girl to rabbit on about how some mates didn’t experience the sensory pull at first. “I feel comfortable around you, Alpha. Surely that must count for something?” “I’m too old for you, Isabella. These games don’t work on me any more.” It hadn’t been his intention to insult her but that was the result. He could see it in her eyes she wanted to slap his face with her fan. Why on earth such a useless thing was strapped to her wrist in the first place was beyond him. There was a nip in the night air and all the windows and doors were open to the elements. Once she had stormed off, he scanned the room, seeing very few redheads and only a couple of strawb

She had dressed modestly for their appointment and was prompt, even though he hadn’t specified a time. In fact, there were still a couple croissants left on the china plate. Liam offered her one but Nell declined politely.“You will have coffee though, won’t you?” he said, knowing she was addicted.“Is that an order, Alpha Liam?”“Well done.” He gave her a slow handclap. “You managed to use both my title and my name so I can’t very well reprimand you for that.”“Glad to hear it,” she mumbled.“What’s that? Did you speak? I couldn’t quite catch it.”At least he hadn’t called her “it”, unlike some of the past bullies who had made her life a misery.“I’m happy to have met with your approval, Alpha,” she stated, avoiding his eyes now.He banged the desk, hard. “Look at me, Nell. You owe me that much.”Her forehead puckered. “I don’t understand.”“So many problems, so much pressure and all of it is down to you.”“Please explain, Alpha.”“I did meet my mate and I rejected her. Satisfied, no

“Alpha, excuse me for interrupting, but you must come and hear this.”“Not now, Henry. Go away.”“Sheriff Bostock’s here about a missing person.”“Can’t Jack deal with it?” he growled.“He was the one who asked me to fetch you.”Liam rolled his eyes.“Stay here,” he said to Nell. “No, don’t get dressed. I want you just the way you are when I return. This shouldn’t take long.”Taking the extra precaution of locking the door, he felt like whistling as he made his way downstairs behind Henry. There was a reception room for visitors. Seldom did any of them get to see the inside of his office, thankfully.The grey-haired man did not turn up in Watertight very often and not without good reason. He was standing by the windows, looking out towards the river which had a tendency to freeze up this time of year.“What can I do for you, Sheriff?” he asked, once the perfunctory greetings were out of the way.“I’ll get straight to the point, Alpha. I knew your father, a man who respected the harmon

Liam hadn’t expected Nell’s seductive request to affect him so much. If it had been just another she-wolf saying it, maybe he would have been able to brush it aside. It touched him that she wanted this and was able to express her feelings so readily, given their rocky beginning. He laid her down on the freshly laundered sheets beneath the duvet and stripped away the towel. Though he’d not even made it to bed last night, he hadn’t been anticipating this. Stripping off his pants and losing his boxers, he climbed in beside her and began to kiss her while one hand wandered almost lazily to a breast. She arched up with a gasp. Nell was sensitive in so many different places and he was looking forward to discovering all of them. “You feel so good,” he told her, his mouth leaving hers and seeking out a puckered nipple. “Liam!” she cried, thrashing her head from side to side. Already? Was this the human part of her or, as he was beginning to suspect, something else? “Touch me,” he said.

It started off conventionally – in typical fashion – at first. Or so Holly confided later when they discussed the day’s events over mulled wine in her bedroom, a place Nell had been banished to without any rhyme or reason. She spared a thought for Liam, who must be feeling something similar to her: displacement. But Nell didn’t want to examine that too closely right then. Did amnesia make a person heartless? she wondered. “That girl’s kooky, to say the least. Did you see the way she was clinging to, well, the other one?” “You mean the true Alpha?” There was no point pussyfooting around it, Simon was back from the dead and throwing his weight around as if he’d never been away. His first words to her had been insulting. Thankfully, Liam was out of earshot. “I’ve never fucked an elf. Tell me, how do you feel about doggy-style? You are the Alpha’s slave, aren’t you? Well, I’m back now, and it’s me you have to please. Remember that, hybrid.” Simon wasn’t as tall as Liam and she coul