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All her life, she had feared this precise moment. The moment when another wolf, an alpha male, would finally let his true colors show. She had cowered from her father, from the other males in the pack, even from her own husband, terrified that at any moment, they would snap, and she would find herself in their teeth.

It had finally happened. And it almost felt like a relief.

“If you’re going to kill me,” she spat, fingers curved into claws, “why don’t you get on with it.”

Carter threw his head back and laughed. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll get there. But there’s so much fun to be had first.”

He lunged forward, shoving her down to the earth with bruising force, pinning her hands above her head.

“You eventhinkabout shifting and I’ll rip your insides out here and now!”

Shefoughthim then. Biting and kicking and writhing andscreaming.

With a sadistic grin, he trapped her flailing legs under one enormous thigh, pressing his hips down into hers. Her eyes widened at the heat stabbing into her lower belly, and she fought harder, snapping up into him, tearing the flesh of his shoulder between her teeth.

He reared back and slapped her across the face,hard.

Black dots danced across her vision. Her ears rang, hollow and tinny. She gasped for air.

Dimly, she was aware of him wrenching her thighs apart. His hand crushed into her neck, blocking off her air.

She couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t doanything.

She was going to die.

He was going to…going to…

And then he would kill her.

She thought about Rick. About Eva. About the new life she had only just begun to build for herself.

As Carter’s hand tightened around her throat, she let her eyes drift shut.

So be it.

But then Carter stilled. “What the fu—”

His body was torn off hers by a dark blur of fur and teeth. Her eyes flew open, and she gasped in a ragged breath, hand flying to her throat, the oxygen thick and cool in her lungs.

Then she looked over.

A wolf, dark and savage, had Carter by the junction of his neck and shoulder and was shaking him around like a rag doll.

Another one of the Black Claws attacked, and the wolf dropped Carter, turning to avoid flashing teeth. Carter leapt up, skin ripping and fur sprouting as he shifted.

He didn’t pause before joining the attack.

All her senses snapped back to her at once.

She scrambled to her feet, finding her wolf, letting it take over—

The third wolf pummeled her back down to the ground, his claws at her throat, her arm, her legs. Hot, rank breath fanned over her face as he snapped his jaws in warning, and she yelped as his claws sank through her flesh.

The dark wolf’s head whipped over, his burning eyes narrowing.

She released a choking sob.

Rick.