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Silently, and for the millionth time, she cursed the woman who had raised her so indifferently, family or no. Her life had been about hiding, about suppressing the truth until she had hardly believed it herself. And then Ada had simply been gone.
Five men milled around her in the moonlit clearing, eerily silent, though the meaningful looks they were giving one another made her wonder exactly what she was missing. One of the men had been kind enough to give her his shirt to stanch the blood, at least. He was the one who kept checking on her. The one who had reassured her, in a tone that brooked no argument, that she wasn’t in any danger of dying.
It was hard not to believe him, even though she knew she would need medical care, stitches, at the very least. Maybe the wounds had felt worse than they really were? It was all she could figure. These men didn’t look the type to just watch her bleed out. At least she didn’t feel like she was going to pass out anymore, though Mia wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing. Then again, this whole thing was so surreal; she wasn’t entirely convinced she was truly conscious anyway.
“Here comes Jenner,” someone said. Mia looked up.
And then he was just…there.
He seemed to melt right out of the trees, appearing with a swift silence that was even more unnerving because of his size. He was big, well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and the sort of powerful, muscular build that she associated with professional quarterbacks. He didn’t say a word, only shared another one of those odd looks, what she thought of as a “speaking look,” with Dex. Then he turned his gaze on her.
“I’m Jenner,” he said, in a deep, melodious voice that seemed to fill the night. “I’m here to help. How are you holding up?”
Honey-gold eyes blazed out of a dark and handsome face that might have been chiseled from stone. His hair was short, spiky in a way that made her think it was naturally like that, and so dark she wasn’t sure whether it was brown or black, setting off strong features that bore not a trace of softness. With one look, Mia felt a punch of heat in her belly. Appalled at herself, she pushed the feeling away, instead concentrating on getting to her feet to answer him. She’d be damned if she spent one more second as the damsel in distress tonight.
Of course, her effort might have been more effective if she hadn’t nearly fallen over again. Dizziness swept over her, but just as her knees started to buckle Mia felt a pair of strong arms lift her with surprising gentleness. A wonderful smell enveloped her, woodsy and masculine.
Epic fail on being an empowered woman, she thought, knowing immediately who had caught her. Heat rose to her cheeks so that they burned. The world stopped spinning around her pretty quickly, but she really didn’t want to look.
She also knew she didn’t really have a choice.
Sure enough, she found herself pinned by a sharp golden gaze the instant she opened her eyes. Mia took a little solace that this Jenner looked about as uncertain of what to make of her as she was of him. They stared at one another for a long, drawn-out moment, and Mia again felt that strange warmth beginning to flood her. She was suddenly very aware of his large hands on her, the steady rise and fall of the chest she rested against as he cradled her. She could even feel the beat of his heart.
It was, hands down, the oddest sensation she had ever experienced, which in her case was really saying something. It felt as though invisible threads were even now winding around them, binding them together in a way she couldn’t quite fathom. And she had no interest in breaking those new and fragile bonds, preferring instead to forget everything but the intriguing lines of the face bent over her own. She felt drugged, almost, but pleasantly so. His lashes, she noted with some pleasure, were inky black and incredibly long. Such beautiful eyes.
Mia’s hand, which had been fisted against his chest, loosened, and she spread her fingers against the place where his heart beat steadily, thudding reassuringly against her palm. Her head filled with music, the way it always did when her blood called out, and was answered. Jenner’s song was wild and sweet, and for one breathless instant, Mia could hear her own singular melody twining with his, perfectly matched, creating something new and amazing. Her skin broke out in gooseflesh at its beauty…but it was short-lived. She heard Jenner’s startled intake of breath, watched the quick bob of his Adam’s apple at his throat. He looked quickly away, and as neatly as if it had been severed with a knife, the immediacy of their connection was broken. The song stopped short in the midst of a crescendo, locked back away.
Those invisible bonds, however, remained, comforting her even though she didn’t know this man from Adam. For the moment, he was all she had.
