by Mia Thorne
"For now. The next step is the tricky one." Mac turned to face his packmate. "The next step is that she either uses the knife or doesn't. And that's the killer, isn't it?"
"How long does she have? Could you tell?"
"Depends on how long she fights it, I guess."
Connor paced away, his restlessness finally showing through his calm facade. "And we can't tell her not to fight. So we have to watch her hurt."
"Yeah." Mac snatched the first off the stack of folded towels waiting by the wall. "The one thing guaranteed to drive a house full of werewolves stark, raving nuts."
"Yeah." Connor took a half-hearted swing at the heavy bag. "Lucas'll have to replace half this equipment by the time we're done beating ourselves up in here."
As if they'd be limited to burning off their helpless frustration in the gym. "We've got a fight coming, Con. Can't you feel it?" He draped the towel around his neck. "Even if the Great Lakes pack doesn't want Grace back, they'll still want vengeance for their fallen brothers."
Connor shrugged. "You're right. But no, I can't feel it. I'm pretty far from the wolf right now."
Tension wafted from him in tangible waves, and Mac gave in to the urge to soothe him. He rubbed Connor's shoulders and pressed his forehead to his. "Your wolf is there when you need him. That's what counts."
"Maybe Grace feels it," Connor suggested, "and that's what the knife is for. Not us. Them."
"Sure," Mac replied easily, but the truth gnawed at him.
Grace wasn't afraid of retribution from the pack that had held her captive. She was afraid of herself, of what she was, of her needs.
And she was afraid of him.
Ashley liked to have tea in the afternoon.
Grace had found it odd at first. Tea was so quaint, something for old ladies and rich people and TV shows about lords and ladies who lived in fancy houses. But she'd gone along with it because Ashley was something Grace had never stayed in one place long enough to have before—a friend.
Three months into Ashley's pregnancy, Grace suspected that tea had become something else—a chance for Ashley to escape Blake's overprotective hovering for a while. With Mac's words still fresh in her memory—and his knife still under her pillow—Grace wondered if maybe Blake shouldn't be hovering now.
But Ashley was all smiles as she poured the tea. "Blake finished the crib. Do you need anything custom done before he puts all his tools away?"
Grace's room was already full of sturdy, comfortable furniture. She wouldn't know what to do with anything nicer. "No, I have more than I'm used to already. Though if Connor keeps giving me things, I'll need new shelves."
The woman's smile turned rueful. "Then you may as well go ahead and ask for more shelving."
Bringing up Connor was a mistake. The itching beneath Grace's skin only grew worse when she thought about him. He was worse than Mac in some ways, because the earnestness in his eyes made her want to soothe him. Touch him, the way Ashley touched Blake when he was anxious. And that was wrong, all wrong. Because Mac could handle her if she turned mean, but Connor...
Connor was sweet.
Ashley was watching her, so Grace covered her awkward silence by sipping her tea. It had already begun to cool—or maybe she was so hot, she couldn't tell the difference.
Denying the truth was pointless, but admitting it was hard. "I think it's starting."
Ashley hesitated for only a moment before nodding. "You've been through it before."
"Once." The teacup wobbled, so Grace set it down before it could betray her shaking hands. "I didn't know what was happening. No one told me."
"But you know now," Ashley said gently. "Enough to recognize the mating heat?"
"Yes." And she knew how bad it would be when she didn't give in to it. When she couldn't give in to it, even if she wanted to. "It was hard last time. I don't know if I can—I'm not ready."
Ashley reached across the table, just shy of Grace's hand. "If you need more time, Lucas can help you. He can suppress it somehow. I don't know how long he can give you, but he's there if you need him."
She closed the distance and curled her fingers around Ashley's. "They think I'm afraid of them."
"Are you?"
"It's not that simple." And it would never get clearer unless she tried to untangle it. "I don't think they're going to hurt me. But the—the wolf side of me is different. I don't always know what she'll do."
Ashley slid the sugar bowl closer to Grace. "So it's her you're afraid of."
