lin'

ing her haggling over flower crowns while I fled into the dark. I didn't care. I could

ungs burning, this borrowed heart pounding

was

like a violation. He had no right to look at me with that searching, confused longing. He

nt, mocking lights of the festival. I welcomed the anger. It was a cleansing fire,

tgown, and crawled under the heavy covers. But sleep was a joke. Every time I closed my eyes, his face-etch

h

balcony outside my windo

rviving as a Luna, trained to detect the slightest threat to my pack, had honed my

eath, strain

with a predator's fluid grace, but the moment his boots hit the floorb

inj

ged toward the heavy brass candlestic

d even brush the metal

me down. In the same breath, something freezing and impossibl

lv

as a weapon designed to kill a werewolf permanently. In my current

by a deep hood. The suffocating, coppery stench of fresh blood rolled off hi

oice was a low, gravelly scrape that p

ely limp. Thrashing would get me slaughtered. He was bleedi

k void of his hood. I met where his eyes should be, projecting a deliberate,

-a micro-second of hesitation. My l

lindly inside his dark tunic with his free hand. A second later, he pulled out a small glass

d fingers clamped down on my jaw like a vice. He squeezed

to spit it out. But his grip was iron. He clamped my mou

ded across my tongue, burnin

is

He sagged heavily against the side of the bed, his massive frame shuddering. The ha

r

tine white sheets. It spread slowly, bloomin

d. He was on the verge of passing out, but his grip on the hilt of the da

ious pill settle like a lead weight in my

room with a bleeding, armed, and

ind a way

I had to find a