Mia found herself quickly set down, though Jenner’s hands lingered to support her. This time, despite an initial wobble, her footing was steady. Inside, she was anything but. A shiver rippled through her at the loss of Jenner’s heat, and the snap of a twig somewhere near her made her jerk. Every head turned sharply in the direction of the sound, at least reassuring her that she hadn’t imagined it. Without a word, two of the men dashed off into the trees with a speed and grace that surprised her. Quickly, fear bubbled back to the surface.
Jeff was still out there. Maybe he’d come back to finish what he’d started. Maybe—
“Don’t worry about them. They’re just being cautious,” Jenner said, pulling her back to the moment. He had obviously seen her watch the two men go. She looked at him, his eyes giving off a soft glow. Did he even realize it? she wondered. He seemed so calm. No sense of urgency. All things considered, Mia thought she would have preferred someone who acted at least a little like the crazed werewolf running around in the woods biting people might be a problem.
“Sorry. I’m not used to being bitten by my dates, and then left to die. I guess it’s made me a little jumpy,” Mia said, finding her voice raspy from the bloodcurdling scream she’d sounded earlier. One dark brow winged up, and Mia wondered if he was surprised she wasn’t just falling apart.
Probably she should fake it. But she didn’t know how. Tears had been outlawed for too long to ever really come naturally to her.
“Point taken,” he said, his voice a resonant growl that scraped in an interesting sort of way against her ragged nerve endings. His eyes dropped to where she’d been wounded. “You seem to be healing up well, at least.”
Mia just looked at him, aghast. Healing? No, not yet, not by a long shot. Magic was her gift, but she could bleed with the best of them. Hadn’t she proven that?
“You’ve got to be joking,” she choked out. “I’ve been attacked! His name is Jeff Gaines, and he tried to kill me! What about all of this is holding you people up? I need the police, I need a doctor, and I need to get out…of…these…oh my God.” She happened to look at her ruined shoulder during her tirade, and what she saw shouldn’t have been, couldn’t have been possible. Beneath the bloody fabric, torn and bleeding skin had already knit together, leaving small scabs in most places. A few spots, she noted incredulously, had already healed completely.
The pain, it seemed, was gone for a reason.
And suddenly, falling apart seemed a much more doable option than it had only seconds ago.
Mia’s mouth opened while she stared at Jenner, who was gazing steadily back at her. He looked like this was the most natural thing in the world. She tried to make words come out, but none came to her. Her heart began to pound, and all of her instincts were screaming at her to run.
“She’s going to freak out,” a voice muttered somewhere behind her. “They always freak out.”
“She is not going to freak out,” Jenner replied, but his eyes never left her, and his voice was low, as though he was speaking only to her. “You’re going to be fine. And you’re not going to lose it. Not if you want him to pay for what he did.”
“But,” Mia said softly, trying desperately to keep it together. This couldn’t be. This wasn’t supposed to happen. “But…”
“I can make him pay,” Jenner said, and something about the way he said it, the words themselves, steadied Mia in a way probably nothing else could have in that moment. “You have to trust me. What this Jeffrey did isn’t allowed among our kind any more than it is among yours. Less, in fact.”
“Your kind,” Mia repeated in a whisper. “What is that?” Deep inside, she knew. But she still needed to hear the words. It had been so long since that day in her grandmother’s study, poring over fantastical pictures that sometimes moved and danced beneath her fingertips. Revelations to her young eyes that had been cut brutally short in the wake of the older woman’s fury at being disobeyed.
At some point, she had stopped believing that these creatures were real, and started believing what she’d always been told. That she was alone in her strangeness.
“This is where she freaks out,” Mia heard someone else murmur softly, and it so incensed her that anger finally overrode fear. There was nothing she hated more than being underestimated, condescended to. She snapped her head around to glare at each of the other men in turn, until they shifted uncomfortably and looked at the ground.
“I am not going to freak out,” she said through gritted teeth before looking again at Jenner. Amusement flashed across his face, as striking as a bolt of lightning in a dark sky.
“I can see that,” he said.
“Then tell me what’s going on!” It came out as far more of a shout than she’d intended, but it was hard to regret it when she still had no information, and now a wound that seemed to be healing itself at incredible speed through some medical miracle.
Jenner studied her for a moment longer, as though sizing her up, and then nodded.
