knocked my shoulder into him to push him away. Just as I did, someone new tightly wrapped their hand around my throat and pulled me back toward him so my body was flush against his chest. After sliding his hand up to my chin and shoving it to the side, he pressed the sharp edge of a knife against my artery in my neck.I inhaled sharply but didn’t move, for fear that if I did, the blade would slide into my flesh and kill me. My body went rigid against the masked man behind me, warmth gathering in the pit of my stomach.All I needed was my safe word for them to stop.Yet, still, I refused because I couldn’t stop thinking about what Tyler had told me earlier about Asher wanting to breed me so badly and how Asher had reacted when I confronted him about it. I wanted to fight them, especially Asher, with all my might. I had so much built-up anger because of him, just from these past few days.When the man slid the knife down my throat, I pressed my thighs together and leaned back into him,

like, as in a … date?” I asked, heart racing.Lucas gave me a sheepish smile. “Like a date? If that’s what you want.”But by the look in his eyes, I could tell that was exactly what he had meant. He wanted to bring me out into Bloodmoon this morning and have a good time with me, but he didn’t want to overstep as if they hadn’t overstepped yet by enacting my fantasies.“Tyler and Asher are staying back, if that makes it any more enticing.”My lips curled into a small smirk. “Asher staying back definitely makes it more enticing.”“So, you’ll go?”“Yeah!” I jumped out of bed, nerves zipping through me. I might’ve had a boyfriend before thanks, James but he never brought me out to breakfast. Ever. “First, I need to shower. I still smell of … cum and hot, sweaty sex.”As I went to hurry toward the door, I stopped in my tracks when I saw a picture of all five of us the night before my eighteenth birthday in a picture frame on his nightstand. I grabbed it, my chest tightening at how happy we

Gods, I felt so alone. Not even my doctor would help me.Before any security could arrive, I pulled on my clothes, flung open the door, and stormed down the hallway. Other doctors tried to block my way of getting out they probably wanted to arrest me or some shit for putting my hands on one of their colleagues but they didn’t know half my story. Nobody did.I pushed everyone away and hurried out the door to the waiting room. As soon as I spotted Lucas and Jake, I burst into tears and ran toward them. They stood almost immediately, Lucas taking my hand to ask what was wrong and Jake quickly pushing people out of our way for a quick getaway.Thankfully, we escaped before the police or security showed up and hurried down the cobblestone streets of south Bloodmoon, taking back alleyways to flee the town as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to stay here another moment.What had been a nice morning turned so sour, so quickly.“What did they do to you?” Lucas asked. His voice was tense, as

He sank down in the water, leaned his head back, and let out a long sigh. While I imagined Lucas would be one to take baths, I could never imagine Tyler in one even though he was sitting across from me.Once I pulled my knees to my chest, I took in every aspect of this man. He was always so tense, so crazy, but now, he was quiet and looked sorta, kinda peaceful. He opened his eyes, leaned over the side of the tub, and pulled a bottle of bubble bath from the cabinet under the sink.My eyes widened even further. “You take bubble baths?”Tyler’s eyes darkened as he dumped the bottle the entire fucking bottle into the tub with us, making the bubbles pile up far past the edge of the bath and spill over onto the floor, a mess that I didn’t plan on cleaning up. It’d be a good surprise for Asher tomorrow morning.“I bought it for you the day before you showed up in bloodmoon,” he said.“Wait,” I said, sitting up in the bath and focusing my gaze on him. I wanted to really understand this becau

Once he left, I stumbled into the pack house.Anna pushed me down onto the couch. I held a large hand over my abdomen to hold the bleeding wound closed, my chest rising and falling quickly. As Anna scrambled through the house to find the medical supplies, I took a deep breath, bit my tongue, and slipped my fingers down into the gash. I felt around my insides to try to find the bullet, but it was lodged too deep.When Anna came back over to me, she stared at me in horror. “What are you doing?!” she exclaimed, pushing my hands out of the way and using a utensil to slide into my wound. “You have to be careful! You can’t just poke around inside there.”Within a few moments, Anna clamped down on the bullet with the utensil, winced, and slowly pulled the bullet out of me. She dropped it into a small dish, then cleaned the wound with some alcohol and some potion that we had bought from witches who lived down in Bloodmoon.“What did they lace this bullet with?” Anna asked, picking the piece of