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  Not that it helped me.

  The silence is heavy between them again.

  “But Slash could not?” The wrinkles on Della's face converge into lines of concern.

  “No. He was down for the count.” Adi feels suddenly weary and puts her head in her hands. She's tired of her crazy life, worn down from the heat bullshit, and exhausted from running. She wants some fucking peace.

  “He told you what he needed to so that you'd be safe.”

  Adi's face whips up, and her hands drop to the tops of her thighs. Her sigh is tired, like the rest of her. “Probably.”

  Della's face perks with a wicked grin. “Definitely. Male Reds are renowned for the protectiveness of their females.”

  “I know,” Adi says, propping her face into her hands again. “I just think his delivery sucks.”

  Della holds up a weathered hand; her veins are like blue lace under her thin skin.

  I wonder how old she is?

  The water stops, and Adi turns to look at the closed door again, relief flooding her.

  “No matter what he said, he did it for your benefit, Adrianna.”

  “Adi,” she states automatically and turns back to look at Della.

  She smiles again. “Adi.”

  Adi's mesmerized by her teeth. They look sharp.

  Slash opens the door, and steam pours out.

  “Why I bother with feeding the woodstove is beyond me!” Della plants her hands on the couch and heaves herself up. She trudges to the wood stove and bends over the cast iron belly to adjust the damper. “There. You two have put more hot air inside my house than I've had in a coon's age.”

  Slash glances at Adi, obviously assessing her temper.

  Smart man.

  She folds her arms, leaning back, not wanting to admit she feels safer simply because he's within sight or that she needs his presence. A small part of her still wants Slash to suffer for making her sick with what she thought was his rejection.

  Sometimes being in love sucks donkey dicks.

  Adi's exhale is a puff of irritation. She's agitated that Della saw the core of her anger with Slash and that her emotions are so transparent. She's mad that Slash is two hundred plus years older than her. Like the male can help that.

  And she's in heat. Which means he will need to sate her. Only his seed on a more or less continuous basis will ease her during her heat. Even as she sits there, Adi can feel her need building. Slash's nostrils flare, and her core plumps with the gesture.

  Adi wants to cry; she hates being that obvious. The fresh hurt from Slash's abandonment still echoes in the chambers of her heart.

  Then Della turns. “I don't have many guests, especially your kind.”

  Your kind. Adi can feel Slash's frown without looking in his direction.

  “Why don't you sleep on it, and when the sun rises, everything will be righted. No decision made on the chasm of exhaustion is a good one.” Her face grows serious. Her watery blue eyes appear to glow in the soft lighting of lamps scattered in dim corners. “And the trolls be about. They are most active at night.”

  Adi gives a small shudder. Trolls sound creepy.

  Slash strolls across the scarred wide-plank wood floorboards and stands in front of Adi.

  I won't look at him.

  But her face rises against her will, her sex throbbing for one thing. She makes a mute plea with her eyes, and he shakes his head, denying what she begs him with her gaze.

  Can we just talk?

  No, his face clearly says in silent reply. They'll be doing way more than conversation. He holds out his hand to her, and she slides her own inside his, defeated by her own biology.

  The sheer size of his hand engulfs hers as he gently pulls her off the couch.

  “The wards will hold. No troll is brazen enough to cross.” Della’s chin kicks up.

  Slash gives Della an assessing look and finally says, “Thank you for your kindness, Della.”

  Her smile is thin. “I'm not kind. Just practical.” She cackles like a true witch, and the fine hairs at Adi's nape rise.

  But the next moment, she melts against Slash's strong chest, and he hooks a heavy arm around her, pulling her close. Warmth and security surrounds her, and instantly, Adi's breathing slows to a purr of contentment.

  Slash stares at Della for a heartbeat more, then Della turns toward a long corridor in the opposite direction, giving them her back.

  Adi scoops up her pack and follows.

  Slash's arm remains around her.

  *

  “The dust is free,” Della quips, moving swiftly ahead and plumping pillows on a small double-sized bed covered by a wedding ring-style quilt.

