"His truck was found, on the other side of town, upside down in the river two days later by fishermen. He was dead, still strapped in the driver's seat. They tried to say that the car was full of beer cans, but Dani's father didn't drink. Dani's mother didn't start until after her father died. But once she did it made it easier to start up all the rumors and just act like they'd always been the town drunks." "And how old was Dani then?" Luca's voice cracked as he asked the question. "I think three or four? Little. Too little." Vos turned away from the forest and threw himself down in a chair, his eyes unfocused as he continued to stare off, lost in his own thoughts. "Clara Beth lost herself in guilt after that. I don't know why she told him. The day she talked to me she was drunk, so it was jumbled. But I think he'd heard a rumor and she was tired of denying it when it was true. And after that she started drinking at night. She lost her job at the bakery pretty quickly because she c

Dani woke in a room that she didn't recognize. But she knew, even before she opened her eyes, what kind of a room it was. This wasn't the first time that this had happened. The smells, the sounds, the buzz of the fluorescent lights, it was all the same. Opening her eyes she saw that the walls were painted light blue and that there was a flat screen TV on the wall, on the far side of the room. An IV was in her right arm, the one that wasn't bandaged and wrapped and she turned her head, knowing that he was there beside her. Still she was half afraid to hear what he would have to say to her.Luca was slouched over, on her right side, having fallen asleep in a recliner that was pulled up next to the side of her bed. He looked enormous, trying to sleep in the normal sized chair, and she knew that he couldn't have had a comfortable night.Shifting her weight she tried to pull herself into a sitting position, but her arm throbbed. "Fuck. Baby. Don't move. You could make it worse." In a m

Dani nodded as she listened to the doctor's words before casting a worried look over at her mate. At the moment she was feeling extremely vulnerable and she hated it. She hated that her mate knew that she'd cut herself, and that it wasn't the first time. She hated that she needed help, both in having to go to the hospital and now in the form of Alpha Vos' blood. And she hated that every time she looked at Luca she felt like he saw right through the act she was putting on for the rest of the world that was supposed to show everyone that she was perfectly fine. He knew that her smiles and laughter were only skin deep. He could feel what was beneath it, through their bond and knew that inside, she felt hollow, and fragile, as if any moment she might shatter again, into a billion pieces, or be blown away by a gust of wind. Six hours later they were back at home. Dani was bundled up in the bed, practically swaddled in the enormous comforter, and Luca perched beside her on the edge of th

The ceremony was being held outside in the city's botanical gardens which Dani hadn't yet visited. This had definitely been intentional on Luca's part because he wanted her to be completely surprised when she was brought there for the ceremony when she officially became his Luna. When she left the house with Emery and the three mostly silent guards that now accompanied them everywhere, she thought that they were going to the packhouse and that the night's events would be held in a large open room where most of the pack's meetings took place. She hadn't been to a pack meeting yet, but she had walked by the room when she'd gone to Luca's office and she knew that it was large enough to hold all the people who were expected for the big event. Instead a limo pulled up in front of the house and Dani glanced at Emery, her eyebrows raised."You didn't really expect us to have to walk to your ceremony, did you?" Emery's voice held laughter as she said the words."I guess that's exactly w

Dani plunged into the water of the river without thinking twice about it. She only knew that she had to get away and in that moment it seemed that she had two choices. In one scenario there was a very real possibility that she would end up back in Alpha Hardings clutches. And in the other she might find herself in a watery grave. Neither scenario was a foregone conclusion. She might survive either way. Luca and his warriors might win the battle. Maybe tomorrow morning Alpha Harding would be dead. And maybe she would let the water take her down stream and she would find herself a new life where no one had ever heard her name.But she also knew that death, in either case, was a real possibility.The cold water closed around her, and she was thankful that her dress was light, and that she'd spent every summer in her childhood swimming in the river that cut through the town that she'd grown up in. She let the current take her, but she stayed close to the side of the banks that she kne