Last Wolf Hunting
Rhyannon Byrd
His whole life had been an act After seeing Jillian Murphy for the first time in a decade, Jeremy knew he could no longer ignore his desire. By right of nature she belonged to him. Yet fate and fear had worked against the two headstrong lovers in their youth – and cast Jeremy from his home.Now the pair must join forces to uncover a betrayal that threatens to destroy Jeremy’s pack’s stability. And this time Jeremy will not deny himself the one thing he wants most in this world…BLOODRUNNERS Caught between two worlds, they will stop at nothing in their pursuit of justice…and love
“I thought you swore you’dnever come back,” Jillianwhispered, her eyes glitteringwith emotion.
“And a promise is a promise, Jeremy.”
“And some promises,” he countered in a husky rasp, “are made to be broken.”
“Yeah, that’s one thing everyone knows about you, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” Then, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary going on, she turned to walk away.
Just. Like. That.
Oh, no. No bloody way. She was out of her ever-loving mind if she thought she was getting away that easily. Gripping her shoulder, Jeremy spun her around.
The anger was crashing through him now, faster than he could control it. Like a fault line ready to explode, his anger had seethed beneath his easygoing surface. Every time he saw her – and couldn’t touch her – it had grown.
“I’m going to say this once, Burns. Do. Not. Touch. Me.”
Not touch her? Not likely.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rhyannon Byrd fell in love with a Brit whose accent was just too sexy to resist. Luckily for her, he turned out to be a keeper, so she married him and they now have two precocious children, who constantly keep her on her toes. Living in the Southwest, Rhyannon spends her days creating provocative romances with her favourite kinds of heroes – intense alpha males who cherish their women. When not writing, she loves to travel, lose herself in books and watch as much football as humanly possible with her loud, fun-loving family.
For information on Rhyannon’s books and the latest news, you can visit her website at www. rhyannonbyrd.com.
Dear Reader,
The world of the Bloodrunners is a complex blend of fate and free will, of passion and prejudice…of beauty and betrayal. A world that finds the half-human, half-werewolf Runners separated from their Lycan birth-pack because their bloodlines are considered less than “pure.”
In Last Wolf Hunting, the second instalment of the trilogy, two people who are drawn together by destiny within this unjust society find themselves torn apart by circumstance. The gorgeous, irreverent Bloodrunner Jeremy Burns, and the pack’s Spirit Walker, Jillian Murphy, have spent ten long years feeling as if a part of them was missing. And though their hearts are battered and bitter, they still crave that which they’ve lost. Until, after a decade of separation, fate brings them together once again…
Jeremy and Jillian’s story is a provocative, emotional tale of second chances – of a perfect moment, once thought forever lost, finally recaptured. I hope their journey will touch your heart, and that you’ll pull for them along the way.
All the best!
Rhyannon
Last Wolf Hunting
RHYANNON BYRD
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my mother-in-law, Chris, for your endless
support and treasured friendship.
With much love,
Rhyannon
THE BLOODRUNNERS LAW
When offspring are born of a union between human and Lycan, the resulting creations may only gain acceptance within their rightful pack by the act of Bloodrunning: the hunting and extermination of rogue Lycans who have taken a desire for human flesh. Thus they prove not only their strength, but their willingness to kill for those they will swear to protect to the death.
The League of Elders will predetermine the Bloodrunner’s required number of kills.
Once said number of kills are efficiently accomplished, only then may the Bloodrunner assume a place among their kin, complete with full rights and privileges.
Chapter 1
A bitter mountain breeze wrapped around his long frame, whipping his shaggy hair against the furrowed ridges of his brow as Jeremy Burns hiked through the Maryland forest. Like a wrathful banshee, the relentless autumn winds howled with fury, while his fellow Bloodrunner, Cian Hennessey, quietly kept pace at his side.
They’d been working their way through the woods for a good fifteen minutes now, each step taking Jeremy closer to the last place on earth that he wanted to be. His muscles were hard with tension, biceps bulging against the seams of his shirt, his skin fever-hot despite the chill of the air. Blood pumped through his veins in a powerful, heavy rhythm, his heart hammering like a drum, senses honed to a razor’s edge, sharp and precise.
And it was all because of a girl. All because of a woman.
That was the relentless, infuriating thought burning its way through his tired mind as he hiked, the silvery moonlight glinting against the ravaged limbs of the trees, making them look like gnarled monsters in the shadowed darkness. But monsters didn’t scare him. Hell, he was one of the monsters, complete with fangs and fur and a deadly appetite that could get him into trouble should he fail to exercise fierce control—which was why he always kept a white-knuckled grip on the animal side of his nature. For a Bloodrunner, losing control was never an option, but then neither was fear. And Jeremy had done a damn good job of mastering both—until it came to her.
He hated to admit it, but he was terrified by the growing knot of anticipation inside of him. The one that kept sniffing at the nighttime air, eager for a whiff of that lone, perfect fragrance that never failed to drive him out of his mind. Honeyed and womanly warm. Earthy and rich. It’d been woven into the very fabric of his soul, imprinted upon his senses like a tattoo needled into his skin. Just the thought of that mouthwatering scent made him hard and aching, not to mention irritable as hell.
“Do you think she’ll be there?” he muttered in a gritty rasp, slanting a look toward the man at his side.
“Who?” Cian pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and flicked a sharp glance toward Jeremy, his pale gray eyes shadowed beneath the thick veil of his lashes. “The Murphy witch?”
“Who else?” he grunted impatiently. Jillian Murphy was the only woman on his mind—and the Irishman damn well knew it.
Taking a long drag from his now smoldering cigarette, Cian lifted his right brow in a cynical arch. “What? I’m psychic now, as well as irresistible?”
“Trust me, I have no problem resisting you,” Jeremy quietly snarled, narrowing his eyes on the grinning bastard. Normally he enjoyed trading barbs with the Irishman, but not tonight. Tonight he was too tense, too bitter to have a sense of humor.
As if impervious to the thread of warning in his words, Cian barked a rich, husky laugh. “Aw, there it is. I knew your inner smart-ass was hiding in there somewhere, Burns. And to answer your question, yes, I think she’ll be there. Why else do you think I decided to tag along?” His white teeth flashed in a taunting smile. “I’m here for moral support, you know.”
“Moral support my ass. More like you’re here so that you can run back to the Alley with some juicy gossip for the others.” Jeremy knew his partner, Mason Dillinger, and the other Bloodrunners would be champing at the bit to hear the details of his first night back. “Face it, Hennessey. I’m on…to…you.”
The soft words trailed off as the mountain winds suddenly surged from a new direction, swelling with power. Jeremy inhaled with a sharp, deep breath, and his head immediately shot back as if he’d been clipped under the chin.
Oh, god. There it was. Like a messenger in the night, the shivering breeze carried the fertile scents of the forest…and something more. Something lush and achingly familiar. Something that goddamn belonged to him.
With no choice but to follow the primal, ruthless dictates of his beast—of his wolf—Jeremy found himself staring up at the starry canopy of the bruise-colored sky. His feet were no longer moving, his entire being focused on taking in more of that decadent, head-spinning scent, so richly spiced that he could actually taste it.
That is so damn good, he thought with a low growl, wanting to roll the evocative flavor around on his tongue, savoring it like some strange, illicit pleasure. All it took was that instant flash of recognition, and the sweetly addictive scent melted into his skin, into his bones and blood and the violent, erratic pounding of his heart.
Jesus, he was so screwed. He had to be stronger than this, dammit.
Shaking his head to clear it, Jeremy silently cursed himself for being so easily seduced. He pushed his shaking hands back through the windblown strands of his hair, then shoved them deep in the pockets of his weathered jeans and forced himself to keep hiking.
It still amazed him that this was actually happening. That he was on his way back to the pack of werewolves who looked on his half-human heritage as a stain, an aberration—something that made him less than worthy. Because of his past, he knew it was a mistake to tempt fate by going back to the mountaintop town of Shadow Peak, the place the Silvercrest called home. But he didn’t have a choice. He’d drawn the shortest straw among the Runners, making it his mission to catch the traitor who was tempting Lycans to turn rogue, to hunt innocent humans as prey, and teaching them how to dayshift. Rogues were dangerous enough bastards on the best of days, but show them how to take the shape of their beasts beneath the heat of the sun and they became that much more difficult to hunt down…not to mention kill. Jeremy figured he should know, considering his scars were still healing from his last run in with a group of them.
And now he could sense that Jillian was near. The woman who was meant to be his lifemate. The woman who was meant to make him complete.
As if, he silently snarled. Instead, this dark, seething need for her only made him feel hollow and raw, as if a part of him had been peeled away and amputated. He wanted so badly to ignore her existence, to forget, but it was impossible. And god only knew that he’d tried. For a long time, he’d mistakenly thought he could bury his memories and anger and bitterness in a warm, willing body. But no matter how eager or solicitous his bed partners were, he’d never been able to move past the fact that they weren’t the one he truly wanted.
Pathetic. And now look at him, practically panting as he tried to breathe Jillian into his system like a drowning man gulping at air.
Maybe he’d have been able to handle it better if he’d had more time to prepare, but the chain of events that set this night in motion had come hard and fast. A mere seven days ago, Mason had defeated the rogue werewolf Anthony Simmons in a challenge to the death. The Bloodrunners had gathered that next evening at Mason’s cabin and drawn straws to determine who would return to the pack to track down the traitor—the one who had been controlling Simmons. Like a bad joke, Jeremy’s straw had been the shortest, and in a nightmarish daze, he’d found himself going before the Silvercrest’s governing body, the League of Elders. He’d submitted his rogue kills, claiming his right to rejoin the pack as a full-fledged member, then served as best man at Mason’s wedding. That had been two days ago—and here he was, on his way home. He’d barely had time to pack and settle things at his cabin, much less get his head in order.
Rubbing one hand against the back of his neck, Jeremy shuddered as a soft current of air suddenly slithered across his skin, leaving a spray of goose bumps in its wake. The cool eastern breeze snaked its way through the swaying trees, ruffling his hair as the wind caressed his face and arms with another eerie stroke of warning. Go back, it seemed to whisper within his ear. Go back, while you still can.
Pine needles crackled beneath his booted feet as he shook off the unsettling sensation and navigated his way through the last thick fringes of the forest. They were getting close. Up ahead, his keen eyesight allowed him to make out the hazy glow of the torch-lit clearing where the Silvercrest werewolves conducted business better suited to the wild than the civilized atmosphere of their secluded town, built on private land a few miles up the mountain.
A half minute later, the sounds from the clearing reached their ears. It was obviously a Challenge Night, just as Dylan Riggs, the youngest Silvercrest Elder and unlikely friend to the Runners, had informed them that afternoon.
“We’re almost at the clearing,” Cian muttered at his side, lighting another cigarette by pressing the end to the glowing orange tip of the first. “I’m not ashamed to say that I always hated this place when I was younger. It gives me the creeps.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Jeremy lifted his head and sniffed the air. It was thick and heavy with tension, all but cloying against his skin. Tonight’s fight must be an unusual one, he thought with a wondering frown. Male agitation rose sharply on the wind, but with the women it was sizzling and swift, like a burning fuse.
