Page 61 of Predator

It’s Lucas’s turn to kiss me. Not a peck, like I gave him, but an open-mouthed kiss that he deepens as he lowers his hand to the small of my back, dipping me so that he can take his time with his kiss.

I don’t care that we’re still on witch territory. A glance behind me after he breaks the kiss reveals that Armand and Claude are gone, but I have no doubt in my mind that plenty of others are watching the pack gathered from inside the manor.

Jeannie is standing by Jade. Tristan is parked on his haunches, watching her unblinkingly.

For the first time since I met him, the Alpha seems completely oblivious to what’s going on around us.

Oh, no. His predatory stare is locked only on me—and I feel a shiver of anticipation rush through me as I realize that.

“The cabin is closer than the pack house,” he rumbles. His eyes glitter. “Run.”

Two full moons ago, the beast rasped out ‘run’, and I fled as if my life depended on it. Seventy years ago, Jolie tore through the woods, a charmed wolf on her heels, and her life did depend on it.

But now? I place my hand on Lucas’s heart, feel the thrum of his heartbeat as his lust and need and love come pouring down our bond at me, and know that he needs to claim me as his as much as I need him to. To take me out of my head, to forget all that ‘what-if’s and ‘holy shit’s that have been running through my mind since the moment I got handed the envelope with Jeannie’s photo in it… to ignore what my grandmother made me do, and what might happen because of it…

Lucas is mine. He always has been. He always will be—and he told me to run.

So I do… and it doesn’t matter that he catches me long before I make it to our cabin.

In fact, I kind of prefer it.

CHAPTER 18

AFTERMATH

If you’d told me three months ago that a telegram would change my life, I probably would’ve laughed.

Well, first I’d have to double-check that I had the right idea about what a telegram was, but once I did, I would’ve laughed and said that it would take a lot more than an unexpected message from a stranger to get me out of the rut I’d been living in for way too long.

But it did, and while my happily-ever-after isn’t completely smooth sailing, without the threat of the witches coming after me again, I’m enjoying living in Winter Creek.

I also proved myself as fierce a predator as anyone else in the pack. Good thing, too, because we’re down to four members at the moment.

As a group, we waited about two weeks for everything to settle down. Call me paranoid—or just traumatized from the whole ‘being tied to a tree’ thing—but I kept expecting the witches to retaliate for Marie’s death; if not hers, then Remy’s. So far they haven’t. As though they really meant it when they said that I’m the new leader of the coven, the witches as a whole have backed off, giving me space to process how quickly my life has changed.

Lucas is my fucking rock. And, sure, maybe he still can’t shake his protective nature, but I’ve come to expect that. It’s the Alpha in him. He needs to make sure I’m safe, and if it makes him happy to do so, I can deal.

But he also agreed that, as a pack member and his mate, it’s time I go all in. I have my turn in the rotation for all chores—and jokingly bemoan the days when I didn’t have to scrub the many toilets in the pack house—and even get to go on patrol.

Not too far, of course, because I’m still getting used to my wolf. But the fact that I’m allowed out without a babysitter? It’s a huge one-eighty from how he treated me in the beginning and I’m grateful for it. I try not to admit he didn’t really have a choice. With three pack members gone, he kind of had to.

Eleanor and Kirk were the first to take a train out of Winter Creek. For seventy years or more, she told her mate all about her life in England from before she moved to the States. At the very least, she looked forward to showing him around, even if it’s going to be a huge shock for her to see how time’s moved on without them.

The Luna was telling it straight when she said the stasis spell was finally broken. All of us took the walk over to the bridge when one of Lucas’s contacts in town told him the train was due to arrive. Alpha or delta, it doesn’t matter, since Kirk is just as protective of his mate. He crossed the bridge first, and only when nothing happened did he come back for Ellie.

They promised they won’t be gone long. Considering they’ve never really had the time to be alone without at least three other super-hearing wolves living in the same house, I figure it’s going to be a while before we see them again. I miss them, but I get it. I just hope they’re having fun.

Jade left next. About three days after Kirk and Eleanor did, she didn’t even wait for the train. With nothing more than a few whispered conversations with Jeannie—and a piece of paper with Lorelei’s contact information on it—she strapped a bag to her back and started walking along the tracks.

I pity anyone who sees the petite blonde beauty with the glittering green gaze and thinks she’s an easy target. If I was prey in the beginning, Jade’s always been the predator—and it didn’t take long before I learned she was on the hunt.

Turns out that one perk of being Luna-touched is the ability to sense bonds. That’s Lorelei’s gift, Jeannie confessed, and she gave Jade her sister’s information so that the lonely she-wolf could finally track down her own. Because Lorelei could sense them even before a wolf could, while Jeannie’s role as a guardian was more… claws-on, I guess. I figured that’s why she was the one the Luna sent to Winter Creek, and since the topic makes Jeannie snappish, I left it at that.

I thought the witches snagged Jeannie on purpose. Nope. That was pure dumb luck. She came to Winter Creek because the Luna wanted her here after she knew I’d arrived. It took until the second full moon until Jeannie made it—about when I scented her shortly after I mated Lucas—but then I went feral, and she kept her distance, watching from the woods.

Until Remy captured her, that is, and because she knew the Luna was working with the witch’s goddess, Hecate, Jeannie decided to go along with it. Pretending to be a human who knew Fallon back in New York—with her charged phone and the pictures on it backing up her story—she was the perfect prisoner… until she proved to be the perfect assassin.

I keep expecting her to leave, too, now that her mission is complete. Yeah… that would be a no. Like me, Jeannie has declared she’s ready for a vacation after a years-long assignment, and wouldn’t you know it? She’s settled on sticking around Winter Creek.

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