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Chapter One

Death wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. There was a distinct lack of bright lights and absolutely no sign of the pearly gates or thankfully, the other place.

Death was…quiet. Peaceful. Comfortable.

Too comfortable.

Expensive feather bed kind of comfortable.

She was pretty sure the afterlife was more harps and clouds than feather beds, so what gave? The more she thought, the more sensation slipped through the blackness. Her body on the soft surface beneath, the pressure of a warm duvet above. Perhaps this was Heaven 2.0, a version never reported in near-death experiences. Anything was possible, right?

That didn’t explain the voices that filtered through the fog to reach her ears.

“Should’ve left her to die,” a sharp female voice said. Instantly, Eva disliked it and its owner. The whiny, petulant tone said
bitch
. “There’s no way the pack will accept her. She’s a bitten. She will never be anything more than a beta. And hell knows, we have enough of them.”

Pack. Bitten. Beta. The words slammed into Eva’s consciousness, dragging her higher and higher until she became aware that she lay on a bed, in a warm room, with someone in the corridor outside.

How many people, and who were they? Who were they discussing? A deep breath in rolled over her tongue, and something new within informed her there were two of them. One male, one female, both lycan.

Holy shit.
Her eyes snapped open in sheer surprise. How the hell had she known that? On the coattails of that realization came others. Working out who was in the corridor wasn’t exactly a human ability. There was no one else in the room… Which meant they were discussing her.

“You don’t know that,” the male replied. “It’s not unknown for a bitten wolf to become an alpha. Rare, I admit, but not unknown.”

The woman laughed, the sound high and derisive. “
Really
? Come on, Ethan, you’ve seen her. Like the rest of the humans, pathetic and weak-willed. Good enough to fuck, but Alex needs a stronger woman to mate. Besides, a bitten wolf hasn’t become an alpha for generations.”

Okay, Eva had disliked her before, now she up rated the bitch to
cow-bitch-from-hell.

Instead of the ceiling she’d expected, there was fabric. Blue material tucked into folds to create a swirl. What kind of person had material all over their ceiling? She followed the swirl with her gaze to the corner and a heavy wooden post. One of four that surrounded her and belonged to a heavy, antique-looking four-poster bed.

“Stronger?” Ethan laughed. “Since you happen to be the highest ranked female in the pack, it doesn’t take a genius to work out who
you
think Alex should mate, does it, Isabella?”

Eva practically heard the shrug she gave. “Well, if the cap fits… why not? The alpha female of a pack needs to be strong, capable in a fight and able to enforce discipline in the pack.”

Eva snorted as she sat up. Even with her limited knowledge of the lycan world, she could tell the woman didn’t know jack about true leadership. It wasn’t just about power, but obligation and duty; things which seemed to have totally bypassed the lycan woman.

Her head was a little fuzzy. Eva sat on the edge of the bed and checked over herself. She wore a long white nightdress covering her from neck to ankle. It wasn’t hers and a faint flush covered her cheeks as she wondered who had dressed her.

That question woke other inquiries and they crowded into her brain at once. Where was she? What had happened? Where was Alex? Why could she
see
smells, like an aura that left streaks of light in the air?

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Eva.” A man, presumably Ethan, stood in the doorway, a careful smile on his lips. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and if she hadn’t met Alex already, she’d have thought him the most handsome man she’d ever seen. But she had, so Ethan here took second place.

“No, don’t get up.” He started forward at her movement, a hand on her shoulder to push her down. For all his size, and the ring of amber in his eyes, his touch was gentle. “You were injured and out of it for a couple of days, so you need to take it easy.”

Her head had begun to swim at the attempt for freedom anyway, so Eva sat back with a bump. “Uh-huh. Yeah, sitting sounds good.”

“Yeah, it might take a while for your strength to return. I’m Ethan, by the way, the Kingwood pack medic. Do you mind if I take a look at you, make sure everything’s okay?”

Medic. Shouldn’t that be
vet
if he was dealing with lycans? Eva managed to keep the thought safely in her head and nodded.

“Thank you.” Ethan produced a small flashlight, which he shone in her eyes a couple of times, then examined her neck carefully.

His touch wasn’t familiar and something inside her cringed, a wave of anger rising. She pulled away in relief as soon as he finished. He seemed a nice guy, but she didn’t like him touching her. Like
tear his hand off
didn’t like him touching her.

He noted her backward movement with a small smile and pulled a chair by the bed to sit opposite her rather than next to her. His expression was grave and her heart did a little flutter in her chest. He opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to it.

“Alex bit me, didn’t he? He turned me into a werewolf.”