It was imperative that he stay alert and concentrate, but Jillian’s scent grew more intense the higher they hiked, revealing her explosive emotions at the same time it messed with his head. She was scared tonight, on edge, filled with an overwhelming sense of dread, but Jeremy knew she’d be putting on a brave face for the pack she considered hers, though she was witch, not wolf.
The women of her bloodline had served the Silvercrest werewolves for centuries, gifting them with their powers. When her mother, Constance, stepped down from her place as Spirit Walker, Jillian had assumed the vital role of healer and spiritual leader of the pack. He knew they loved her, respected her and looked up to her, though she was still a young woman of twenty-eight. And why shouldn’t they? She’d given her entire life to them. Hell, she’d even turned her back on him for the sake of her precious pack of werewolves.
“That sounds like one hell of a fight,” Cian murmured.
He grunted in agreement, his sense of foreboding growing stronger, edgier.
Low grumblings from the onlookers now provided a steady background of sound, layered beneath the harsh breaths of the opponents as they battled against one another, the occasional howl belted out by the crowd scraping across the calming sounds of the forest like sharp blasts of a weapon.
“Give up, bitch,” a woman’s guttural voice sneered, “and I just might let you die easy, instead of ripping you apart, piece by piece.”
Jeremy’s eyes went wide at the realization that the opponents were female. It wasn’t unheard of for one woman to challenge another, but then it wasn’t exactly common, either.
“What a delightful-sounding shrew,” Cian snickered, his lips twisting into a wry smile as he pretended to shudder. “Reminds me why I’ve vowed to remain eternally single.”
A high-pitched cry rent the air in the next instant, echoing through the forest, and that same voice snarled, “Oh, yeah, you’re mine now.”
He bit back a curse, thinking that voice sounded suspiciously familiar. “It’s Danna Gibson,” he stated flatly.
Cian sent him a comical look of disbelief, then chuckled softly under his breath. “Christ, your luck just can’t get any worse.”
Jeremy had to agree. This night was going to be awkward enough without running in to one of his old girlfriends, especially Danna. Not that he and the Lycan had ever had anything serious. He’d dated her a handful of times when he was younger, before Jillian had come home from school and he’d felt the call of a lifemate for the little witch. After that, Jillian had been the only woman he was interested in. But his reputation as a young man who enjoyed his sexual variety had been hard to shake. The girls he’d had flings with in the past, like Danna, had been jealous of his sudden, possessive interest in Jillian, and her parents had simply hated his guts. Rumors about his so-called continued sexual conquests had kept the gossipmongers busy, but he’d tried to ignore them, focusing all his attention on getting the shy Jillian to give him a chance.
Instead, it’d all blown up in his face, and in the end, it’d been Danna who Jillian had accused him of fooling around with the same day he and the little witch had shared their first and only kiss. The same day Jillian had told him she was finally ready to give a relationship between them a chance, after having fought what was between them for months.
Months that had felt like goddamn years, Jeremy had wanted her so badly.
After he’d left the pack, he’d heard that Danna had gone on to marry a small-brained, chauvinistic jerk, and been miserable ever since. Tonight wasn’t the first time she’d challenged another female—and if her husband’s track record was anything to go by, it wouldn’t be the last. Magnus Gibson was like a dog in heat, slobbering after anything with a pulse.
Jeremy shook his head in disgust. If it was a true match based on love, the males of his kind were never tempted to stray from the loyalty pledged to their wives…but when couples were married without belonging to one another both in heart and soul, well, the rules of nature changed. Sad, but all too true.
“I wonder what the hell’s going on up there.” He cut Cian a questioning look from the corner of his eye, but the Irishman lifted one shoulder in a hell-if-I-know gesture, his attention warily focused on the warm glow of light up ahead.
“Whatever it is, I’ve got a bad feeling about it,” the Runner grunted, a deep crease seated between his ebony brows.
“Yeah. Me, too.”
When a new voice, soft and smoky and lilting, rang out through the night, Jeremy nearly tripped over the gnarled root of a sprawling oak tree. “For the last time, Danna, I did not touch your mate.”
Oh, hell. The voice behind those words knocked the air from his lungs like a vicious kick to the chest. Jeremy slammed to a jarring stop, while senses already sharpened to precision revved into overdrive. His mind didn’t want to accept it, but his body knew the truth.
It was her.
Jillian.
He was close enough to scent the damning details now, everything narrowing into a concentrated focus that had him pulling in angry gulps of air, greedy for every drop he could take in. The sensory intake was shocking and almost painful in its intensity, the heat of her lush little body, all hot and angry from battle, nearly doubling him over, while panic suddenly had him exploding into action.
He shoved a low-hanging branch out of his way, wondering what the hell she’d gotten herself into this time. Even though Jillian had the blood of a wolf flowing through her veins, the fact she was witch made it impossible for her to shape-shift. Danna was twice Jillian’s size and as vicious as a pit bull, not to mention underhanded—no doubt the Lycan was cheating like hell.
And what in god’s name was Jillian doing fighting one of her own wolves?
Vaguely aware of Cian at his side, Jeremy’s booted feet moved faster with the speed of his thoughts, until he finally broke through the last yards of the forest at a full run, erupting onto the edge of the clearing in a blur of movement. Then he nearly staggered to his knees, his legs all but crumpling beneath him as he took in the scene playing out before him like some kind of macabre nightmare.
Jillian Murphy stood in the center of the Challenge Circle—beautiful, brave and bleeding.
And she was about to die.
Chapter 2
Jillian glanced his way for a startled second, before jerking her attention back to Danna. Jeremy realized that although shock had dried up his ability for speech—leaving a gaping hole of cold, jarring disbelief in its place—he’d made a sound. A dry, choking kind of noise, like a wounded animal. It didn’t matter that she was covered in dirt and sweat, her temple bloodied and her left cheek scraped raw. She was perfect and sexy and a part of him. Hate. Hurt. Pain. In that moment, none of the injustices of the past mattered.
My mate, he thought with a possessive snarl, realizing that he was growling low in his throat, drawing curious stares from the members of the pack who had gathered to watch. “Did you know about this?” he growled, cutting an accusing look at Cian. “Did you know Jillian was fighting?”
The Irishman arched one dark brow. “Do you think I’d have been late getting to the Alley and almost missed seeing something like this if I did?” the Runner drawled with a slow smile. “Not bloody likely, boyo.”
“Just keep your damn eyes off her. I don’t want you looking at her.”
“And how do you plan on stopping me?” Cian laughed, clearly goading him.
“Don’t push me,” he warned in a deadly rasp, working his jaw. “Not tonight, Hennessey.”
No, tonight he had no control. It’d just been stripped away by the sight of Jillian Murphy engaged in mortal combat with a Lycan.
It was painfully obvious he was going to lose her—but he couldn’t grasp the concept, like something slippery and slick that kept wriggling through his fingers. He struggled to get his mind around it, but he might as well have tried to grasp an ethereal trail of smoke, or the puffy white confection of a cumulus summer cloud set within the deep rich blue of the sky.
None of this was right! Had everyone in the pack lost their goddamn minds? Spirit Walkers did not fight their own wolves. To challenge a witch was one of the greatest taboos throughout all of Lycan culture, right up there along with eating your neighbors and shape-shifting in the middle of Time’s Square on New Year’s Eve. If the wolves were expected to survive in the modern world, rules had to be followed. If they weren’t, their way of life would come crashing down around them faster than a house of cards.
No, Lycans didn’t challenge their own Spirit Walkers. Jillian might be wolf in spirit, but her body was all too vulnerable when it came to physical demands. Even in her human shape, Danna towered over Jillian’s lithe five-five frame. And Jeremy had no doubt that Danna would press her physical advantage.
As if spurred by his thoughts, the Lycan’s hands shed their human shape, transforming into lethal, claw-tipped weapons. Danna pulled back one powerful arm, then lurched forward, her claws cutting through the air like a scythe, aiming straight for the vulnerable flesh of Jillian’s pale throat. Jeremy felt his heart drop, a primal shout of outrage trapped in his chest as he waited for the fatal blow he was helpless to stop. But the death strike never came. At the last second, Jillian dropped to the ground and rolled, avoiding the vicious slash of Danna’s long, deadly claws.
Danna quickly lunged, leaping for Jillian before she could scramble to her feet. Again, Jeremy expected to see her ripped by the Lycan’s claws, but Jillian threw up her arms, palms out, as if to hold off her attacker…and Danna’s body slammed to a jarring halt. The air between the two women sparked with a pale blue electrical charge that sizzled, crackling like oil in a pan, while the air filled with the scent of burnt ozone.
Feeling as if he’d been cracked across the forehead with a two-by-four, Jeremy stared, stunned to witness how Jillian’s powers had grown since she was a girl of eighteen.
“Well, now. She looks like a right handful,” Cian murmured, slapping him on the shoulder, his wide mouth curled in a devil’s smile. “I almost envy you,” he added, the words softened by the Irishman’s low, lyrical laughter.
“Piss off,” Jeremy grunted, which only made the Runner laugh harder.
In the circle, Danna flexed her claws at her sides, shoulders hunched, her tangled hair all but standing on end in her rage. “Using your powers is cheating!” she snarled.
“And shifting your hands isn’t?” Jillian panted, rolling to her feet, her wary gaze fixed on the woman determined to kill her. Danna made a low, chuffing noise and stepped slowly to the side, her movements mirrored by Jillian, who Jeremy noticed was carefully keeping the Lycan in front of her.
She couldn’t afford to let Danna catch her unawares. Already, blood trickled down her left arm from an ugly gash that slashed across her bicep. Impatiently, Jillian wiped at the wound, smearing the crimson color over her pale skin. From there, Jeremy’s gaze traveled over her body, lingering on the sexy strip of glistening bare abdomen revealed between the low waistband of her shorts and the hem of her black sports bra.
Despite being in the midst of a fight for survival, she looked…incredible. The tight workout shorts fit her firm backside like a glove, making his mouth water even though his throat remained dry with fear. And he didn’t even trust himself to take a longer look at her chest. Seeing her firm breasts squeezed into that skintight top would only be asking for trouble he didn’t need, seeing as how he was already hard and anxious and hurting.
His gaze lifted against his will, proving he had the willpower of a gnat.
Nice going, Burns.
When he was a young man of twenty-two, Jillian’s breasts had never failed to fascinate him. High. Round. Firm and fine and just shy of being too much for her slight frame, they’d driven him out of his mind with lust. And now that she was grown, her sleek little body pulled him like a lodestone…too tempting to resist. There was no choice but to let his gaze roam, eyes hot with appreciation as he took in the smooth texture of her skin, all damp and warm from exertion. She was so sweet and pale and feminine…and yet, so strong, so powerful.
The human half of him knew it was a primitive reaction, but he couldn’t ignore the animal part of his nature that liked her like that: sexy and sweaty, with the intimate scent of blood on her skin. He wanted to nuzzle against the scratches on her arm and take her taste into his body, before trailing his mouth down the damp perfection of her flesh, greedy for the warmth and textures, until he got to what he wanted most. And once he spread those sleek, muscular thighs, opening her like a secret that’d been meant for no one but him, he’d lean forward, his breath held hot in his chest, muscles rigid with anticipation and the sharpest edge of excitement he’d ever known, and he’d touch her with his tongue.
He knew what would happen then. The pleasure of it—of her—would be so intense, it’d crash through him harder than anything he’d ever experienced, like a shockwave that shook him to his core. Something reverent and spiritual and sexual all at once. Something that changed him. That ripped him apart and then put him back together again. On the outside, he’d look the same—but on the inside, he’d be…different. Changed.
