~ RIG ~Cara’s kiss was desperate and heated, and my body responded immediately.She’d pushed me back against the headboard with a thunk. My wolf rushed forward, snarling with joy. Adrenaline punched through my veins and my hands twitched, grasping for her, holding her to me. The scent of her, her softness, the sound of her breath filled my senses and for a moment I was reeling.Instinctively, I buried one hand in her hair, and splayed the other at her back, my breath thundering in time with my pounding heart. Everything in my body sighed with relief and pleasure, but something… something wasn’t right.Cara was aggressive. Hands shaking. Breath catching. She crawled into my lap and took my face in her hands and kissed me like she would devour me&m

~ CARA ~Life was… surreal.I’d eventually had to leave Rig’s bed, and his house and go to work. But it was hard. It was hard to think about anything except wolves, and packs, and vows, and… and the fact that Rig’s dad was apparently a monster.Then I’d catch myself thinking about all this stuff and look around at all the normal people just reading books and worrying about grades, and my entire world would flip again.I had to be crazy. It had to have been a dream. Or a mass hallucination, or—“Excuse me, but can I get some help?”I leaped up from the desk where I’d been staring at the computer screen without see

~ CARA ~I stood in the staff area of the main floor, staring at Meg who was trying desperately to reassure me. But she didn’t need to. I didn’t feel scared… more just kind of shattered by it all. But I couldn’t explain that to her. What was I going to say?Oh, no worries, Meg. I can handle turning into a cat. I mean, the guy I’m in love with is already a dog, so you know, happy families.Oh, and did I mention that we’re gathering some outcasts? His friends are vowed to follow him and protect me and together we’re going to try and overthrow his homicidal father. So…it’s all good.I wanted to groan at myself. It sounded like the plot of one of those books I'd read in high school. The kind I used to hide from my parents...

~ CARA ~…Anything they do to you, they do to me. You don’t have to handle this alone, okay?Those words were mind-boggling to me. I’d ached to hear them my whole life, but now that they were there, hanging in the air between us, it felt like they would be blown away by the slightest breeze.Rig stared at me, waiting for a response. I didn’t know what to say. Wasn’t sure I could say anything. I kept swallowing.I was at work, I reminded myself. This wasn’t the time. But the words were inside me and bubbling for the surface, forcing themselves out—“I’m afraid,” I whisp

~ RIG ~I waited in more shadows, more bushes, hidden from the street under the window of her dorm room until the window finally creaked open and she leaned out, her face going from worried, to happy in a blink.“There you are. Sorry, one of the girls caught me in the hallway.”She pushed the window wide open, then stepped back so that I could leap inside.I peered through the bushes, examining the night-dark street and listening until I was certain the coast was clear. Cara had left the interior lights turned off so that I wouldn’t be seen.The minute I leaped inside the frame, then over her desk to the carpet of her room, she pushed past me to lean out and pull the window closed, checking out in the str