  A small nightstand of dark polished wood stands at one side of the bed with a Kelly-green Depression-era knob at the center of a tiny drawer directly beneath the top. Adi recognizes the style instantly because Susan from the pack was a big antique collector.

  A knot forms in her throat, and sudden tears threaten. Her emotions are so right there. She hates it.

  Slash grips her shoulders, turning her to face him, and his scent engulfs Adi. Need spears her harder.

  “What is it?”

  His dark eyes pierce her emotions and thoughts. The scar pulls tight in his stern face as his lips mark a flat line across his face.

  “Homesick,” she manages to croak.

  “He is your home now, Adi.” Della's wisdom swings wide, sweeping over her like a meat cleaver in a field of daisies.

  The stem of her metaphorical flower sways backward from the flashing metal, and she gives Della a sharp look. Adi doesn't want to hear people’s thoughts about what she should think—or how she should feel.

  They can all get fucked.

  Even this witch that offered them temporary sanctuary. She opens her mouth to say so, and shame fills her at the compassion she finds in Della's open face.

  I'm being a dumb bitch. Adi covers her face and listens as the rustle of Della's skirts gradually quieting as she crosses the room, leaving Adi and Slash alone.

  “Is it the heat?” Slash asks beside her temple in slow quiet words, and she leans her face against the roughness of his, feeling stubble and his ragged scar against her own unmarred skin.

  “Yes. No—I don't know.”

  She presses her forehead against the hard planes of his chest.

  “Things are unsettled now, Adrianna.”

  Adi laughs. She can't help it. She steps away, though Slash's hands remain on her shoulders. “Are you kidding me? Unsettled? Unhinged is more like it. I killed that nurse, Jenni. I gave her a death sentence.”

  Slash tightens his hold, giving Adi a small shake. “No, you gave a precious gift to a human female—your essence. Only an alpha can make another Were.” His eyes are unwavering on her face as though he's memorizing every feature. “I smelled her disease. As a human, she was already dying. As a Were, she lives.”

  Adi searches his face. “I know it was against our laws.”

  Slash's smile is amused, lightening the moment. “As though that matters. I think we've broken every Lycan law ever made.”

  Adi's eyes grow wet, burning with tears she doesn't shed. “Jenni was only human, but she saved me. She tried to save me.”

  Slash nods. “She gave us time. Without her, I might have—” Slash scrubs a hand over his skull trim. “I might have not gotten to you in time.”

  They exchange a significant look.

  Slash cups her chin gently. “I cannot stand the thought of what they would have done to my mate.”

  Adi grips his thick forearms as Slash pulls her against him.

  “Help me,” Adi begs, tears beginning to pull at the corners of her eyes. “I hurt.”

  “Let me service you, Adrianna. It is my role. My pleasure. My duty.”

  Adi raises her head, silent tears streaming. “How can I say no, you sweet-talker.”

  But his face remains solemn as he tenderly brushes the wetness away with a swish of his thumb.


  Adi gulps back her stress and tension. This is the male she gave herself to, the male she's loved since she was a whelp. No matter what Slash felt he had to do to protect her—and that she hated how he did it—Slash was motivated to save her from more harm.

  She replies using the ancient words, “Ease me, mate of my heart. Curator of my soul.”

  Slash's smile is for Adi. And her alone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tessa

  That horned fucker, Tessa thinks a second time. She doesn't bother ruminating on Laz pairing up with Praile. It's too painful.

  Besides, she needs to survive.

  Just as Tessa's gearing up to get a beatdown or worse, the Lanarre prince who's betrothed to Tahlia bursts through the thick log door inside the cottage. He morphs to wolfen as he flows through the threshold. His stature gains inches before her eyes. A dusting of inky hair tipped with silver springs over the surface of his skin, spreading like a slick mat of black as it shivers to life over his flesh.

  Drek crouches, arms spread like whips of muscular rope, tips his head back, and roars.

  A bird in the distance caws. Tessa recognizes the sound of Tahlia in bird form.