And you’re veering off course again, you idiot. Focus!
Right. He needed to find someone who could give him some answers. Jeremy quickly scanned the crowd, half of whom were staring at him with avid interest, the other half glued to the sight of Danna prowling around Jillian’s body as the witch stood her ground, keeping a wary eye on her opponent.
A few yards away, Jeremy spotted Magnus Gibson. The tall, rangy Lycan slumped against the weathered trunk of a towering pine, complexion waxen as he watched his wife stalk his…lover? The word stuck in Jeremy’s throat like a stone, nearly choking him.
Hell. He so didn’t want to board that repulsive train of thought right now. The idea of Magnus slipping into Jillian’s firm little body made him nauseous. Gritting his teeth, while keeping one eye on Jillian and Danna, he moved toward the Lycan and fisted his hand in Magnus’s sweaty, beer-stained T-shirt, then jerked the drunken ass to his feet, shaking him to get his attention.
He had to do something, because the inability to take immediate action burned in his gut like acid. He hated the restrictions that kept him from doing what he wanted, on his own terms, which would be to charge into the clearing, grab Jillian up and take her to immediate safety.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple.
By accepting Danna’s challenge, Jillian had entered a sacred Challenge Circle. No one could enter, not without being slammed onto their backs with a metaphysical sledgehammer, their head left ringing with a migraine reported to last for days. The circle served as a nonlethal means of keeping fights even and fair, but right now, it stood between him and the woman who had been created as his other half. Didn’t matter that they couldn’t stand one another—he wanted to save her, needed to, and it pissed him off that he couldn’t.
He also needed to pound something, dammit, and Magnus seemed as good a place to start as any. Lifting the heavy jerk off of his feet, Jeremy smacked him against the trunk of the pine. “Why the hell can’t you control your woman, Gibson?”
“Control Danna?” the hulking Lycan slurred, his pale blue eyes blurry and bloodshot. “You’ve gotta be outta your mind.”
Jeremy ground his teeth together so hard, it amazed him they didn’t turn to chalk in his mouth. “Then why not try keeping your pants zipped for a change?”
Magnus’s eyes went round, making him look like an owl. “I didn’t touch the bloody little witch! You think I want this? Do I look crazy to you? If anything happens to that woman,” he sneered, jerking his shaggy head of coal-colored hair toward the clearing and the two opponents, “do you know what kind of curse those crazy Murphy bitches might bring down on my head?”
Stepping closer, Jeremy fought the urge to gag when the stench of stale whiskey and sweat smacked him in the face. “If you didn’t want trouble,” he ground out through his teeth, “then you shouldn’t have cheated with the pack’s Spirit Walker to begin with.”
“I just told you that I didn’t!” the Lycan sputtered. “Are you deaf? I’ve never laid a hand on Jillian. I was having some fun with Carrie, the new little waitress who works over at the coffee shop.”
“Jesus,” Jeremy muttered with disgust. “You ever thought of being faithful?”
“To that shrew?” Magnus’s color shifted to a sickly shade of green. “I repeat, do I look crazy to you?”
Jeremy was clearly talking to a brick wall—and he stubbornly refused to look too closely at the relief he felt at knowing Jillian hadn’t let Magnus touch her. Not that he should care, but dammit, he did.
Still, something wasn’t adding up here.
“If you’ve never touched Jillian, then why is Danna trying to kill her?”
Magnus made a gruff, snorting sound of disgust. “Danna found one of Carrie’s pale blond hairs on my shorts and assumed it was one of Jillian’s.”
Jeremy’s hand clenched, and the collar of the foul-smelling shirt pulled tight enough to make Magnus gasp. “And why would she think Jillian Murphy would be interested in you?”
The Lycan looked at him as if he were daft. “To get back at Danna for what happened with you!” he wheezed, trying to suck enough air into his lungs. “Geez, man, you’re not as sharp as you look, are you? Danna has always worried about Jillian, because of her…uh, complicity in your breakup.”
Jeremy stared, unable to believe such a word had just slipped from Magnus Gibson’s mouth. “Complicity?” he snorted, shaking his head in disbelief. “Since when did you start using words like complicity?”
“Word of the day calendar,” Magnus muttered, his tone daring Jeremy to make fun of him.
But he wasn’t in a teasing mood. Instead, he snarled, “Well, you can inform your bloodthirsty wife that her complicity is a moot point.”
He wanted to argue that you couldn’t break up a relationship that had never started, but bit his tongue. Jillian hadn’t dumped him because of rumors—that had only been an excuse. No, he’d always suspected the real reason was her fear of the Elders, or more importantly, of disappointing them. Not that he was explaining any of it to Magnus. It wasn’t any of the bastard’s business.
Ever mindful of the battle taking place just a few yards away, Jeremy kept one eye on Jillian, watching as she maneuvered to avoid Danna’s strikes. The witch was quick on her feet, he’d give her that. Danna might have the advantage of size and strength, not to mention razor-sharp claws, but she was no match for Jillian’s speed.
Jeremy set Magnus back down on his feet, but kept a firm grip on his shirt. “You’re going to have to explain this one to me, Gibson. Why the hell would Danna’s challenge have anything to do with what happened ten years ago?”
Magnus rubbed at his throat. “You really don’t get it, do you? I never knew you were such a thickheaded ass.”
“Keep pushing him,” Cian murmured from behind Jeremy’s left shoulder, obviously listening in, “and you’re not going to like where it leads. Trust me.”
The Lycan glared a quick look at Hennessey, swallowed so hard that his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat like a buoy and quickly shifted his bleary gaze back to Jeremy. “Danna’s not the only one, but she worries the most, because she’s the one you were rumored to be with that night. But ever since all that crap went down between you and Jillian, a lot of your old girlfriends have been waiting for her to take her revenge.”
“How? By stealing their men? You’re joking, right?”
Magnus shrugged. “Not exactly Jillian’s style, I know, but who knows how a woman’s mind works. All I know is that the witch has been fighting off challengers for longer than I can remember, and every damn one of them has been a woman you dated back before you left.”
Aw, hell. If that were true, Jillian would have been fighting off more than a few. God only knew he’d been reckless back then, bedding the members of the pack as a way to thumb his nose at the laws that kept him excluded from its inner workings. That is, until the summer when Jillian had come home from boarding school and he’d finally met the girl who would one day become the pack’s Spirit Walker. After that, Jeremy had never touched a pack female again—not that Jillian had ever believed him.
He didn’t want to believe what Magnus claimed. “It’s a nice story, but I’m not buying it, Gibson.”
“Well, you should,” someone drawled from the thick shadows darkening the edge of the forest, “because it’s the truth.”
The husky words came from the tall, built-like-a-brick-house female walking slowly toward them, her red hair gleaming a vivid copper in the hazy light of the torches as she came to stand at his side. Elise Drake, daughter of the man at the top of the Bloodrunners’ list of possible suspects. Son of a bitch.
Part of the reason Jeremy had returned to Shadow Peak was so he could keep a close eye on Stefan Drake, the pack’s most notorious Elder. If things worked out, he’d be able to uncover the proof the Bloodrunners needed to nail Drake’s sadistic ass, putting an end to his plans. But it wouldn’t be easy. If he was the traitor, there was no way in hell Drake would go down easy.
“You really have no idea what her life’s been like, do you?” Elise smirked at him, the look in her dark blue eyes saying she knew something he didn’t—but that he should—and it pissed him off. Not that he wasn’t already angry. Hell, at this rate he was going to choke on rage before the night ended.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
The redhead’s gaze flickered briefly to Cian, who had propped his shoulder against a nearby tree. The Irishman stood with his arms crossed, a small grin playing at the corner of his mouth, as if he found the unfolding drama fascinating entertainment and had decided to just step back and watch. He winked at Elise, earning him an angry sneer, and she quickly turned her attention back to Jeremy.
“It means that she’s lived with what went down between the two of you for ten years, while you got to leave and pretend it never happened. More than a few of your old girlfriends have challenged Jillian over the years, thinking she’ll go after their men because she wants to get back at them for having had you, when she never got the chance herself. As if she’d be driven by envy or jealousy or some kind of twisted revenge. They seem to think she’s still tearing her heart out over losing you.”
Her lip curled, blue eyes moving slowly over his body, from the top of his blond head down to the scuffed toes of his hiking boots. “God only knows why they’d think she cared. You never brought her anything but trouble.”
Ten years ago, Elise had been a stuck-up snob who made it her business to act like the prima donna pack bitch. Her attitude had always matched her appearance, fiery and cool all at once. When had she become friendly with Jillian? The two women were as different as night and day.
“I still think this is bullshit,” he muttered.
“Don’t believe me, ask around.” She shrugged, as if to say she didn’t care what he decided to do. “The League gave her no choice. Though she refuses to kill any of them, if it weren’t for her powers, she’d have died by the hand of one of your exes long ago. I suppose the Elders feel it’s just punishment for the fact she ever allowed you to get close to her, when they’d warned her repeatedly to stay away from you.”
The coolness of her tone told him she was speaking the truth, and he scowled as the implications sank in.
All this time, she’d been fighting in life-and-death situations…and he hadn’t even known. Despite the fact Bloodrunner Alley and Shadow Peak were separated by mere miles, the powerful racial conflict that existed between the half-breeds and the Lycans was what truly created distance between the two. Located south of the town, on the mountain, within a secluded glade, the Alley provided Jeremy and his friends with the privacy and isolation they preferred. Since they weren’t members of the pack, they didn’t travel into the Silvercrest town of Shadow Peak…and the Lycans stayed clear of the Alley. In fact, the name itself had come from a derogatory slur made by one Lycan years ago, who had referred to the Runners as half-breeds who were no better than “back-alley mongrels.”
And suddenly Jeremy felt like the outsider he’d been his entire life—even when he’d lived in Shadow Peak. He hadn’t known about the challenges Jillian had fought over the years, simply because he wasn’t pack. Because he and the Runners weren’t part of their social structure. She could have died, and he wouldn’t have been there…wouldn’t have even known it was happening. Rage at the entire situation poured through him in a fierce, steady flow, but there was pain, as well. A churning bitterness at the social chasm that existed between his world and hers.
“If she was ordered to fight a Lycan, why doesn’t she have a weapon?” he asked, determined to get what answers he could.
A slow smile spread across Elise’s mouth, her dark eyes gleaming with what he could have sworn was pride. “Says it isn’t honorable.”
Yeah, that sounded like Jillian. Stubborn to a fault. “She had to have known Danna would cheat by shifting.”
“Oh, she knew,” Elise murmured, turning to watch the fight. “The rules of the Challenge Circle say no weapons. That’s all that matters to her. Our Jillian is too set on doing what she believes in, too freaking honest for her own good.”
Not your Jillian. My Jillian.
Jeremy had to bite back the telling words before they slipped off his tongue, like something that was his right to say. But they were there, crowding into the corners of his mouth, making him sick and angry and riding the hard edge of explosive.
Within the Challenge Circle, Danna charged, swiping at Jillian, catching her in the side with a vicious strike that would have proven mortal, if Jillian hadn’t been quick enough to avoid the brunt of the blow. As it was, five thin streams of blood appeared on her skin, just over her ribs.