“Okay. You were bitten by a werewolf we think is a feral drifter. Unless you give us a hand, he stays loose, and you wind up just like him.” He tipped his head, studying her. “How’s that for starters?”
It was true, then. These were all werewolves. Jeff, somehow, was a werewolf who’d managed to pass for as normal as could be and slipped easily past her defenses. Mia’s heart leaped in a mixture of joy and fear. She wasn’t the only human cursed with a little something more. These creatures were as real as she. She wanted to open her mouth and spill out everything, everything she knew about her own strange gifts. Maybe they would know what she truly was. Maybe they could help her.
Or maybe they would use her the same way Jeff had wanted to. She couldn’t trust anyone. Not yet. And especially not when her problems had just been added to. Mia knew nothing about werewolves outside of movies and TV, and most of that was probably garbage. Being bitten by whatever a feral drifter was, however, didn’t sound good.
So many questions, and all that came out was a stammer.
“I…I need to know…” Mia looked at him, noted the raised eyebrow, and felt the eyes on her back, waiting, she had no doubt, for that freak-out they were all so sure was coming. All but him. Jenner watched her steadily, calmly, with twin pools of honey gold. Forest eyes, she thought, focusing on the sanity, the steadiness in them.
Wolf eyes.
Mia felt something inside, a lot inside, actually, that did indeed want to just let loose and completely freak out. Instead, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and put her chin up. She was far stronger than they thought. This Jenner wanted to help her. She needed to concentrate on that. He knew what Jeffrey was, where Mia was sure that normal cops would chalk up her description of his transformation to hysteria, or worse. And if they didn’t believe her, Mia realized, Jeff would never be caught. He would find her. He had promised…
“He’s going to come back for me,” Mia said, wrapping her arms around herself in an effort to ward off the chill that seemed to be seeping into her very bones. “He said he would. To…to finish.”
“He picked the wrong place to bring you, then,” Jenner said. “We’re not going to let that happen.”
She looked around at solemn, serious faces and eyes that glinted with more than just the reflection of the moonlight. And knew she had no choice but to accept their help…and all that might come with it.
“So…I guess this means you’re all werewolves, too,” she said slowly, keeping her tone carefully neutral. Too much calm would raise suspicion. Hysteria would probably get her nowhere but a psych ward.
“We are.” Jenner nodded, and she didn’t think she was imagining the relief that flickered across his face. Mia took a twisted sort of pride in that. She slid a defiant look at the stocky blonde who’d been so sure she was going to lose it. He smirked back as Jenner introduced them.
“I’m Nick Jenner. Everyone calls me Jenner, though, so you might as well. That’s Dex Clark, Jake Pascal, and Ian James.” She watched as each of the men nodded their heads in turn, flashing reassuring smiles at her.
“Tommy and Kev Payne were the ones who took off a few minutes ago.”
Mia frowned, feeling a sick twist of fear at the reminder of the two men vanishing into the woods. “Do you think they’re okay? If it was Jeff—”
“It wasn’t,” Jenner said quickly. “I would know. They’re just taking care of a…pest…we have out here from time to time. Nothing to worry about. You can trust me on that,” he said, and there was something in the way he said it that left Mia no doubt she could believe him, at least on this. And as for the pest he’d mentioned, she was pretty sure she’d rather stay in the dark on that. The werewolves and, of course, Jeff had been enough of a revelation for one night.
“We’re all Blackpaw pack,” Jenner continued, “and you’re right in the middle of our territory. Not a problem for a human. Big problem for a drifter, especially a feral like this…Gaines, did you say?”
Mia nodded. “Jeff Gaines.”
He tilted his head just a little, putting her in mind of a predator listening for its prey.
“Hmm. Boyfriend?”
Mia felt her shoulders begin to hunch defensively. Yes, she wanted to say. I’m one of those women who ends up dating a psychopath. Apparently, I’m blind. Instead, she kept it simple.
“Not anymore.”
That prompted a small, sexy smile that left Mia feeling a little breathless. Werewolves in movies were almost never this gorgeous. Of course, werewolves in movies weren’t real, either. All she could think of was the way she’d felt when Jenner had touched her. Not a great idea…but better, she supposed, than focusing on what Jeff Gaines had almost managed to do to her. And what it seemed he had done to her.
