AllFreeNovel
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Even if my crazy side is devastated he’s not here, and I’ll never get to see how he looks all grown up.
It’s for the best.
Hard as ice and blood diamonds, I’m Serafina Redfang in bitch mode, tilting up my nose at alphas who dare to drive me to a zip code with no sushi—unless you count the two-headed fish that wash up from the drainage canals.
Never mind that I would’ve gone swimming in that muck-water if I’d dared to let them see me in a suit.
Every block stings like swallowing a hook.
I close my eyes and keep them shut until Jin throws the car in park.
“We’re here.” He cuts the engine, but no one unbuckles.
I recognize the worst pocket of town, where more homes are abandoned than livable, but I’ve never seen the tiny yellow house with its lights glowing warmly beyond a chain-link fence.
Already hating myself, I ask, “Where’s here?” with enough disdain to burn my tongue.
Leather creaks, the guys shifting.
Awkward is better than destroyed.
I hope.
“Would’ve booked you the penthouse,” Bishop starts. “But—”
“Kairo has us watched.” Jin shakes his head. “This is our safest property.”
“Not exactly The Barrington, but it’s home.” Reese scratches his beard with the hand I keep reminding myself not to snatch. I’m about to exit the car by headbutting through the glass.
Before the madness takes over, I unbuckle and go for the handle. “Find me a shower and a bed. We’ll deal with…”
The SAS, the Triad, plus three or four alphas who think I’m their mate, and oh yeah. The naked skin reminding me it’s been too long since my last shot of lemon-flavored hell.
I’ll shit enough bricks to build my own hideaway if I don’t get out of this mess soon.
“We’ll deal with everything in the morning,” Jin finishes my sentence, clicking into packleader mode as he clicks his belt. “Let’s get you inside. Reese—”
“I’ll grab the tarp.”
When I have to bite my lip to keep from asking, Reese fills in another blank as he hops out the door. “No garage. We have to cover the car.”
“The neighborhood is all vagrants and gangsters.” Bishop gestures for me to walk in front of him, turning the weedy sidewalk to a runway with his stride. “Don’t go out without one of us and your gun.”
The SAS brass would be horrified I have a firearm, let alone that I’m carrying it loaded. But I feel safer with a weapon that isn’t neurotoxin and weirdly smug that they trust me enough not to ask for it back.
They shouldn’t trust me.
I follow Jin into a cozy living room that feels much too much like home. It smells like fresh-baked bread, herbal tea, and something sticky-sweet that drips a shiver down my spine.
“Bathroom?” I press my wrist to my nose, trying to blot out the pheromones I can’t let myself inhale. My pulse-point can’t squeeze out a drop of lemonade.
Time to re-apply or run.
Definitely run, because everywhere I turn is another glossy image from the vision board I burned. The squishy sofa heaped with crocheted blankets. The bookshelves packed with romance novels and pots of ivy. And the dark-eyed, dark-haired packleader who tosses his suit jacket over a kitchen stool and starts to roll his sleeves to cook me dinner. “Do you want to eat first?”
“Later.” I swallow lava rock and press a hand to my stomach, wishing my body would react the way it should.
I want to eat Jin, but even though I can imagine licking him from wrist to corded shoulder, there’s no gremlin, omega urge to pounce and bite and breed.