“You can slip in now, Jilly,” Elise called out suddenly from his side. “She’s wearing herself down.”
“Slip in?” Jeremy echoed, cutting her a sharp look.
Elise flashed him a sly smile. “Shh…just watch.”
In the circle, Jillian nodded, the only acknowledgment she made to Elise, but the next time Danna made a move for her, she closed her eyes, lifted her arms again and this time she pushed them forward with a hard, thick shoving motion. The fey lines of her face became etched with strain, while her skin flushed a deep, brilliant rose, and her hair whipped around her face, as if caught in a violent breeze. Danna slammed to a halt, howling with fury as she gripped her head between her claws, screaming…and then she hit the ground. Hard.
And once she fell, she stayed down, knocked out cold.
A roar went up from the pack—long, curling howls breaking the heavy silence that had held everyone in its grip during the fight’s final moments.
Looking around, Jeremy spotted Cian at the edge of the crowd. The Irishman saluted him with two fingers against his temple, before he slipped into the shadows, heading back the same way they’d come.
Jeremy wasn’t surprised to see the Runner leaving. Hell, he knew Cian would be hightailing it back to the Alley, eager to tell everyone about his reaction to Jillian’s fight. Mason wouldn’t ever let him live it down, considering he’d spent the past decade swearing that he couldn’t care less about the little witch.
When he looked back toward the circle, Jillian was checking the unconscious Lycan for a pulse. Apparently satisfied that Danna was merely metaphysically coldcocked, and not seriously injured, she stepped from the circle, heading straight toward Jeremy as someone from the crowd of bystanders handed her a small towel.
His blood surged, palms damp and heart hammering as he watched her walk toward him, blotting her face with the towel, her body silhouetted against the glowing light of the moon. It hung there in the sky like a pearl, iridescent and bright, leaving her expression in shadow until she stood only a few feet away. “I thought you swore you’d never come back,” she whispered, her eyes glittering with emotion. “And a promise is a promise, Jeremy.”
He mentally bit his tongue, not wanting to have this argument with her here, for everyone’s ears. “And some promises,” he countered in a husky rasp, remembering to let go of Magnus, who remained propped precariously against the trunk, “are made to be broken.”
“Yeah, that’s one thing everyone knows about you, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” Then, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary going on, she said, “I’ll talk to you later, Elise,” and turned to walk away.
Just. Like. That.
Oh, no. No bloody way. She was out of her ever-loving mind if she thought she was getting away that easily. Gripping her shoulder, Jeremy spun her around, the movement throwing her off balance and slamming the front of her body into his.
The anger was crashing through him now faster than he could control it. For too long he’d been the easygoing womanizer, going through life without a care in the world, nothing more important than tracking down the next rogue and sending him back to hell. Only now was Jeremy starting to realize just how much of an act it’d all been—like a fault line under pressure, full of tension, ready to explode, his anger had seethed beneath his surface. And every time he’d seen her—and couldn’t touch her—it had grown.
The bookish-looking girl had blossomed into a woman who, if not classically beautiful, was the most attractive thing he’d ever set eyes on. Flaxen hair that nearly shone white in the sunlight, so bright it hurt your eyes. Bee-stung lips and an impish nose decorated with a jaunty spray of pale freckles. She was so… Christ, he didn’t even know how to describe it. Everything she did, whether it was talking, walking or just taking a bloody breath, held an innate sensuality that made his body hurt like a toothache, pulsing and raw and angry—certain parts significantly more than others.
The problem was that no matter what he’d sworn or vowed or claimed, no matter how irritated or furious she made him, touching Jillian Murphy was something he wanted…and wanted badly.
Jeremy wrapped one arm around her lower back, the other lifting to fist in the silken mass of her hair, and lowered his face. He was so close, he could see the intensity of his expression reflected in the clear black depths of her pupils, her velvety brown eyes gone big and round as she stared up at him in shock. Their breath mingled, panting and soft, and then suddenly the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood up in warning. At the same time, Jillian stiffened in his arms, while a low, menacing growl sounded behind him.
Releasing Jillian, he whipped around, watching as Danna Gibson slowly pulled herself to her feet within the circle. She threw back her head and howled at the moon while the change washed over her, cloth shredding as fur rippled over her expanding body, transforming into the shape of her beast: a six-foot, slathering werewolf covered in golden brown fur. Danna lowered her wolf-shaped head, her fangs shining silvery white in the moonlight, and smiled at him.
“She going to hide behind you now?” the werewolf sneered, swaying on her feet.
“I’m not hiding,” Jillian rasped, her face ashen as she stepped to Jeremy’s side. Danna watched her for a moment, then charged, moving at full speed as she fell to all fours and leapt from the circle, launching an illegal attack.
Jeremy shoved Jillian behind him, shielding her with his tall body. He was prepared to take the werewolf out, when Magnus leapt on his wife, taking her to the ground. They rolled across the damp grass of the clearing, struggling for dominance, until Magnus finally pinned her beneath him, pressing her face-first into the ground.
“Dammit, Danna! Enough!” her husband shouted. “If you kill her outside the circle, you’ll be put to death! What are you even thinking?”
“I want her blood,” the Lycan snarled, bucking against her husband’s weight, but for once it seemed Magnus was intent on doing what was right. He held her tightly, even as she howled like a demon, her long claws digging into the damp, giving earth. “I’m tired of you making me look like a fool!”
“Get her out of here,” Magnus grunted, jerking his head toward Jillian.
Jeremy stared down at the wrestling pair, the crowd riveted as they watched the bizarre events that resembled some kind of twisted soap opera. “Learn to control your woman,” he said softly, the low words firm with conviction, “or I’ll do it for you. If she comes within a foot of Jillian again, I’ll consider it a threat.”
An odd, choking sound of outrage rattled in Jillian’s throat. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. “This isn’t your fight, Jeremy, and I’m not your responsibility. I’m not your anything!”
As if she hadn’t even spoken, Jeremy kept his stare on Danna. Her eyes were black, bottomless pools, and he realized that whatever spirit she’d possessed when younger had been slowly eaten away by hatred. Hatred for her life, her husband, her choices.
Quietly, he said, “Don’t make me kill you, Danna, because if I so much as see you looking in Jillian’s direction, I’ll do it.”
Then he turned, nudging Jillian ahead of him as he headed for the line of trees. He hadn’t taken two steps before she whipped around so fast that her long tangle of hair fanned out around her shoulders, looking beautiful and silky and warm in the pale moonlight. He wanted to sink his fingers into the golden strands, wanted to feel them against his skin, his face, his body.
“I’m going to say this once, Burns. Do. Not. Touch. Me.”
Not touch her? Not likely. In a flash of movement, Jeremy had her arms secured behind her, holding her immobile as he pressed his hard body into the lush softness of her own, keeping her trapped there against him. Lowering his head, he whispered his words into the delicate shell of her ear. “Stop fighting it, Jillian. I don’t like it any more than you do, but it seems that this little war is over.”
“Like hell it is,” she hissed, beginning to struggle, only to stop when she realized she was merely wasting her strength. “Danna isn’t just going to stop because you told her to!”
“I was talking about our war, Jillian. The one between you and me. But you might as well know that I won’t have you fighting.”
She made a rude sound, telling him what she thought of his arrogance. “And that matters how?”
He moved closer, nuzzling his nose against the silken skin at the side of her throat. “It should matter to you, little witch. Unlike the other pack males, I don’t cower before your authority. If I have to drag you kicking and screaming from this clearing, I’ll do it.”
Her body vibrated against his. “Why?” she whispered, her voice nearly soundless with disbelief. “What is it to you if she beats me to death?”
So many answers sat on his tongue, lying in wait, but there was only so much Jeremy was willing to admit—even to himself. “I’m pack now, which means I have a respect for the lives within it.”
“Even mine?” she scoffed, and he could feel her battle to hold herself rigid in his arms. “You’ve grown soft in your old age, Jeremy.”
A low, gruff laugh rumbled in his chest. “You know what your problem is, Jillian?”
“Which one? I have several,” she huffed. “And one of them is sticking his nose into things that are none of his concern.”
“You’ve always been my concern,” he admitted in a husky rasp—but he certainly didn’t sound happy about it.
“Don’t,” she warned softly, glaring up at him. “Let me go, Jeremy. I need to deal with Danna. I don’t have time to play games with you.”
“Like I was saying. Your problem,” he drawled, enjoying the shiver that trembled through her when he nudged his rigid, denim-covered erection against her bare belly, “is that you just never know when to quit fighting.”
He could almost hear her teeth grinding. “If you think I actually want to fight her, then that just goes to show how little you know me. I don’t have a death wish, and I don’t need you stepping in and acting as if I’m your responsibility. I’ve managed to survive the last ten years without you, and I’m not about to beg you for help now. I can take care of myself.”
“Not hardly,” he muttered. She jerked away from him, unsteady on her feet, and he suddenly realized that she was close to collapsing. “Jillian?”
She blinked at the odd, husky note of concern in his voice. “I’m okay,” she said thickly, as he resettled his hands at her waist, his palms rough against the softness of her skin.
“Like hell you are.”
She pushed back the wisps of hair that had fallen over her brow, wiped the back of one delicate wrist across her upper lip. “Really, I’m fine. It’s just that using the power takes a lot out of me.”
He didn’t like hearing that, knowing that she’d have only been able to hold Danna off for so long.
“You can let me go now,” she said quietly, breaking the heavy silence that had settled between them.
Jeremy shook his head at her stubbornness. “I don’t think so. You look ready to fall on your face.”
She gave a soft, tired laugh. “Such a charmer, Burns.”
“I’m not interested in charming you,” he muttered under his breath.
“If I didn’t know better—” she sighed “—I’d think you sound as if you actually care. But we both know that isn’t true, don’t we, Jeremy?”
He grunted, and in the next instant she was off her feet, landing with a soft whoosh against his shoulder.
Stalking into the forest with a purposeful stride, Jeremy allowed his mouth to curl with a slow, wicked smile of satisfaction. He still didn’t trust her, and no way on god’s green earth was he going allow himself to feel anything for her. But he was tired of denying himself the thing he wanted most in this world. For whatever time he was back, he planned on having her. She belonged to him, and after tonight, his wicked little witch was going to know it.
Chapter 3
Jillian had the uncomfortable feeling her world had just been shifted off its axis, and it wasn’t only because she was hanging upside down over the shoulder of a gorgeous Neanderthal. No, it was the emotional meltdown going on inside of her, rioting and out of control. The farther Jeremy carried her into the moonlit woods, where the shadows thickened and the intoxicating, purely masculine scent of his body surrounded her, the more urgent that feeling became, until she was panting harder than she had during the challenge.
You are so in trouble, Jillian.
She shouted and threatened and seethed the entire way up the mountain, but it didn’t make any difference. The bastard just kept going, ignoring her as if she weren’t even there, hanging over his broad shoulder like a sack of flour. She knew she could use her power to trip him or knock him on his arrogant backside, but she couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t brain herself in the process. Nor did she relish the idea of rolling around on the ground with him. Resisting her body’s instinctual impulse to get as close as possible to him was hard enough—she didn’t want to test her willpower by finding herself sprawled over him…or under him.
A telling shiver slipped through her system, and it wasn’t from the cold.
