ila

al Estate. The house wasn't a home; it was a fortress of gray stone perched on the edge of a cliff, overlooking th

oser we got, the more the air inside the car so

ng into the tender flesh hard enough to bruise. "Smile. Nod. Do not speak unless spoken to. Carter isn't

way. I rubbed the spot where his nail

athetic. The man who made my life a living hell was reduced to a

ounted heads of stags and bears, their glass eyes watching us. The room was packed with high-ranking wolves-Betas, Gammas, and

ll like a

ped onto t

lt like gravity had shifted. He wore a charcoal suit that strained

that swept over the room with the indiffere

d, lodging painf

s h

-sandalwood, ozone, and the dark, electric charge of a gathering storm. It was the same scen

ically in my mind. Mate, she purred, a low,

pha King. I had slept w

s. I wanted to run, to vomit, to hide, bu

d predatory. The crowd parted for him like the Red

bowed his head, exposing his neck in submissio

ibrated through the floorboards. He didn't even look at Jaden; his eyes were locked on me. "You

son. "I... the territory was co

iocre, Jaden. It

of his hands on my body, his lips on my neck, flashed through my mind, making my kn

ttention. He grabbed my hand and pulled me forward, disp

ward the most powerful wolf on the cont

at my hand. He

people nearby started to shift uncomfortably. His lip

nclean things,

d through the onlookers. I snatched my hand bac

nervously to cover the slight. "The bloodline power... it

he heat radiating from his body was intoxicating, warring with the terror free

the shell of my ear. To the room,

mb grazed my left earlobe-the naked o

down my spine at the cont

ittle wolf, he whispered, his voice

He winked-a gesture that was not playful, but predatory

realizing with dawning horror that the monster I had marri