“Fair enough,” Jenner said, and turned to the others. “Ian, why don’t you go back to the Hollow, have Buddy run the name just in case. It’s probably not his real one, but you never know. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“You got it,” said one of the men, sandy-haired and with bright green eyes that lit on Mia with keen interest and a surprising amount of compassion. “Don’t worry, miss. You’ll get used to us. Well, except maybe Jenner.” He grinned at the name Jenner called him under his breath, then added more somberly, “We’ll make sure this guy gets his.”
He dashed into the trees at a speed that was far beyond anything Mia had ever seen, then vanished. She assumed he hadn’t just gone ahead and turned into a wolf out of deference to her, though at this point, Mia thought, he might as well have just gone for it. She turned her attention back to Jenner.
“Buddy’s the sheriff in Ferry’s Hollow. He’s one of us,” Jenner said.
“Convenient,” Mia said.
“It comes in handy sometimes.” Jenner looked at her closely. “Look, you seem to be healing well, but you’re paler than I’d like. That bite’s going to take you down hard at some point. That’s just the way of it. No getting around it, but you’ll feel a thousand times better once you’ve slept. I’ll take you back to town so you can rest. The others will start hunting for Gaines, and call out the others who can help. Not much else we can do without you, and I don’t want to risk it until tomorrow, at the earliest. The details can wait until then.”
He offered his hand, and Mia looked at it, how large and strong it was, feeling more than ever like she was having an out-of-body experience. She was suddenly very, very tired, and her memories of the evening had begun to press insistently against the cocoon of her shock, threatening to take her places she didn’t want to go. Rest might be the best thing, Mia decided. But before doing so, she had one question left to ask.
“This bite,” she began, lifting her gaze from Jenner’s still-extended hand to meet his eyes. She saw the subtle change in his expression, and knew the answer before she even asked it. The truth stunned her. Didn’t she have enough to grapple with? Still, she needed to hear the words.
“You said if I didn’t help you I’d wind up just like him. A…a feral, whatever that is. Does that mean I’m…I’m going to be a…”
“It’s not so bad,” Jenner said softly. “Saved my life, anyway. But that’s enough for tonight. There’s plenty that will wait for morning. You’re going to be fine, miss. That I can promise you.”
She felt no real horror. Not when she’d been living with her own secrets for this long. What was one more? But she also knew that this foggy indifference would evaporate by morning, when the cold light of day would probably see things looking awfully different to her. For now, it was enough to know. She’d deal with it…but later.
Mia looked back down at his hand. Given the choices she had, there was really only one option. Tentatively, she placed her hand into Jenner’s, struck by how small her own was in comparison. And then struck again by the hot snap of connection where their skin touched. It still seemed wrong, to feel such a thing on a night like this, but Mia had no strength left to fight it. His fingers closed gently around her own, and again she felt those threads between the two of them, tightening and pulling them closer.
“I’m Mia,” she said. “Mia D’Alessandro.”
“Mia,” Jenner said, and no one had ever said her name that way before, as though it was being tasted, savored.
“Welcome to the Hollow.”
Chapter 2
Dex hadn’t been kidding, Jenner thought ruefully. She was a pretty little thing.
And if he kept noticing, it wasn’t going to do either one of them any good. He had a feral to catch, and Mia had a lot to adjust to in a short amount of time. He was going to make sure the latter was someone else’s problem, though. He had enough on his plate. Still, the way her hand had felt against his chest was going to haunt him. He hadn’t touched a woman in a long time. Too long, since it hadn’t taken much for him to start imagining that Mia’s fingertips had some kind of magic in them. It wasn’t just the attraction, either, which was going to be tough to ignore. He could have sworn, just for an instant, he’d heard music…
Shaking off the strange feeling, Jenner steered Mia toward his beat-up old pickup. One of his pack mates had left it for him on the side of the road heading back into town at his request. Walking home wasn’t going to be an option tonight.
And neither was carrying Mia, for entirely different reasons.