  No time to worry over being saved by the cavalry.

  Or if there'll even be one.

  Tessa sinks low.

  Praile comes for her with eyes so black, she can't make out the pupil. His horns seem to have lengthened, and he dips his chin, tail rising behind the deep-red hair of his head.

  The end of his tail takes her breath. The sight of the perfect circle the size of her head, broken only by short ebony spikes of a smooth bonelike material freezes her.

  Then Praile swings the fleshy weapon high above them all, a toothy black smile on his face.

  Tessa's paralysis breaks, and a sound of pure distress escapes Tessa as she crouches even lower, her eyes meeting Laz's.

  Betrayal fills Tessa to her toenails.

  But confusion strikes her as Laz’s gaze pegs her own, his eyes flipping from black to pale blue smoke.

  At first, Laz is running her down with Praile. In the next moment, a slashing blur of red smoke swipes the flail-like end of Praile's tail, the very weapon that was readying to bash her head in. The ball of spiked flesh falls to the wooden floor, severed from the stem of his tail.

  Tessa's so stunned she falls on her ass, the painful impact jarring her teeth together.

  A fountain of black blood spurts from the tip of his amputated tail.

  Gasping, she whirls, scrabbling against the slick, wide boards. Gaining purchase, she doesn't look left, right, or behind her.

  She runs.

  Something grabs her braid, jerking then winding hard.

  Tessa screams, reaching backward. Talons spring from the tips of her fingers, and her next scream is the agony of a change too fast for her body.

  Slicing the arms that grip her, she spins in midair, unwinding her braid as she does. Bounding from the tips of her toes, Tessa widens her arms and plunges her hands into the torso of...

  Praile.

  He grins inches away from her face. “A little skewer never hurt a demon, bitch.”

  Her eyes flick behind him, and the tail begins to mend itself. A pulsating, bulbous coating of flesh has already sealed the wound, restructuring the end of his tail.

  Tessa's scalp throbs from the grip he still manages to maintain. Praile's dark blood flows over them both, covering her wrists, giving the illusion her hands have been amputated.

  She clenches her teeth. “How about a scramble, fire dick?”

  Praile's dark eyes widen as steam escapes every open, soft part of his body. Yeah, even that one.

  Tessa gives a vicious twist of her wrists, and Praile's skin splits like a ripe fruit, opening to dump his guts from his body.

  Deep-black entrails fall like snakes, spilling into a steaming, intertwined mess at their feet.

  Tessa tries to jerk her hands out of his body—and can’t. Panic chokes her.

  Praile's forked tongue hisses. The tips are gray, and the appendage looks like a decaying piece of meat. The center is so black it’s nearly colorless.

  Tessa bends her body backward in an extreme arc, and Praile takes a step forward, grabbing her forearms and jerking her against his chest.

  She is tall, but Praile is much taller. Her eyes meet his throat, and she feels her pupils dilate.

  “I will fuck you until you have no cunt left, Were.”

  Rotten-smelling steam fills the short space between them.

  Oh Moon. Tiny bumps pour over her skin, damming against where Praile's fingers tighten mercilessly against her flesh, causing her bones to ache.

  Drek howls behind them, and out of her periphery, the soft blur of Laz appears like crimson water flowing through the air.

  Just as her hope flees, Tessa turns to Laz desperately, like a flower to the sun.

  Help me, she pleads.

  Tessa shakes off her fear, scrambling backward as her feet lose purchase on a floor slick with Praile's guts.

  She begins to fall, taking Praile with her.

  He takes advantage of her tumble, and before he lands, Praile jerks her hands from him, whipping her arms away from her body.

  Tessa lands hard on her back, the air whooshing out of her.

  Clamping her wrists and pressing them against the wet floor, he kicks her legs wide with a force so hard, he bruises the inside of her thighs.

  “Laz!” Tessa shrieks in a high-pitched keen full of desperation.

  “Yes! Laz!” Praile taunts from above her.

  Tessa moans as he presses deeper between her legs. Only her thin yoga pants keep him from stabbing inside her.