“What did you do, walk here?” she finally snapped, sounding waspish, hating herself for the fact that she’d have rather been running her palms over the hard, sleek muscles down his back, instead of pounding them with her fists. She could feel his heavy obliques shift as he moved, her mouth watering at the prospect of having so much raw power and strength beneath her hands.
“Partly,” he grunted, shifting his hold on her legs, one of those big, rough hands too close to her bottom. Too close, yet not close enough. A part of her wanted to wiggle a bit to the side, until she got it right where she wanted it. And man, did she resent that part.
“Partly? What does that mean?” Jillian tried to make her tone as annoying as possible, thinking that if she could just keep fighting with him, she wouldn’t have time to pay attention to those other thoughts swimming through her head. Naughty, provocative thoughts complete with writhing bodies, keening cries and warm, sweat-slick skin. Thoughts too dangerous for her peace of mind on the best of days, but when she was alone with this particular Bloodrunner in a remote part of the mountains, surrounded by the primal forest and not a hell of a lot else, they were damn near lethal.
The pack was at least a half mile behind them now, Jeremy’s long legs making quick work of the sloping terrain, taking them farther into seclusion with every second that passed by—each moment taking her deeper into treacherous emotional territory that could too easily crush her. Trying to ignore that unsettling bit of knowledge, Jillian pulled her mind back to what she’d been saying. “I don’t get it, Jeremy. How can you ‘partly’ walk somewhere?”
They entered a small glade surrounded by eight majestic pines interspersed with fledgling red and white oaks, and Jeremy stopped, moving in a slow circle as he surveyed their surroundings. When he seemed satisfied with what he found, he set her on her feet as easily as he’d lifted her.
“I’m going to need my truck in Shadow Peak, but I felt like walking tonight, so I parked down below the rise and hiked with Cian the rest of the way to the clearing, instead of going into town first. Dylan called earlier to let me know there would be a challenge tonight,” he explained, slanting her a dark look, “but he didn’t mention who’d be fighting.”
She arched one brow, determined to ignore the frustrating way the silvery moonlight glinted so perfectly off the burnished gold of his hair, making her want to reach out and bury her fingers in the warm, silken threads. “He probably thought you wouldn’t care.”
“Right.” He snuffled a soft laugh under his breath, as if she’d said something funny, and Jillian struggled not to flinch from the provocative heat of his stare. His eyes had always been too mesmerizing for his own good—not to mention hers. The one time she’d allowed herself to be conned by those hazy swirls of green surrounded by thick, amber-colored lashes, she’d paid the price of a broken heart. But now she knew better. Knew better than to trust the promises swimming in their glowing depths.
He stepped closer, grinning a little when she took a hasty step back, as if he knew what it cost her to be near him. The way he moved should have been outlawed. All long muscles and masculine grace, like a predator—like something on the hunt for its prey. His head tilted the tiniest fraction as he watched her, and it was a heady sensation, standing at the focus of all that blistering male intensity. For a brief moment, Jillian wondered just how close his wolf was to the surface, how close to the edge he’d been pushed.
“Do I make you nervous?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, acutely aware of just how little clothing she was wearing. “Why would you make me nervous?” she drawled sarcastically, arching her brows. “It’s not like you’ve brought me here against my will or anything.”
A slow, crooked kind of smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “You can keep trying to taunt me, but it won’t matter.” He blew out a slow breath, looking like a wicked, golden god of a man as he just stood there, staring down at her. “I hadn’t planned on any of this, but tonight seems to have knocked some sense into me. Now that I’m back, we’ve got to deal with what’s between us.” He paused, rubbing one hand over his stubbled jaw, the gently rasping sound easily heard against the soft quiet of the forest. “We’re not leaving here until we’ve talked this out, Jillian. But first, I want to know why you agreed to fight those challenges.”
She hated that she had to control the urge to stomp her foot like a frustrated child. “Why? Because I didn’t have a choice. I’ve never wanted to fight the stupid things, but your never-ending list of past lovers just pushed and pushed, until the Elders ordered me to accept!”
“So it’s true then, that the League made you fight. Elise thinks they’re punishing you.”
Her gaze skittered away. “Maybe.”
“Because of one kiss?” he asked, his tone skeptical.
“It seems they knew me well enough to know what that kiss signified.” She jerked her gaze back to his face, hoping he could see just how angry he made her. “They knew I’d decided to put my trust in you, despite their warnings and threats. And it took all but a few hours for you to go running off with Danna, proving just how stupid I’d been to believe in you!”
“So they make you accept those ridiculous challenges, risking your life.” She watched him work to master his emotions. After a moment, he quietly said, “That’s some punishment, Jillian. I’m surprised you just lie down and take it, or are you still terrified of disappointing them?”
“I have no choice in the matter. Whenever I try to refuse, they consider it a show of weakness.” She sighed, still rankled over the League’s insistence that she meet the challenges. “And we can’t have any weak links in the chain of power, Jeremy.”
“God forbid you actually stand up to them,” he said with soft menace.
Her chin lifted a notch higher. “Unlike you, I have respect for the League.”
He brushed that frustrating topic to the side with the sweep of his hand, and chose another argument. “Why do you suppose no one ever told me you were fighting? I can understand the pack’s silence, since I avoid them like the plague and they probably wouldn’t waste their breath talking to me, but what about Dylan? What about my parents?”
Jillian shook her head, wondering why he didn’t get it. “There’s no conspiracy, Jeremy. Your parents have spent so much time away, I doubt they even know. And like I said, Dylan probably didn’t say anything because he knows you couldn’t care less about what happens to me.”
His jaw locked, and a cutting flash of frustration ripped across his rugged features, before quickly disappearing, as if he’d thrown the emotion into some mental vault and slammed the door. “This argument is going nowhere,” he rasped, looking away to stare up at the star-studded sky.
A moment of silence deepened between them as he gazed at the stars, his expression intent, as if looking for answers in their shimmering lights, and Jillian seized the opportunity to study him, to soak in all the breathtaking details that made her tremble with physical awareness. In the decade since he’d left Shadow Peak, he’d grown from someone with boyish charm and golden good looks, to a man who overshadowed everyone around him. He was that dynamic, his aura blinding and burning with intensity. A man who drew your eye and trapped it, with that blond, sun-bleached hair, dark golden skin and those smoky hazel eyes, his body battle-hardened and beautiful, the chiseled features of his face too masculine to be called anything but rugged. She even loved the strong column of his throat, with its fading scars, and the blond stubble on his cheeks and chin.
“We should have hashed this out between us before I came back, Jillian.”
The deep, provocative timbre of his voice hit her as heavily as the breathtaking power of his scent, making her burn from the inside out, as if she’d swallowed a smoldering ball of fire that now glowed in her belly, shooting like incandescent sparks through her fingers and her toes. Lighting her up. Turning her on.
She swallowed, struggling for her voice. “And just when were we supposed to do that?” she asked, mentally wincing at the husky sound of lust rounding out the edges of her speech.
His gaze lowered, those enigmatic eyes going dark, filled with thickening shadows. “We could have done it at the reception.”
Jillian knew he was referring to his partner’s wedding, which had taken place just days before—and where his return to the pack had first been announced. They’d spent the entire night avoiding one another, though she’d snuck glances at him as often as possible, unable to help herself. And it still irritated her that no one in the League had thought to inform her of what was coming that night, leaving her to learn of his return in a crowd of people, all of whom had watched her with avid interest when the news was announced. “Yeah, that would have been swell, but I really thought I’d had enough good news that day,” she replied with a small, tight laugh, terrified at the knowledge that every moment she spent with him was breaking her down, weakening her resolve. He was like Kryptonite to her Superman, that one fatal weakness that could change her life forever by systemically stripping her defenses.
“Jillian…” he sighed, sounding as if she was trying his patience “…whether we want it or not, I’m back. I’m here and we have to face the facts.”
“Somehow,” she muttered, “I don’t think my facts are the same as yours.”
He shook his head as he studied her. “You know, you always were stubborn, but I don’t remember you enjoying a fight this much before.”
“I don’t want to fight you, Jeremy.” She lifted one shoulder and blew a wisp of hair out of her eyes—casual gestures meant to disguise the dizzying confusion going on inside of her. “I just want you to leave me alone.”
“Won’t happen. Not today. And not tomorrow. I’ve come to a decision tonight, little witch. One that’s been a helluva long time coming.” His eyes went hotter, the sexy, smoky green swirling with a primitive violence and hunger that made heat crawl its way up her spine, melting over her skin like liquid fire, leaving her seething in a need too sharp to contain. Any moment now, the dam would burst—and god help her when it did. “I mean to have you, Jillian.”
Her eyes went wide. “Wow. Just like that? Jeremy says he wants me and poof, I’m his?” she drawled, desperately clinging to an illusion of indifference. “I hate to rain on the parade here, but I just don’t feel the same way anymore.”
“Like hell you don’t.” He laughed, daring to flash her an arrogant, predatory smile. She had the feeling he could see right through her, as if by looking into her eyes, he could see into her very soul and the dangerous truths that she’d buried there. “You’re lying, and we both know it.”
“And you read minds now?” She snorted, hoping he didn’t know how he affected her, but it was a stupid wish. All he had to do was breathe, and he could tell just how hungry she was for him.
He arched one tawny brow. “I don’t have to read your mind,” he said lightly. “Not when I can scent your body.”
Jillian opened her mouth, but nothing came out, as if the denial had simply dissolved on her tongue.
“Kinda intimate, isn’t it?” he whispered, the words silky, seductive, scratchy and a little raw. “Knowing that I can smell the need, the hunger, growing in you. That it affects me more strongly than any other male, whether he’s human or as bloody purebred Lycan as they come. That you were made for me. That you’re mine.”
Jillian took another step backward, ready to flee, even though she knew she couldn’t outrun him. “I was never yours,” she argued, breathless as she swallowed the lump of panic caught in her throat. “Thankfully I got smart and opened my eyes to what you really are before it was too late.”
“You didn’t open your eyes to jack,” he shot back in a soft growl. “And you sure didn’t trust me.”
“With good reason!”
“You gave up your future, your destiny, for a title,” he sneered, his contempt for the pack and what it stood for evident in his tone. “You jumped on the first excuse you could find to get rid of me, because deep down inside, you were terrified of having to choose between a life with me and your precious wolves.”
“I didn’t give up my destiny!” she shouted. “The pack is my destiny, Jeremy. I was born for this, but I’ve no doubt you would have expected me to just up and walk away from it all, because of your hatred. That is, if the League didn’t strip me of my position first, for making what they considered an ‘irresponsible choice,’ whether nature meant for us to be together or not!”
They were both breathing hard, their bodies tremoring with anger as emotion tore through them. “And does your job make for a lonely bed partner at night, Jillian? Does it stay faithful to you?” His voice lowered, becoming more intimate…more dangerous. “Does it keep you satisfied? Make you happy?”
His husky words cut straight to her core, as if he knew just how to wound her, the way a fighter knows instinctively where to place his next blow. “My position calls for sacrifice,” she said softly. “It’s not anything I’d expect you to understand.”
“You have no idea what sacrifices I would have been willing to make for you.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, Jeremy hardened his jaw. “You never even gave me a chance to prove myself, so forgive me if I still seem a little pissed about it.”
“You didn’t leave me any choice,” she whispered, her throat shaking.