The others had peeled off one by one, eager to join the hunt for the night. Jenner couldn’t blame them. Hell, it was what he would be doing if the woman wasn’t the key to finding the feral. The thrill of the chase was one of the things he loved about his position in the pack. The Lunari always led the hunt, and often took the kill. As it was, he was stuck playing both babysitter and guard, at least for tonight. Until he knew more, Jenner wasn’t comfortable passing off the job to someone else. Wasn’t likely Mia’s erstwhile boyfriend would try and come back for her, despite her fears, but you never knew with that type. So he’d let her crash at his place, then tomorrow get her set up with one of the mated couples who had some space to spare.
He glanced over at her, at the long waves of chocolate brown hair that glinted in the dim light, the strong, classical profile that could have been printed on a Roman coin, and thought: Early tomorrow…the sooner the better. She wasn’t Angelina Jolie.
She was far more beautiful than that.
Mia, thankfully, seemed oblivious to the scrutiny. Her eyes were pointed determinedly forward, as though it were taking everything she had to get where she was going. Likely it was, he knew. Her strength would return in spades, but it wouldn’t be tonight. Still, she hadn’t complained, which he hated, or cried, which he hated even more. It spoke well of her character. Hopefully she’d make a good addition to the pack, once she accepted the way things were.
She was very lucky some of the pack had been out for a run. A few more minutes alone with her attacker and she would have been linked to a feral, cut off from anyone who could help her make a normal transition and possibly, probably, damaged beyond repair.
The thought of it, of that faceless psycho forcing himself on her, filled Jenner with a slow burning rage. He clenched his teeth. Yeah…he wished he was still out in the woods tonight.
“What’s wrong?”
Jenner turned his head and was instantly caught by a pair of large almond-shaped eyes, hazel with fascinating little flecks of green. Her arms were crossed over her chest, wrapping the jacket he’d given her to cover the tattered remnants of her shirt tightly around her, like armor. It surprised him how easily she had picked up on his tension. He’d always been very good at keeping his thoughts and feelings to himself—it was part of what made him effective at his job, and a tough werewolf to crack besides. But then, Mia was different. He’d sensed it from the first.
Whether that was good or bad remained to be seen. His instincts told him there was more to her story. But it was going to have to wait.
“Do I look like something’s wrong?” He tried to ask it lightly, and knew it had come out sounding surly anyway. She didn’t seem fazed by it, but at this point, it didn’t surprise him. Whatever else she was, Mia was a woman with some spine…though she might have been better off being a little more intimidated by him.
Well, he might have been better off, anyway.
“You look like you want to kill someone,” Mia said, weary eyes regarding him in the darkness. “But as long as it’s not me, I guess it’s fine. Carry on.”
Her sense of humor caught him by surprise, charming him. He didn’t want to be charmed. He set his jaw, determined to keep this as impersonal as possible.
“I was just thinking about next steps,” Jenner replied. And that was true enough. “This is my truck, here. Hop in.” He led her around, opened the passenger side door for her. Mia hesitated as she peered into the dim interior of the truck, which Jenner was relieved to find was pretty clean except for an empty soda can in the cup holder.
“I’m sorry, but…where are we going, again?” she asked, stifling a yawn mid-sentence. Her gaze was cloudy when she looked at him. Jenner didn’t expect her head to really clear until sometime tomorrow—the feral’s saliva had only been working on her for about an hour, and he’d seen with his own eyes that the initial effects of a werewolf bite could cause all manner of strange symptoms. In Mia’s case, it seemed like it was going to take her down into the inevitable deep sleep sooner rather than later.
That was likely better for them both.
“I’m going to take you someplace where you can get some rest for the night, remember? You’ve been through a lot. Some sleep will do you good.”
He kept his voice casual, reasonable, and that, coupled with Mia’s fatigue, was enough to get her in the truck with little more than a resigned sigh.
“I’m not going to wake up with fur, am I?” she asked when he’d gotten in, found the keys beneath the seat, and turned on the engine. Jenner chuckled at the expression on her face despite himself.
“No fur. Not even a headache. Trust me, when you make your first change you won’t sleep through it.”
