Oddly enough, I recognize her scent. When would we have met? My mind whirs, and it takes me a second before I place how I know her. Who her father is.
My skin prickles. I roll my shoulders back, trying to shed the sensations crawling up my legs and arms, the electricneedfollowing each inhale.
I prefer solitude. For years now, I’ve worked alone as Kendrick’s hunter. He is the bow, I am the arrow. It gave me purpose, direction. A reason to wake every morning. After the witches butchered my father, the idea of sitting still felt dangerous. So, I’ve been content on my own.
I’ve never found love—one person, or a pack, that called to us. I’ve never wanted to, not after watching my mother become a shell of a person after losing her mate.
For a week now, I’ve kept this brotherly pull I feel toward Silas stifled. My alpha and I have survived years without a mate, without real friends, so I thought we agreed we didn’t need them.
He tenses inside me. Cautious, calculating, just as he does when we’re hunting our prey.
Unfortunately, there’s something else laced beneath that delicate scent, and the intoxicating honeyed perfume of my new mate—it’s the wild, primal edge of an omega in heat.
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Chapter 4: Silas
Deidre thinks she knows everything about wolves. What a mate bond is. She thinks she gets it.
She has no idea what’s inside me. What I feel, what Mona feels.
Every step closer, her scent is overpowering. The honey is too sweet, almost sugary, crystalline. My knot thickens at the base, making my steps falter.
“Are you listening to me, Silas?” Deidre asks, pausing halfway down the stairs leading to the basement.
I haven’t been. My head is swimming. I’m about to face Mona. My mate.
I wish I could turn back the clock and start all over again. Give myself time to become a better man, to learn how to court her properly. To not become this—whatever I am.
“I want her blood. Do not fuck this up like you fuck up everything else. I swear, I’ve never met someone so useless.”
It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. Nothing I don’t already feel.
“What do you want it for, exactly?” I’ve asked before, but witches speak in riddles. They love subterfuge. Wolves are more straightforward. You can’t directly lie to a wolf; our senses are too strong, so we tend to be blunt.
Deidre’s eyes flicker. For a heartbeat, the mask slips. Her fingers drift to her abdomen, lingering there as she stares past me.
“What do I want?” She straightens her shoulders, hand falling away with the vulnerability of the moment. “That girl carries the most powerful shifter bloodline on Earth, and on top of that, she’s an omega. But if you impregnate her? Her blood will become more potent than anything I’ve ever worked with. An untapped wellspring of ancient power I’ve spentdecadessearching for.”
More vague megalomania. But there’s something she isn’t saying, layering her lies in histrionics, so you almost get too distracted to realize she hasn’t actually revealed a thing. But I’m too stuck on the bit about her bloodline to ask for clarification. She asked me once if I knew whose blood ran through Mona’s veins, but at the time, I didn’t really think about what she meant. I had other shit on my mind.
Deidre descends the stairs, continuing her villainous rant, threatening Mona before we even see her. Each step forward carries waves of unease.
The basement is mostly empty. One bright light hangs overhead. The witch standing beside my mate, an older man, rough around the edges, looks annoyed. “This bitch is impossible. Pierre said to take care of her, but it ain’t my fault she won’t eat or drink anything,” he snaps, pointing a finger at Deidre, who raises one eyebrow.
I can’t look. I don’t glance down, not yet, not until these witches leave the room. I’m so tense, my molars crack.
“All right, Seymour. Thank you so much for all you’ve done. Ben is upstairs adjusting the wards. You’ve done a wonderful job. Pierre paid you, though, yes?”
“Yeah, he did, but—”
“Wonderful. Now, why don’t you go on upstairs? I’ll be up momentarily. You can brief me, and then take your leave.”
“You, uh, you need any more help, I’m happy to stick around. For more money, a’course,” he adds.
Deidre says between gritted teeth, “Let’s discuss it in a minute. Go on now.” She waves her fingers. He nods and mumbles his way up the stairs. The more power a witch has, the longer they live—different from shifters, who all age slowly. That man looks about sixty, and that’s probably pretty close to his actual age.
My eyes follow him. Mona is a gravitational pull, and it takes physical effort not to look, not to fall to my knees.
