Alle Kapitel von Marked by Wolves, Owned by the Mafia: Kapitel 1 – Kapitel 5

POV: Maya WintersThe rearview mirror had become the most terrifying object in Maya Winters's life.She checked it again, and again, because three days of driving had wired the reflex into her nervous system like a survival instinct. The dark highway was behind her, pine trees pressing close on both sides. There were no headlights, no silver Audi, or Marcus.She released a breath through her teeth and made herself keep her hands loose on the wheel.The mountain road had narrowed forty miles back, switchbacking upward through forest thick enough to swallow sound, and the Honda's heater was losing its argument with the November cold coming through the door seal. The GPS had given up signal twenty minutes ago. She was navigating from memory of the printed confirmation email folded in the cupholder that read: "Sanctuary Resort, Cascade Territory, Staff Arrival Welcome", and the conviction that remote was exactly what she needed. Remote meant she would be harder to find, and no one who kne

POV: Kieran BlackpineHe had been running this stretch of the northern perimeter for eleven years, and the forest had never once surprised him.Kieran Blackpine had earned his knowledge of this territory by repetition, attention, and through running the same ground in the same darkness until the land becomes an extension of the body that moves through it. He knew which roots crossed the game trail at the third ridge marker, where the creek ran shallow enough to cross without sound, knew the particular quality of silence that meant deer, and the different quality that meant something larger, and the specific absence of sound that meant a threat was close.He ran through all of it tonight without thinking about any of it, because the part of him that processed the forest was not the part doing the thinking. His wolf handled the terrain, but his Alpha mind was elsewhere.It had been three nights of unease, this low persistent disturbance in his instincts like a note held just below the f

POV: Ash NightshadeAsh Nightshade had learned to be suspicious of his own warmth, because it came so easily that it never cost him anything to give it, and things that cost nothing were usually covering for something that cost quite a lot.He crossed the lobby at Sanctuary Resort two days ahead of the monthly treaty meeting, sent early to confirm arrangements and smooth whatever needed smoothing before Kieran arrived. Staff smiled at him automatically. He had been in the building eleven minutes and had already been offered coffee twice.Kieran had described her the previous night in the quiet, precise way he communicated things that cost him something. She has dark hair, green eyes, and moves like someone expecting impact. She smells like cedar and something older underneath. You'll know her when you're close.What Kieran had not said, and did not need to say, was the rest of it. He needed to know if she was safe. If she was real. He could not go to her himself yet, and he was not bu