The world around me was spinning and shifting. The night seemed darker, blacker, and bitterer. My stomach rolled and my head spun. I looked at Dominic and whispered, “She bit me.”

I woke up to a wonderfully familiar smell. It was musky with a hint of apple, and I pulled in a long, deep breath, savoring it. His hand brushed lightly across my forehead, pushing away my hair, and I cuddled up closer to him, burying my head in his chest.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. His voice was whisper soft, and he pulled me closer still, wrapping his strong arms around me.

“Tired and thirsty. Really, really thirsty.” My voice was muffled by his sweater, but he still heard me and laughed.

“Thirsty?” he asked and chuckled again. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard that one.”

I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t want to look at him. I didn’t want to see the pity or the understanding that I was sure would be on his face. The sun was beating through the window. Its warmth touched my exposed skin and it felt so … real. All of it felt real. I wondered how long I had slept. Was it a few hours? A few days? Was I already in transition? I wanted to be angry, but I couldn’t bring myself to drudge up the feeling. What point was there? It was done. I was, or soon would be, one of them. Anger seemed like such a waste of effort.

We lay there silently for a long while. Dominic rubbed soft and soothing circles onto my back, and although I couldn’t say it, I was glad he was there. Who would have thought that this would be what brought us back together? I surely hadn’t, but in a way, I was glad for it. His arms around me made everything a bit brighter. Fuller. Easier to handle. I could still feel Erika’s wet tongue on my ankle, tainting my blood.

“What’s going to happen, Dom?” I asked. I squeezed my eyes tighter, wishing I could just go back to sleep and pretend none of this had happened.

“Well, um …” he started, and squeezed me a bit tighter before continuing, “the first thing that’s going to happen is that you are going to have a shower, and then you’ll get dressed, and then you need to talk to Aidan.”

I bolted up, pushing him off me, and a surge of white-hot rage rushed over me. “What!” I shouted and then took a long breath, trying to rein in my voice. I narrowed my eyes at Dominic. He was still lying back on my bed, cool and calm, smirking at me. “I’m not going to talk to him. I never want to see that jerk again.” Okay, so maybe anger wasn’t all that hard to feel after all.

That wiped the smirk from his lips. “Jade,” he said, with a commanding force that made me sit a bit straighter. “There’s no place in this town for a lone wolf, and with what you did to Erika …” he trailed off and took a long, deep breath. “If you don’t join the pack, you’ll run the risk of creating your own, and trust me, you don’t want that. Not here.”

~ AIDAN ~

Dominic’s voice was loud. It drifted down the stairs as if it was seeking me out, making sure I didn’t miss a beat of his conversation with Jade. I wished I had missed it all. The venom in her voice when she said she never wanted to see me again had my inner-wolf doing back flips in my stomach, just itching to run to her and beg her to accept me.

She was meant to be an alpha. Not just an alpha, but my alpha mate. I could feel it with every fiber, every vessel, every nerve ending in my body. I wasn’t sure how Dominic was managing to speak to her the way he was. His voice held so much command. It didn’t waver in the slightest. I assumed it was because of their past, whatever that was, but still, the rest of the pack had been treating her with hostile caution and he acted as if she was just a girl. And right then, I wished I had done exactly that right from the start.

As it was, it took everything I had in me not to run up those steps and punish him for speaking to her that way. It was as if my inner-wolf had already claimed her and accepted her as my equal.

Mr. Shaw didn’t seem to notice my turmoil. He just stared at me, long and hard. It was distracting and annoying, and I could feel my blood pressure rising with every passing second.

He seemed like an okay guy. And I figured he had a right to be a little pissed about his daughter, but the longer he stared at me, the more I felt as if he wasn’t really that angry. It was as if he was sizing me up, taking in every little detail and trying to decide my worth. He reminded me of my first girlfriend’s father, and it made me overly nervous.

Mrs. Shaw had been a lot easier to deal with. I’d met her briefly this morning and it had only taken a few short minutes to convince her that Jade would be fine. She didn’t even bother checking in on her daughter before running out the door to work, entrusting her fully to my care. And she had actually seemed happy about the fact that Jade had been bitten.

We had been sitting in the living room for about an hour waiting for Jade to wake up when he finally cracked an odd kind of smile and said, “So my daughter is part of the competition.”