“Like hell. I couldn’t do anything about my reputation before you came home from school, but from the day I realized what was between us, I never, never, gave you any reason to distrust me.”
Jillian stared at him, stunned. “You still deny you were with Danna that night, after our first…our only kiss? After I told you that I was ready to give a relationship between us a chance?”
His nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath, the arc of his cheekbones flushed the dull red of anger. “If you had ever taken the time to ask me yourself, I could have told you that I didn’t lay a hand on Danna Gibson that night. I hadn’t touched anyone but you since you came home from school,” he growled, his voice like gravel. “And after you threatened to sic your mother and your precious League on me if I ever came near you again, I was too furious to even think about sex. It took me months before I cooled down enough to go around another woman, Jillian, much less take her to bed.”
“That’s—”
“Pathetic? Sad? Embarrassing?” he sneered, cutting her off. “Yeah, I know. But like I said, I was crazy about you. I’d have given you anything you wanted, but it wasn’t good enough for you. No, you were just waiting for me to screw up,” he continued, his anger mounting again like a great, swelling wave skimming the surface of the blackest ocean. “The second someone came running to you with some bullshit story about me, you jumped at the chance to believe them. And we both know why that was. You were afraid of more than just trusting me to be faithful, Jillian. You were terrified of what you knew we could have, of how powerful it could be. You ran from that like a frightened little girl, because you were scared that it’d mean you would have to make that choice between our relationship and your position. But that would have been a choice forced on you by them, not me.”
Despite his conviction, she didn’t truly believe him. It was one thing for him to make such a claim now, when a relationship between them was impossible, but back then, Jillian knew he wouldn’t have been so accepting of the path her life was meant to follow. No, he’d have never been willing to live in Shadow Peak or understand her loyalty to the League. And living in the Alley would have presented its own problems. He would have resented the time she spent in town, with people he despised, and the pack would have been furious at the idea of their Spirit Walker living with the Runners. She had no doubt they would have demanded her resignation.
“What do you want from me, Jeremy?” she asked in confusion, fighting not to fall apart as all the pain from the past decade crashed down on her, smothering and dark. “I know you no longer want to bond with me, so then what are you after?”
He made a rough, sarcastic sound in the back of his throat. “You’re right. No one said a damn thing about bonding, and I’m no longer a starry-eyed kid who hopes for things he’s never going to have.”
“You were never starry-eyed.”
His voice went lower, barely human beneath the seething emotion in his words. “Where you were concerned, I always had my head in the clouds. You let me down, Jillian. Changed me.”
“Don’t you dare turn this back on me!”
“I’ll do whatever I want to you, because this—” his feral gaze moved slowly down her body, affecting her like a physical touch “—belongs to me. It’s mine.” The husky words were rough with lust…and something deeper. Something so dark and emotional that she had no frame of reference for it. “You want to know what I want? I want you under me. Pure and simple.”
The way he looked at her made Jillian feel as if he could see right into her, all her secrets exposed before him, laid out in a shocking display of intimacy. He was waiting. Waiting for a sign, for the briefest glimpse of weakness or a crack in her armor. Slips she couldn’t afford to make, not when her very soul was on the line.
She knew she needed to keep her focus…but it was happening again. She couldn’t think when too close to this man, not when she kept getting tripped up in the details. Everything about him pulled her in, controlled her like the most hypnotic of drugs. Like smooth, thick syrup, he invaded her mind, slowing down time, until she was caught. Trapped. Held prisoner by a need to reach out and learn, firsthand, if he was as warm and hard as he looked. As silken and rugged and coarse.
“You want me, Jillian. Lie about everything else, but don’t try to lie to me about this. I can feel it,” he argued in a gritty whisper, his voice hitting her like the warm spill of fine wine into her blood, making her limbs feel heavy, her heartbeat swift and deep and pounding. “I can see it written on your face. See it in the pulse of your throat. The tight little tips of your breasts. I can tell by the warm, sweet scent of need pouring off you.”
“Why? Why are you doing this?” She hated that her voice sounded desperate even to her own ears. “You don’t really want me. You despise me, Jeremy.”
“Sure I do.” He laughed, the warm sound dark and wicked and rich, and he smiled just a little at her. “I’ve been angry at you for years, Jillian, but it doesn’t seem to matter. I still want to rip your clothes off and go at you right here.” He slammed one wide palm against the thick trunk behind her. “Just press your back against this pine, hold your sweet little ass in my hands and get a taste of what you were always too afraid to let me near before.”
Her chin trembled as she said, “I was never afraid of you,” even while her conscience screamed, Liar! She’d been afraid of making herself vulnerable to him—of discovering that he didn’t love her the way she’d loved him. Afraid of him breaking her heart. Afraid of choosing him over what was expected of her. Afraid of standing up to her parents and the League and making her own decisions, controlling her own destiny.
“Do us both a favor and stop wasting our time with lies,” he said sharply, “because you never were any good at it. You’re even worse now.”
She opened her mouth, but didn’t know what to say, the words lodging in her throat until it felt as if she’d choke on them.
Jeremy pressed closer, a dark, dangerous force that made something hot and tight and achy unfurl in her belly, a warm glow of sensation slowly spreading like liquid heat through her veins. “Just out of curiosity, who was it that came to you with that story about me and Danna? One of your so-called friends? The same ones who used to hit on me every time you weren’t looking? I never touched them, but that didn’t stop them from offering what I didn’t want.”
“No. It wasn’t—”
“Forget it,” he muttered, moving away from her. “What the hell does it matter now? What’s done is done. I don’t need your trust anymore. Don’t need it, and don’t want it. But I’ll take what I didn’t get before.”
She wrapped her arms tighter around her body, struggling to hold herself together. “You’re out of your mind, Jeremy.”
He laughed, just staring at her, the look in his hazel eyes too piercing and beautiful to hold. Even in a rage, he called to her, that brutal, intense energy reaching out, grabbing at her. “So Mason is always telling me.”
“Then maybe you should listen to him!”
“Maybe I should,” he murmured, staring intently at her mouth, a provocative glint in his smoky eyes that made her shiver.
“At any rate—” he sighed, sounding drained but focused “—I’m home and I’m here for a reason. You know that, Jillian. I know you want what’s best for your wolves, and you’re too connected with the Silvercrest not to realize that something bad is coming. The pack is going to crumble from within if the one responsible isn’t stopped. I can help you.”
“I don’t need your help,” she argued in a trembling rush, knowing very well it was a lie. She loved her wolves, but she also accepted that a select few were capable of bringing down the entire pack, their narrow, close-minded, inherently hateful view of the world threatening to choke off life for the rest, like a blood clot slowly working its way to the brain. Once it struck, the effects would be terminal…and the Silvercrest would be lost.
She knew Jeremy’s words rang of truth, but self-preservation demanded she argue. It was the only sane thing to do! She couldn’t work beside him, no matter how tempting it would be to have his broad shoulder to lean on and his keen intellect to offer guidance. Facts were facts, and she knew her limitations. If she were forced to be near him, she would give in, fall victim to the wild, raging rush of pleasure that called their bodies to one another…and in doing so, hand him the power to destroy her.
It was times like this when she actually hated being a witch, hated the limitations it put on her life. “I appreciate the offer, but I can handle this on my own.”
“Like hell you can.”
Her chin lifted, driven high by pride. “The League can offer me guidance.”
His eyes darkened as he moved back into her personal space, the brackets around his mouth tight with frustration, his voice low, full of gravel and bite. “If we’re going to make this work, we have to get past our history and try to trust one another. Your precious League isn’t going to be able to help with this one, which is why I’m going to tell you something that no one but the Runners and Dylan know. The rogues who were following Simmons knew how to dayshift.”
Jillian blinked, swallowing against the lump of surprise in her throat. “Th-that’s impossible. I heard rumors, but I thought it was just panic talking.”
His right hand lifted, rubbing at the pale scars on the side of his throat, gifts from a run-in with the rogue wolves. “Trust me, it’s true. Simmons taught them how…and someone taught him. We learned from Robert that it’s a power held by—”
“Those who serve on the League of Elders,” she cut in, her voice hollow with fear. Anthony Simmons was the rogue Lycan that Jeremy’s partner, Mason, had defeated in a fight to the death just days before. Obviously Robert Dillinger, Mason’s father and a Lycan who had been denounced from the League itself when he took a human wife, had shared what he knew with the Runners—that only those who served on the League possessed the ability to teach another how to dayshift.
“I know about it,” she admitted in a hoarse whisper. “I was told about dayshifting when I formally accepted my position, after my mother stepped down. It’s a defense mechanism—a weapon of war, meant to be used in the event our way of life is threatened. To teach it to a rogue would be punishable by death, their only intent to make it easy for the rogues to kill humans. And their own kind. It even masks their scent, so that they’re impossible to track.”
Jeremy nodded, his expression bleak. “Yeah. You getting the picture?”
She shook her head, unable to get her mind around it. “You think we have a traitor on the Silvercrest League? That one of the Elders has turned and…what? That they want to turn our wolves rogue and set them free on the humans and the Bloodrunners? For what purpose?”
“We’re still working on that,” he murmured, and she could tell there was more he wasn’t telling her. Apparently his exchange of trust only went so far. “But no matter what their motive, you’re in over your head here and you need me. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“Why?” she asked, her confusion genuine, not coy.
“Why? Why? Why?” Jeremy laughed, the rough sound lacking any real humor. “Can’t you ever say anything else, woman?”
“I just don’t understand why you want to help me. I really think it’d be best for both of us if you just…kept your distance and stayed away from me.”
“That’s going to be pretty hard to manage,” he said with another one of those slow, easy smiles, “considering I’m going to be inside of you.”
Panic clawed at her now, biting and sharp, her mind too aware of the fact that her body wanted nothing more than to take him. All of him. Every hot, hard, incredibly thick inch—and never let him go. Her voice shivered when she spoke. “Not in a million years, Jeremy.”
“Don’t,” he rasped softly, lifting his hand to touch his thumb to the corner of her mouth. Her lips trembled from the light, calloused touch, making her want to turn away at the same time she wanted to turn her head and nuzzle the warmth of his palm. “Don’t say something that’s going to embarrass you later on, after I prove you wrong.”
His words slapped her in the face like a dousing of ice water. “You arrogant bastard,” she choked out, jerking her mouth away from his touch. “It’s amazing one man can have such a high opinion of himself. I wouldn’t tou—”
“Stop,” he grunted, cutting her off. His eyes narrowed, holding her, making it impossible to look away. “We have a connection, Jillian. You can pretend all you want that it doesn’t exist, but it isn’t going to just disappear.”
“No. You’re wrong, Jeremy. There is no connection. Whatever we had,” she said coldly, “you killed it a long time ago. I’m not a naive little girl anymore. I’ve learned how to take care of myself. I don’t need you. Not now. Not ever.”
He leaned close, curling his rough hands over her shoulders, and she turned her face away…but he merely whispered into the sensitive shell of her ear, as if he was telling a secret. “You just keep saying it enough times, and maybe you’ll start believing it. But we both know the truth. I’ll hunt you down if I have to, Jillian, but we both know how badly you’ll want me to catch you in the end.”
“You can hunt me,” she gasped, struggling to jerk out of his hold, away from the dangerous, evocative heat of his mouth, “but you’ll have to chase me to hell and back before you ever catch me.”
