Total pages in book: 202
Estimated words: 193561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 968(@200wpm)___ 774(@250wpm)___ 645(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 968(@200wpm)___ 774(@250wpm)___ 645(@300wpm)
Our past wasn’t easy but our present and future under Wyatt’s reign is bleak. There haven’t been any live births in too long. There have been too many deaths and too many running away.
While there are some couples in our pack that haven’t fled, they’re older. They’re leftovers from our father’s generation. And so many of them have gotten sick and died in the past year. They take a sudden turn and despite our best efforts, they wither quickly.
Most women in our pack are fair game, especially the pretty ones like Adelaide, Ellie, and Caroline. And Wyatt takes his pick of the prettiest ones on a regular basis. Women are fair game to him, and we’re used as rewards for his betas. There was also that night Wyatt got really drunk and did that awful thing and made those threats. I shove that memory aside.
Can this Arcana Falls alpha really think he’s meant to mate with me? Mate, not just copulate? Is this a dream? A lie? It doesn’t feel like a lie. The entire village wouldn’t be in on the lie so convincingly, would they? My mind is whirling like a tornado.
“Take a deep breath and calm down. It’s gonna be all right, Blossom, I promise,” Greyson whispers and then he pushes the door open.
4
Grey
The feel of her is more than right. The feel of her body with my senses full of her true scent, the sensations stirring in my blood… Everything is right, except her fear, and the fear feels so wrong that not being able to take it from her makes it like an itch I can’t reach.
I get why the guys were concerned. Especially Joel, Linc, and Jase. They don’t get it. Yet.
It doesn’t matter what she’s done; the urge to do what fate intends me to do is stronger. Ty would get it. Mase would understand. I wonder, briefly, if Rye is doing what he needs to do right now, too, despite what his mate has done.
But I don’t linger on that thought for long, because that’s a complex situation. I mostly focus on what I do know – that nobody gets between an alpha and his mate. The council does take care of the whole pack so that’s why they almost tried, assuming my judgement was clouded. But if they’d have stopped me from leaving with her, it would’ve meant they don’t trust me. I’m glad I didn’t have to point that out.
Yeah, she shot Tyson. Yes, she’s poisoned some of the pack members. And I’ll get to the bottom of that. Bottom line: this is who I’m fated to be with, and it’ll get figured out.
My grandfather told me as a kid that matings aren’t always logical at first glance, but eventually they make sense. When I questioned my parents’ mating being short-lived, Granddad told me he believed Dad was meant to be with Carrie, but that his union with my mother served a purpose – the creation of me for this council, for this pack, for the Blackwood family. Part of Dad’s job as a council alpha was to provide for his pack and he did that with a further legacy of providing me for his pack. I’m for this pack; Carrie is for Dad. The way Granddad put it made sense to me as a kid, and I haven’t spent much time questioning it since then.
There’s a reason or reasons that the woman who’s been trying to harm our pack is here, is mine, and I’ll get to the bottom of it after I claim her.
The fact that she burst into tears and cried all the way back to our village was one clue this wasn’t her own agenda. I’d lay down a bet she was coerced by someone to do those ugly things. This isn’t someone acting like an enemy. This timid, pretty she-shifter doesn’t come across as an instigator at all. In fact, when I saw her at the diner the day Riley caught the scent of Erica Young, I suspected she was untouched by how shy she was, how she dropped her gaze every time I looked at her. By the pink hitting her cheeks and by the lack of male scent attached to her.
I definitely noticed her. Even flirted with her. She’s exactly my type. Feminine. Shy. Submissive.
Although it’s now clear she was masking her scent, I’m smelling her true scent now. Whether or not she’s actually a virgin is a mystery for the moment. But from now on, she’ll only be touched by me. Because she belongs with me. She’s about to belong to me.
Our eyes meet and hers are wide. She promptly looks away, glancing everywhere but at me, taking in the foyer, eyes bouncing from the double doors of the coat closet to the powder room, then down the hallway leading to the rec room, which extends to the laundry, storage and the utility room as well as the garage entrance. Straight ahead is a short staircase to take us up to the level with the living and dining rooms as well as the kitchen. I take us up.