“Yes, sir,” I said a bit stunned. I looked him over again, and furrowed my brow. The inner workings of a pack’s rank were not something that a human should know. He was staring at me, waiting for more, and he was giving me a no bullshit kind of look, one that had me certain he knew exactly what was going on. Most likely more Ray damage, I figured, and I continued with caution, “She broke Erika last night. And she didn’t back down from me after the challenge.”

That shocked him. I saw a quick flash of it in his eyes, but he covered it up quickly. “I don’t doubt that. Jade has spent a long time hating your pack. She wouldn’t back down.” He stretched his long legs in front of him and crossed them at the ankles. “Has she accepted the rank?”

I held his eyes, unblinking and unflinching. “There are still three other females fighting for it. Nothing to accept yet. And as far as I know, Jade doesn’t have a clue what she’s signed up for. She might step down when she does.”

He laughed, a full-bellied laugh. “Jade doesn’t give up,” he said, and laughed again. He sounded so much like Dominic, it was a bit … weird, and it added a whole shitload of questions to the rising pile in the back of my mind that centered on Jade. Again, I found myself wondering, Who was this girl? And how deep of a connection did she have with my beta?

Mr. Shaw’s laughter died down, and he gave me a somber look. “Be honest with me, kid,” he said, sounding a little deflated, “does she have a chance or should I be packing her up and taking her away?”

It was a fair question, and I had to really think about it before answering. “If she left now, she’d have Erika following her. It was a struggle to get her to leave Jade’s side last night.” I paused, collecting my scattered thoughts, and scrubbed at my face, before looking back at him. “I think she has what it takes, sir.”

Mr. Shaw considered my answer. He folded his arms over his chest and one eyebrow rose. “And how do you feel about my baby girl?” There was no nonsense in his tone as he asked the question, and I got the feeling that there was only one right answer. Too bad I didn’t really know what the right answer was.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said with a shrug. “Alpha pairs are about strength and dominance and leadership. How I feel, or who I want, doesn’t make a difference in who will win.”

“You don’t know who I am, do you, son?” he snapped, and I got the sinking feeling that sticking with the truth of the situation wasn’t the right answer.

I shook my head from side to side. “No, sir. Should I?”

“He works for you, dumbass,” Dominic said, as he padded down the stairs. “Who do you think I called yesterday when you were stupid enough to tell the whole town who you are?”

Every muscle in my body coiled like a spring. “You,” I said, snapping my gaze back to Mr. Shaw. My nostrils flared as I sucked in breath after breath but all I got was wolves and humans. No trace of cougar. Nothing but human was coming from this man. “You can’t be.”

Mr. Shaw chuckled. “Nice little trick, isn’t it?”

CHAPTER 18

~ JADE ~

The doorbell rang again, in three short and shrill bursts. I could hear Dominic laughing and the deep rumbles of Dad’s voice, but yet, the doorbell was still ringing. I secured my towel around me, tucking it tightly, and whipped the bathroom door open. “Answer the door,” I yelled, and with a glance down the hall, just to make sure no one was there, I slipped out of the bathroom and headed for my room.

I didn’t get far.

Someone cleared their throat, and started shuffling up the steps behind me. I spun around, figuring it was just Dominic. I was about to give him an earful about the door, but the words clogged in my throat. “Aidan,” I said, and I hated how my voice squeaked on his name. I sounded like an awkward teenager, and I was sure I looked it, too.

He wasn’t smirking. His jaw was locked tight, but he didn’t look unhappy; annoyed, maybe. He reached the top of the stairs and just stood there, staring down at me. And right then, I didn’t find him intriguing. It was a weird feeling, as if something that should be there was just … gone. I figured that it was because I knew who he was now. The mystery was gone, and in that moment, all I saw was barely concealed power and authority, and it made me shiver. My stomach constricted, twisting tight as a corkscrew, and I chewed on my bottom lip nervously.

Aidan took a step forward, and I almost did the same. Almost. His fitted gray T-shirt hugged his muscled chest and sculpted arms, and as I looked at him, I suddenly felt alive, as if someone had flicked my power switch to on. All I could think about was touching him. An urging need ran through me. It was primal, deep-seated and more than a little bestial. It was nothing like the butterflies or even the birds that I usually felt when he was near. This was so much more that it consumed me like fire consuming a fluttering piece of paper. My skin burned, and my heart pounded. I wanted to know what that power felt like under my fingertips. His eyes raked over me, and he licked his lips, and Jesus, but my knees started to tremble. He had that look in his eyes, the one he had had when we first met, as if he saw nothing but me. It was so intense, as if I was the only thing in the world that was worth looking at.