With the touch of his calloused fingertips upon her chin, Jeremy slowly pulled her face back to him, staring down at her through thick, honey-colored lashes. The intensity of his gaze made her heart lurch, his hazel eyes dark and heavy with possession, as if he owned her.
“I know what hell’s like,” he told her, the huskiness of his voice like an intimate caress, shivering across her skin. “The threat of it won’t scare me off.”
His soft breath felt warm and sweet and wonderful against her trembling mouth, teasing her with the heady, erotic promise of a kiss that Jillian knew she shouldn’t want—but did. Badly. And the slow, crooked grin kicking up the corner of his mouth said he knew it, knew just how sharply the keen edge of anticipation was cutting into her.
“So I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that.”
“Do better than what? What are you talking about?” she asked thickly. She was stalling, because she knew very well where he was going with his seduction routine.
“You’re gonna have to convince me, little witch.” Jeremy laughed softly, kissing the corner of one eye, trailing the rough-silk texture of his lips across her cheek, before nipping playfully at her tender lobe.
“C-convince you of wh-what?” she stammered. “That you’re crazy?”
“Feels like it. Feels like I’ve been crazy since the day I set eyes on you.” He shifted a fraction closer, overwhelming her with his heat, his scent—with the intense, rugged masculinity that was so much a part of him. “You’re going to have to convince me of the one thing that we both know you don’t have a damn chance in hell of doing.”
She breathed in too sharply, trapped by the possessive power of his gaze.
“You’re going to have to convince me that you don’t crave me the same way that I crave you—and you’re going to have to make it good, Jillian, because I can promise that I won’t make it easy on you.”
She shivered. He smiled in response. And before she could draw her next breath, his mouth claimed hard, deliberate possession of her own.
Chapter 4
The seeking touch of his lips against hers was a provocative answer to the churning want that had raged through Jillian’s body for so long. Through so many sleepless nights, and so many frustratingly empty days, when she’d found herself surrounded by people…and yet, utterly alone.
“Jeremy, please,” she whispered, tearing her mouth away. “Don’t do this.”
He kissed the fragile skin beneath her eye, the sharp edge of her jaw. “Do what?”
“I won’t give in,” she gasped, feeling him nip the sensitive tendon at the side of her throat. “I can’t.” She could hear the desperation in her voice, and knew he could, as well.
His lips moved in a soft, deliciously erotic caress against her skin as he spoke. “You’re letting your fear control you, Jillian.”
“What do you know about fear?” she demanded, her voice cracking, bleak with emotion.
“I know it scares the hell out of me,” he confessed in a gritty rasp, his breath warm and damp, “thinking that I might have lost you during one of those challenges.”
“Damn you, Jeremy.” She tried to stumble back, but was caged in by the thick trunk of the tree, his hard body pressed against her front. He was a dark, raging presence before her, trapping her.
“I’m going to make it hard as hell for you to deny me,” he warned in a ragged tumble of words. Then his mouth claimed hers again, angry and hot and hungry.
Sweet Jesus. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. But who cared? He made it so much more than a mere kiss. It felt too intimate, too carnal, like the decadent, provocative things he did to her in her dreams.
Jillian knew she should push him away, but more than that, she wanted to pull him closer. The details, so shocking and electric, overwhelmed her. The sexy, slightly rough texture of his lips. The silken stroke of his talented tongue. She could taste his hunger, his heat, and it was like going under…falling into him. Everything pulsed through her with a sharp, shattering awareness. And yet, she was lost, floating, her head fuzzy with the rioting sensations as his tongue claimed her mouth more deeply, the kiss slow and eating and deliciously sweet, like warm, melting honey.
She moaned, giving up, rubbing her tongue against his, and everything changed.
With a low, hoarse curse, Jeremy crushed her breasts with the muscular wall of his chest, while taking deeper possession of her mouth. It was something decadent, hungry and invasive, the way he penetrated her, shoving past any resistance, smashing it beneath his dark, persuasive need… Only, she wasn’t resisting. Not anymore.
Jillian trembled, gasping. He growled low in his throat, moving against her, and she could feel the hard proof of his erection, long and thick enough to make her breath catch. Her hands lifted, the cool tips of her fingers touching in a butterfly caress against the scorching heat of his cheekbones, and she flinched from the warmth of his skin.
“Touch me,” Jeremy groaned against the corner of her mouth, nipping at her bottom lip, then diving back into the kiss with a breathtaking intensity that made her toes curl. “Put your goddamn hands on me, Jillian.”
The shaken, guttural words slipped through her system like a dizzying rush of pleasure, all but making her purr. God, yes, she wanted to. Wanted to put her hands on the hard, lean lines of his magnificent body and learn him by touch, taking him in the way someone who’d lost their sight could lose themselves in another world through Braille. He was an unknown landscape she wanted to explore until she was privy to all its secrets, until it was so much a part of her she knew it better than she knew herself.
Jillian slipped her tongue past his lips, lost in the dark, honeyed sweetness of his taste, and took the aggressive sound he made into her mouth at the same time she pressed the flat of her palms against his ribs, fingers splayed, wanting to touch as much of him as possible. His body communicated its hunger through his skin, burning her, even with the barrier of his shirt between them. But she wanted flesh. Wanted to feel the silken texture of his skin, the blond whirl of hair that circled his navel, then trailed in a daring arrow toward the blatant, rigid proof of his lust.
Moaning deep in her throat, Jillian slipped her hands under the hem of his shirt and clasped his hot skin at his sides, just above the waistband of his jeans. His breath shuddered in his chest and he panted against her lips as he pulled away from the kiss, pressing his forehead against hers. The hunger and chaotic mix of emotion Jillian had always carried for this one man surged through her, filling her up, giving her the courage to do what she’d never done before.
Now, she didn’t have a choice. Her body wouldn’t let her fight what her heart knew was going to hurt her in the end. Biting her lower lip, she trailed her fingertips to the waistband of his jeans, then slowly stroked them inward. Any second now she was going to touch that intimate, powerful part of him that she’d never explored when younger. A fine sheen of sweat coated his skin, his flesh burning hotter. His lips pulled back over his teeth and he stopped breathing.
Her fingers pulled closer…closer…and then she heard her name being called out over the eerie silence of the forest.
“Jillian? Are you out there?”
She wrenched her hands away and shoved against his chest. “Sayre?” she tried to shout, breathless, wondering how she’d let herself get into this situation. She lifted her wide gaze and almost jumped from the searing look of lust darkening his eyes. His jaw locked, and he finally reacted to her pushing hands, taking a step away, the front of her body left chilled at the loss of his incredible heat.
It terrified her, how badly she wanted to pull him back to her.
Taking her hands from the firm muscles of his chest, Jillian pressed them to her sides, and tried to find a measure of calm, even while her heart hammered out a vicious tempo beneath her ribs. “Sayre?” she called out again. “Where are you?”
“Right here,” her sister answered, the last word trailing off as the young woman stepped into the small glade and caught sight of them. “Oops,” she whispered, blushing, her blue-gray eyes wide with surprise. The ends of her curly, strawberry-blond hair just grazed her jaw, completing the fey look created by her unique features. Her nose was delicate, her chin sharp, jawline almost fragile. Her skin was as luminous as a pearl, the arc of her cheekbones always flushed with a wild color of rose because Sayre could never move at a normal pace. She was boundless energy and exuberance, like a hummingbird always flitting from one spot to another. But she was wise beyond her years, her big eyes steady and calm within the thick fringe of her lashes. She was a wild spirit with a pure heart who never let others down, and she was the closest friend Jillian had ever had.
“Um, sorry,” Sayre murmured, her curious gaze moving from one to the other. Jillian tried to avoid blushing, but knew her face was crimson. “I was so focused on finding you, I didn’t pick up on the fact that you aren’t alone.”
“It’s okay,” Jillian said firmly, stepping out from between the tree and Jeremy’s body, needing the space to breathe. “Jeremy and I were just—”
Before she could finish the thought, Jeremy took a step toward her sister, his green eyes full of startled surprise. “Sayre?” he whispered, while a slow grin curved his mouth. “I don’t believe it. Is that really you?”
A wry smile curled across Sayre’s mouth, and she ducked her head shyly. “Hi, Jeremy.”
“You were just a scrawny little runt the last time I saw you.”
Sayre’s musical laughter filled the glade, and it made Jillian’s heart hurt to think of how her sister had always followed Jeremy around when she was little, as worshipful as an adoring puppy. Sayre had been crushed when he’d left Shadow Peak, and it’d been so hard to explain to the little girl why he wasn’t coming back. “Yeah, well, that was a long time ago,” she said with an easy grace, obviously trying to put them at ease. “Not that I’ve ever managed to outgrow the scrawny thing. I may be taller, but I still look like a toothpick.”
“Naw. You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman. I bet you have all the boys chasing after you.”
“Hardly.” She laughed. “But it’s sweet of you to say so.”
“Is everything okay?” Jillian asked, irritated with herself for the tiny flair of jealousy she felt at their easy camaraderie. “You know I don’t like you leaving Shadow Peak on Challenge Nights. It isn’t safe.”
Sayre nodded. “Yeah, I know. But I had to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine. How did you find me?”
Sayre’s cheeks flushed, and she ducked her chin. “It wasn’t hard, Jilly. You were broadcasting pretty loudly.”
Jeremy arched a questioning brow in Jillian’s direction. “Sayre’s still growing into her powers,” she explained quietly, “but they’re already very strong.”
“Obviously,” he murmured, staring, and Jillian knew he was wondering just how strong her own powers had grown in the past decade.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Sayre said cautiously, flicking a nervous glance toward Jeremy, “but I wanted to let you know that Eric was waiting at your house. He heard about what happened at the clearing and wanted to come looking for you. It wasn’t easy, but I, um, convinced him to head home and let me check on things. I told him you’d call him later.”
“Eric who?” Jeremy questioned, at the same time Jillian whispered, “Hell.”
“Eric who?” he repeated, the words sharper this time.
“Um, Eric Drake,” Sayre said too brightly, wincing when she caught sight of Jillian’s glare.
Jeremy’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Why would Drake be waiting at your house for you?”
Jillian opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. “Not to sound rude, but that really isn’t any of your business.”
“Wrong answer,” he said silkily. “I’m making it my business.”
“I’m not doing this in front of Sayre,” she warned him in a quiet voice.
“All I want is an answer to my question.” Jillian could hear the silent for now tacked onto the end of his statement.
“We’re…friends.”
“You and Drake?” he rasped, his tone full of disbelief and the hard, biting edge of anger. “Since when?”
“A few months now,” she explained awkwardly, alarmed at the way he stumbled back a step, his expression little more than a hard mask, giving nothing away. But his eyes were like a window into his soul, and she knew the idea of her with Eric caused him pain. For years, she’d thought she’d take satisfaction in seeing him hurt, but she’d been wrong. Instead, his pain cut at her like a knife, jabbing and sharp, while shame pooled thickly in her belly.
“Why?” He didn’t need to say more. She knew exactly what he meant.
Her hands fluttered nervously at her sides, and she wished she was wearing jeans so that she could hide them in her pockets. “We started working together on a few of the new reform committees for education and housing. We ended up spending so much time together that we’ve become…close—”
“If you two are so close,” he interrupted, taking a step forward, hands planted on his hips, “why wasn’t he there tonight?” His lip curled in cruel sneer, but she could see the burn of a darker emotion in the deep, smoky green of his eyes. Jealousy burned harder than anger or fear or arrogance, blurring the edges so that only the source flared through, sizzling and sharp.
