that you get really good

st around our camp blurred at the edges, my vision swimming like I'd had too much whiskey even though I hadn't touched a drop in wee

g. Five years of waking up with silver veins creeping further across my skin, of coughing blood into my hands and hiding the evidence b

ible liar, e

riend emerged from between the tents we'd set up in this clearing, her auburn hair pulled back in a messy bun, laptop tucked under o

voice that I absolutely didn't feel. "Just che

etter than anyone alive. It was annoying as hell. "You're sweating and it's fifty degrees out. Your hands are shak

t have

ptop on a nearby stump and crossed her arms.

ng, keep the carefully constructed normalcy of our little rogue pack intact. But the truth was sittin

xpiration date I refused to acknowledge out loud. Three months, the last healer had told me when I'd finally broken down and seen one. Three months unless the bond is completed. I'd walked o

ie, actually, and some days that fe

k about options. Real options. Not this pretending everything

p from where they were sorting supplies near the main tent. I forced a smile and waved, the picture of their fearless leader who definitely had every

y. "Let him complete the claiming. Stop being

, just broken enough to kill me slowly while keeping me tethered to a male who'd made it clear I wasn't worth keeping. Every full moon I felt him, a pull i

memory had teeth. "Called me weak. Unworthy. He doesn't get to swoop in and p

sound came from the eastern ridge, long and threatening, and every wolf in camp went still. I felt

fting into a defensive stance. His eyes had gone golden

gnition and fear. He'd been sending scouts into neutral territory for weeks, sniffing around our borders, but he'd neve

ady despite the spike of adrenaline. "Now. Sage, get t

he day someone would come for us. For me. Because that's what this was about. Thaddeus didn't give a shit about a small

could move toward the tree li

howl echoed through the forest, closer this time, and shadows moved between the

he ridge, toward the hunters closing in, and felt my wolf surge forward with a viciousness that should have scared me. Maybe it would have, before the curse.

oo many teeth. Behind him, at least a dozen more emerged from the forest, fanning out in a semicircle that cut

man form with that same predatory smile I remembere

across the clearing. "We need to talk about your bloo