  Tessa struggles, her hope draining away by the second. She's never dealt with a supernatural this strong and relentless.

  Tessa throws her head forward, smashing her forehead into Praile's.

  He laughs while her ears ring.

  Then she feels his erection. “No,” she whispers, tears of frustration stinging her eyes.

  “Yes,” Praile hisses with soft menace, flicking his tongue against her throat like a sick wet slap of flesh.

  Squirming, she attempts to position herself in an effort to nail him where it counts.

  “No you don't, Were mutt.”

  He heaves himself forward, spearing at the crotch of her yoga pants like a branding fire poker.

  “Lazarus!” she yells again—hearing the commotion behind her, but not caring. She's having all she can do, staving off her imminent rape by a demon.

  Tessa goes limp.

  Praile smells instant victory and moves closer to her, his throat above her mouth.

  Tessa grunts as the quarter-change leaves her and the wolfen form moves through her body like liquid fire.

  Hurts.

  Her body morphs beneath Praile, but he's so intent on stabbing her with his dick that he doesn't notice.

  Then Tessa tears out his throat. She closes her eyes as scalding blood drenches her face. He's rolled off her, and Laz stands directly above them both, blood covering him from throat to feet as if a can of paint was thrown on him. Only his pale eyes are stranded within his face as though he wears a raccoon's mask.

  Holding back a scream to keep blood out of her mouth, Tessa crawls away from Praile and turns. Blinking his reeking blood from her eyes, she sees the pale glimmer of spine through the hole she made in his throat.

  Heal that, fucker.

  With a shaky breath, Tessa stands. She wipes her mouth dry with her sleeve.

  Laz lifts his foot high and brings it down on Praile's head with a well-executed stomp.

  His foot lands again and again.

  Laz doesn't stop when the flesh of his instep is shredded by black skull fragments.

  He doesn't stop when whatever Praile was is nothing but demonic soup on the floor, coloring the cracks in the floorboards like dirty soot.

  “Laz,” Tessa calls, voice hoarse.

  She steps closer, but Laz isn't listening,
his tail is thwacking what's left of Praile like a huge meat tenderizer.

  The sounds of the unusually-shaped tail end striking Praile's body are thick and wet. Meaty.

  “Stop,” Tessa says, daring to inch closer.

  A thick layer of steam, tinged red, surrounds Laz. “Die,” Laz hisses, and his forked tongue makes short work of the word, causing the single syllable to echo with final perfection.

  Tessa touches Laz's arm, and he whirls. Eyes like shining oil eat at her, and Tessa gasps, suffocating in the heat emanating from his body.

  “Don't hurt me,” she whispers, putting up shaking hands before him as her body melts back to quarter-change, and heaves an exhausted sigh.

  Those flat black eyes that, a moment before, regarded her with cold indecision now dull to smoky gray.

  Then the crisp light blue she knows is Laz without killing intent washes the irises clean of evil.

  The vapor surrounding him disappears like morning mist conceding the day.

  Laz comes at her faster than Tessa can retreat. Her rapid changes have made her slow and clumsy.

  If he tries to kill her, there's nothing she can do. Tessa is spent. Praile almost raped her. Deep down, she knows Praile would have enjoyed raping her to death.

  She's never ridden the knife's edge as closely as she just did in her long life.

  But Laz doesn't kill her.

  He hauls her against him, their heartbeats finding a familiar pattern of unity.

  Laz strokes hair that's more loose mane than braid. The blood they wear makes them stick together.

  Tessa doesn't mind.

  Because one touch from Laz is like a thousand tongues of licking fire and a salve to the problem of her being in heat.

  Laz tips her head back, looking deeply into her eyes. “Did you doubt me?”

  She shakes her head, biting her bottom lip to guarantee her silence.

  His eyes search her face. “Yes, you did.”

  Tessa nods and tries to smile. Instead, a sob breaks the seal of her lips. Delayed shock robs her of her quarter-change, and she diminishes within Laz's embrace.