Jillian lifted her chin. “I asked him not to come. And he respects my wishes.”
“I’ll bet he does,” he snorted, the rude sound making her teeth grind.
She shot a meaningful look at her little sister. “Maybe it would be better if we finished this argument some other time, Jeremy.”
“Yeah.” He grunted under his breath and started to move away, then paused, his expression intent as he stepped closer and leaned down to whisper in her ear. Then he pulled away, gave Sayre a friendly nod of goodbye, and headed back into the forest.
Sayre walked quietly by Jillian’s side as they made their way back to Shadow Peak, until the silence finally became unbearable. “You want to say something?” Jillian huffed, too on edge to be reasonable. “If so, please just spit it out and get it over with.”
Her sister’s slender shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Not really.”
“Come on,” Jillian groaned. “I can feel it, Sayre. After the night I’ve had, I don’t have the energy to drag it out of you.”
“I just… You’re fighting it, aren’t you?” Sayre turned her head, staring at her with solemn eyes that saw too much for a seventeen-year-old. “You love him, Jilly, but you don’t want to. I think you want to give him another chance, but you’re too afraid.”
“It doesn’t matter what I want. There’s too much history between me and Jeremy. A future between us would be impossible, so it’s best if we just stay away from each other.” Though avoiding him was going to be hard to do, considering it looked as if they were going to be working together, but she kept that thought to herself.
“But he’s your mate,” Sayre murmured, lifting one delicate hand to drag softly through the changing leaves on the low-hanging branches, sending them tumbling from their perches. They fell a short distance, before being swept up in the chilly wind and carried away…and Jillian wished her troubles could be dealt with so easily. Just brushed off and swept away, floating out of existence like a cloud. “That means you’re meant to be together,” Sayre added. “Nothing good can come of fighting it.”
“And one of the things you’ll learn as you get older is that things don’t always turn out the way they’re meant to.”
Sayre made a soft sound of frustration under her breath. “Maybe they would, if we were brave enough to fight for what we wanted.”
Despite the headache pounding through her skull, Jillian grinned. “You sound like an idealist, Sayre. I hope you never grow out of it.”
It took her a moment to realize that her sister was no longer keeping pace at her side. When she stopped and turned around, she found Sayre standing beneath an ethereal beam of moonlight, her slender frame vibrating with tension. Her usual easygoing smile had been replaced by a pinched look of temper that had Jillian blinking in surprise.
“Stop talking to me as if I’m a child, because I’m not one anymore. I know you don’t want to admit it, but I’m growing up, Jillian. I’m growing up and I have a brain that’s fully capable of functioning. I can form my own opinions and beliefs, and I can see more than others. I can see what’s really happening between you and Jeremy, even if you won’t admit it. And I know why. I—I know about mother.”
A soft breath jerked out of her lungs, and Jillian shook her head as if to clear it. “What?”
“Mother told me, when I turned sixteen. She wanted me to understand what had happened to her so that I would know to be careful.”
“What did she tell you?” Jillian asked, wondering what strange cosmic event had occurred in the universe tonight to throw her world into such chaos. She’d been on a steady, even keel for so long, allowing herself to feel so little—and now she felt battered by emotional waves, struggling to stay afloat in an endless, surging sea of commotion.
“All of it, Jillian. About the Lycan she fell in love with while away at school, about giving her virginity to him and about how he turned away from her even though he knew she loved him. Even though he knew how she felt, he used her and then abandoned her, because he’d only been looking to have some fun. He didn’t love her in return. She told me that he was your father, and that after he left, she didn’t think she’d ever love again. And then she came back to the pack and set eyes on Dad, and that was all it took. She not only found her lifemate, but a man who returned her love and one who was more than happy to accept you and love you like his own daughter. She told me…everything.”
The center of Jillian’s chest hurt as if she’d been kicked, and her hand pressed against it in an instinctual move to hold in the rapid pounding of her heart. “I didn’t know that you knew,” she whispered, wincing at the scratchy sound of her voice. “You never said anything.”
“Mother asked me not to tell you that she’d told me, but I think it’s something that needs to be discussed.”
“Why?” she asked bitterly. “What good is going to come from it?”
“Because it’s affecting your life, Jillian.” Sayre tilted her head to the side, her blue-gray eyes luminous and bright in the silvery moonlight. “I think you’re taking Mother’s warnings to heart, aren’t you? Because of what happened to her, you’re afraid of following your heart. You’ve always been afraid.”
She frowned, knowing it wasn’t that simple. “There’s more to it than that, Sayre. I have my responsibility to the pack, which isn’t one to take lightly. The League has never made any secret about their feelings on the subject, and I have to agree with them. Jeremy isn’t the type to make a sacrifice for others. He would have demanded I stay away from Shadow Peak and abandon those who rely on me. And you know what kind of reputation he has. Any woman foolish enough to trust him is just that. A fool.”
Sayre gave her a sad smile. “You don’t believe in the power of love? In its strength?”
“You sound like a romantic,” she muttered, feeling too old and worn-out, as if her youth had been dried up in heartbreak and bitterness.
“I am, Jillian. I’ve seen love. I’ve seen commitment and fidelity and a metaphysical union of the souls.” Sayre gave a little grin. “However you want to describe it, it does exist. All you have to do is look at Mother and Father to see th—”
“He’s not my father.”
For the first time in her life, Jillian watched her sister’s face flush with anger. “Don’t ever let me hear you say that again, because it makes you sound like an idiot. He loves you like his own. Anyone can see that.”
“I’m sorry,” she breathed out, the shaky timbre of the words betraying her real emotions. “You’re right. He does love me. I know that. I’m just…upset tonight, Sayre. This really isn’t a good time for me.”
“Jillian, the one who protects her heart from fear of loss ends up with no heart at all. Just an empty chest, because she has nothing to lose. I love you too much to see that happen to you. Look inside yourself. Jeremy may be bold and arrogant, but he’s a good person. I think you’ve let the warnings and fears of the League bleed into your heart and have judged him unfairly. How could you know what he’s willing to sacrifice for you, when you’ve never given him the chance? And you’re already in pain from being near him and not having him. What could be worse?”
“What could be worse?” Jillian repeated, wiping angrily at the hot, stinging wash of tears she could feel gathering at the corners of her eyes. “How about loving him and discovering that he doesn’t love me the same way?”
Sayre shook her head sadly, while the wind caught at her pale curls and tousled them around her fey face. “I’ve always thought you were the bravest person I know,” she said sadly, “but you sound like a coward, Jillian.”
Her mouth twisted into a wry expression that felt more like a grimace than a smile. “You’re probably right.” She took a deep breath, then jerked her head toward the direction of home. “Now, come on and let me walk you back. Mother is going to freak if you stay out past your curfew.”
When they reached their parents’ house, Sayre unlatched the gate, walked through and then closed it behind her. “He wants you, Jillian. And he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to give up once he sets his mind on something.”
“I know,” she murmured, recalling his earlier words. He wanted her for sex—nothing more. And he’d reminded her of the fact he meant to have her with those last whispered words in her ear.
Taking a deep breath, Jillian lifted her face to stare at the moon, as had become her habit over the years. She could lose herself in its soothing light, imagine she was some other woman…in some other life…with a heart that didn’t belong to a man she could never have. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“No, it’s not,” Sayre said softly. “What you’re afraid of is that you won’t be able to resist him forever.”
Jillian closed her eyes as the truth of those words spread through her. By the time she opened them, she stood alone under the milky glow of the moon, the only sound that of the front door closing softly behind her sister.
Chapter 5
Home.
Jeremy pulled his truck in to the familiar gravel driveway, the sight of the two-story house nestled among the autumn-colored trees sending him into a reeling tumble of memories. The massive weeping willow that he’d played in as a child still swayed like a giant swamp monster at the back corner, its long, leafy arms twisting wildly in the breeze. Even the fall of the curtains in the windows looked the same, the cedar facade as well kept as the day he’d left. The place hadn’t changed at all in the past decade, as if time had stood still. Maybe it had. Damn, the wounds that had been inflicted here still felt as fresh as if it had all happened yesterday.
Without a doubt, his pride still stung.
Amazing now to think that he hadn’t been back since things had gone south with Jillian, when he’d finally accepted the fact that she’d never choose him over her beloved pack… that she’d never trust him with her heart and her happiness. That night he’d moved his things to the Alley, and he’d never set foot in Shadow Peak again. Not until he’d gone before the League and submitted his Bloodrunning numbers. It had been late then, just like now, and the town had looked eerily the same after a decade, any changes softened by the concealing shadows of night.
Time to go inside, he thought, and yet, he didn’t move.
He swallowed the shaky feeling in his throat, and rested his hands on the steering wheel, amused at himself for being so emotional. He was a Bloodrunner, a hunter of killers, for god’s sake. He couldn’t afford to be sentimental and nostalgic, but damn if his chest didn’t feel tight at the thought of setting foot in the house again after all these years. His parents were at their beach property down in Florida, where they’d spent more and more time over the past decade, visiting with Jeremy at the Alley whenever they were home. When it’d been decided that he would be the one returning to the pack, he’d wanted to rent a cabin on the outskirts of town, but his mother wouldn’t hear of it. She’d wanted him home, in his own room, where she said he belonged, and refused to take no for an answer.
They’d always had faith in him, unlike some people, and for that Jeremy knew he was unquestionably lucky. But even after everything that had gone down, he didn’t hate Jillian. He’d wanted to, and he’d given it a hell of an effort—but the part of him that belonged to her, that linked them together, wouldn’t let him.
Instead, his hatred had latched on to the pack itself, on to the archaic laws that set the Runners apart because they weren’t what the others considered “perfect.” That created the social divide between the Alley and Shadow Peak, one based on racism and hatred, bitterness and distrust. A timeless, enduring fury surged through his veins, swift and brutal and vivid in its intensity, just like it had the day his father had first explained to him why he was considered “different” from the other children he knew. Why he and his small group of friends were picked on and called names by the residents of the Lycan town that was supposed to be their home…their family…their rock and their strength.
Purist bastards.
No, he’d never planned on coming back.
Instead, he’d planned to keep hunting, satisfied that his life held a purpose, proud of his choices, determined to ignore the little voice in his head that continually reminded him something was missing. Something vital and important. Something meaningful. Something he needed. And it wasn’t the pack or a place that his life lacked, but a woman. One woman. One who at this very moment was probably snuggling up in front of a roaring fire with Eric Drake.
Son of a bitch.
From the moment she’d come home from school, Jeremy had known Jillian was meant to be his. But she’d stubbornly refused to let a relationship develop between them, until that one afternoon when she’d finally given in and allowed him to kiss her. Despite its innocence when compared to his sexual history, that kiss had floored him, affecting him more powerfully than anything he’d ever experienced. He could still remember the way she’d felt against him, in his arms, and how badly he’d wanted to take her out into the fields, lay her down into the soft green grass, strip her clothes from her body and make love to her until neither one of them could move. He could remember how her skin had felt beneath his hands as he’d touched her sun-warmed shoulders, the petal-soft sweetness of her mouth, the mind-drugging scent of her body.
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