Liam I had never taken a girl’s virginity, but from what I heard, the first time took a lot out of you, physically and emotionally. The feeling that swelled inside of me was something that had never happened after sex before, and I could only attribute it to the fact that I had just properly mated my mate. I couldn’t tell if the exhaustion and feeling of completion was mine or my mate’s. If it were anyone else, I would be embarrassed how quickly I finished. I blamed it on how tight she was, and that she was my mate. The consensus I had always heard was your mate would ruin your chances of ever being able to enjoy anything intimate with anyone else. I sorely hoped we could find a way to make our mate bond work, because I had a sneaking suspicion that assessment was correct. As beat as I was, all I could do was watch my mate sleep. She looked like an angel the way her pale yellow hair splayed out on the pillow. I wondered what it would take to see this peaceful expression on her f

Liam The choice to leave my mate to seek out Adara was wrong. I had this gut feeling she had useful information, though, and trusting my gut was what had always won my battles. So, I left her side, trying to push as much reassurance down the tendrils of the mate bond as I could. Both of our packs needed the information Adara possessed. It was Rose’s job to get that information, but I knew without a doubt I would have an easier time obtaining it than she would. That’s how I ended up fighting both my wolf and myself to follow Adara instead of tracking down my own mate. The anxiety of the ripple effect of my actions was driving me insane, but the job needed to come first. Rose had to understand things like this would happen for the rest of our lives, right? I shifted as soon as I caught sight of Adara. She liked having eyes on her; I knew she would shift far from her clothes just so she could inflate her ego by how her shapely body turned heads. I had to fight back a grimace as I l

Liam Three days. I waited three excruciatingly long days for Rose to wake up.I had no idea what I was in for when she finally came back to the land of the living, but I just needed her to wake up. I waffled back and forth on how I felt about things, but I settled on understanding this was probably the only way it could go for us. There was realistically no way we would ever willingly come to terms with being mated and mark each other unless fate forced our hand. I had to laugh at that - my gut was never wrong, and my gut had led me to the roundabout way I got to mark my mate. Or had to mark my mate, depending on how I felt. My attempt at returning to Lake Solitude proved futile, unable to withstand the tearing at my chest dragging me back to my mate’s hospital room. So, I had tried to stay away from her, holed up in my room at the packhouse. That didn’t work either, though. I was frequently reminded she would heal better and faster the closer her mate was. I didn’t even need tha

Liam Rose spent the next couple days sleeping a lot. It was the recovery I knew she needed. Her wolf had no experience processing silver, and I could tell my own wolf was absent quite frequently, helping his mate to guide her through. Silver and werewolves was tricky business. Silver affected just the wolf, but with how closely connected the human and wolf were, silver would kill them both. The way us Wulvers had evolved, though, the wolf could pull away from its human counterpart. With no body to kill, the wolf recovered. Some of the stronger wolves, like Lya’s, could process it much quicker and return faster, or even do it in tandem. I personally thought Lya’s wolf was so good at that because she had continued the torture on herself that had initially caused us to develop the silver resistance. Rose clearly had limited understanding of the Wulvers. That only meant we had been keeping ourselves in the shadows the way we liked. Rose had a lot to learn before she truly became one

Liam This mate bond would kill me slowly. She was marked, but the only solace that provided was a taste of what was on her mind. Her mind was never quiet, though, creating a cacophony that was hard to see through. Blocking her out was the easy answer, but that awakened an anxiety I had never experienced before, and didn’t know what to do with. For that reason, I was thankful nothing that required my focus happened. Not that anything would. There were no rogues to stir up the interest of Derek’s lackeys. Nothing would happen until we tracked down a rogue that was willing to be bait. Live bait. The worst kind, but the most useful. It wasn’t a suggestion anyone had brought up yet, but we all knew where this was headed. Pondering this, I made my way back to our cottage. I had half a mind to bring the idea up to Rose, but I knew she would hate it. It was mere months ago that her best friend had been live bait. You would think I would be more against it, but I had lived throug