***

Alex had been born into money, old lycan money, and from the moment of his birth only the best had been good enough. The most expensive toys, the finest clothes, and the most prestigious schools, were all things that were his simply by the happy accident of being who he was. His food had been prepared by a Michelin starred chef and his tennis coach had been a former champion… Nothing was too good for the Kingwood heir.

Looks had followed. Puberty changed angelic boyhood features into something harder and more masculine. His body once gangly, feeling not quite his as he navigated with all the hapless manner of a teenager, filled out and brought the gargoyle genes into play. Add in the animal magnetism of his newly emerging wolf and he’d never had a problem getting women.

Instead, it was more a problem getting rid of them. They’d thrown themselves at him even back then, a situation his teenaged self had reveled in. Girls, women… Hell, his first time had been with a middle-aged business friend of his father, a stunning woman who exuded sensuality and experience. In the space of a few short hours, she’d turned him from a boy into a man, and he never looked back.

But it hadn’t been easy. With privilege came responsibility. He’d had that refrain hammered into him from as far back as he could remember. Despite the trappings of the Kingwood life, his father had expected him to work for his rewards. A lesson he learned early and well, and one he applied to the companies and holdings he’d taken over years ago, more than tripling their profits before his father died and left him not only the companies but the pack.

Hard work, perseverance, and the backup of the family fortune meant everything fell at the feet of the Kingwood Alpha.

Everything apart from one small woman.

Alex stood by the picture window of his second-floor office at the Manor and looked into the garden. The long lawn rolled away from the house in a swath of green that would give any English country garden a run for its money. A hammock swayed under a small group of trees halfway down, a small figure reclined comfortably in its embrace.

Eva.

She was asleep, one hand trailing over the rope edge of the hammock and the soft breeze lifting her hair every now and then. Alex leaned against the wall by the bay window and watched her. Dressed in a white lace sundress with her feet bare, she looked so beautiful it took his breath away. But the pale color of her skin made him frown, as did the haunting fragility of her curvy frame. Even if he hadn’t already known she’d cheated death by the skin of her teeth only a few nights ago, he would have sensed it anyway.

The wind changed, bringing her scent to him through the open window and he was forced to bite back a groan as it wound around him. Held him prisoner. He’d know her anywhere because of it, be able to track her across continents by smell alone. She’d never be able to outrun him, he’d always find her scent. It was sweet and clean, like wildflowers in the heat of a lazy Indian summer.

She moved, getting more comfortable on the hammock and he sighed. Once more he was left watching her from afar. Story of his damn life. She’d always been out of reach. Years ago, it had been because of her humanity, but even now, even after he’d bitten her to save her life, she’d never been more out of reach. She wasn’t out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot.

Conversion madness could still steal her from him, and even if it didn’t, there was no way the pack would stand for him mating a beta female. Alex was a realist. He couldn’t dare to hope she would survive the conversion madness and somehow also wind up an alpha female. The fates were not that kind. No, the best he could hope for was to keep her for a little while, until the pack forced him to take an alpha female mate.

Pain lanced his chest, spearing his heart. Then he’d have to let Eva go, because there was no way he would put her through the pain of watching him mate another.
Her,
not the other, as yet unknown female.

It would be kinder to send her away now… To let her establish herself as a lycan.

Hidden within, his wolf gave a sharp bark of anger and his fingers tightened around the handle of the empty coffee mug in his hand. A sharp crack warned him he’d be wearing the dregs if he wasn’t careful. One more shitty thing to add to a shitty day. His gaze sought her delicate form again, like a magnet drawn to true north.

He wasn’t strong enough to let her go. He couldn’t have her, but still he couldn’t release her to start a new life without him. Dammit. He closed his eyes, the weakness shaming him. He should send her away, but he couldn’t. Not yet.

A presence behind him made him open his eyes and look up. He didn’t need to turn. The wolf, always alert, had already picked up the scent of another lycan. Male, with the unmistakable frisson only generated by another alpha, and a familiar scent.

Ethan. His second cousin, or something like that, on his father's side. An alpha himself, he’d joined the army right out of college and returned last year, bringing valuable medical training they sorely needed. Sure, Alex could hire a private doctor, but there was nothing like a battlefield surgeon who understood how the lycan body worked.

“Any signs?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Nothing yet. I have Hannah watching her for any changes.”

Ethan joined him at the window. Taller and broader in the shoulder, he was quiet and thoughtful as a man, but not one Alex would care to take on in a fight. Not all the Kingwood pack were stone wolves, but Ethan was, and his other forms were impressive. There was also the fact the most dangerous fighter was one who understood how the body—human or lycan—worked.

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