"I don't want to hurt them." Grace choked on a laugh. "They just look at me when I say that, like it's impossible. Like it can't happen. And that scares me."
"You don't trust them to appreciate the danger?"
The Great Lakes pack hadn't, not until she'd cut up enough of them to make the threat she posed crystal clear. "No."
Ashley sighed and stirred her tea. "But you know how they made their money. You know about the fights."
She knew, but she'd never let herself linger over the implications. At first, it had just alarmed her—an entire pack of underground fighters, men who had gotten rich beating other men into the ground.
They made it easy to forget. Oh, maybe not Mac. She never looked at him without remembering that he was capable of instant, terrible violence. But he was controlled and careful—even when he made her nervous, he never made her feel threatened.
The others, though? There was steady, solid Lucas, an alpha who never seemed to viciously remind anyone of his power. And Blake was so smitten with his new mate, it was hard to imagine him hurting anyone except to protect Ashley. Connor was sweet and easygoing, and the final member of the pack, Jud, was as smooth and civilized a man as Grace had ever met.
They didn't seem dangerous on the surface. But they could be—and maybe they understood that she could be, too.
"Okay." She squeezed Ashley's hand again. "I guess I'm just used to being underestimated. I mean, it's not always bad. It kept me alive."
"And alone."
No, being seen for what she was left her alone. While the Great Lakes pack had considered her weak and manageable, they'd been eager to keep her. It was only when her violent side had revealed itself that they'd shoved her into a truck and hauled her across the country, hoping to trade her for someone better.
For Ashley.
If they'd succeeded, they would have discovered that Ashley was no more weak and manageable than Grace. The pack here knew that, and they still wanted her. Even Grace, for all her skepticism, couldn't doubt that.
Maybe they could want Grace, too.
Connor had work to do. Messages to send, allies to contact. Security feeds to hack. Great Lakes wolves to stalk.
And he couldn't stop looking at knives online.
He'd tried everything with Grace. Everything.
Clothes had been a total bust. Ashley smiled with delight when he covered her in packages from designer stores—all the cute sundresses he could find. Grace just blinked at him, offered awkward thanks, and kept wearing her threadbare jeans, tank tops, and sweatshirts.
He'd tried gadgets next, buying her the latest gen everything. A laptop, an iPad, a giant flat-screen TV with a streaming box in case she wanted to rent movies. That reaction had been even worse—wide eyes and absolute panic, and he'd scrambled to cover his mistake by claiming the new stuff was his, and he was only telling her in case she wanted his cast-offs.
Too much. He'd known it, even as he was placing the orders, but he couldn't seem to stop. Ashley's presence had given him a sense of peace, but Grace was the opposite. She made him frantic. He needed to soothe her, make her feel welcome and safe. He needed to make her smile, dammit. Just once.
He'd spent thousands of dollars trying to help her. Mac had managed it with a fifty-dollar hunting knife.
Mac understood her, if not on a conscious level—their talk in the gym had made that clear enough. He saw Grace's skittishness and fear, and his own pain made him see Serena again. Serena, who had been so
fragile, so broken. Fractured in a way Connor knew too well. Her wolf had been a hostile stranger she could never understand.
Grace was different. Her wolf was a part of her, and she didn't even seem to realize it. To Mac, instinct was a given. It was the invisible force that shaped and drove him, welcome and trusted. So Mac looked at Grace's hesitation and saw only her resistance to the messages her wolf whispered.
But Connor saw how clearly she heard those whispers. She was whole and strong, a creature of sharply honed instinct who had always heard the messages, even when she didn't know how to interpret them.
Mac could teach her, the way he'd tried to teach Connor. The failure there rested entirely on Connor's shoulders. His wolf didn't whisper. It said nothing until it screamed, and by that point he was too far gone to do anything but give in to its needs.
It needed Grace.
And Grace needs Mac. Reminding himself didn't help. Connor clicked over to the file where he'd been compiling information for Lucas, but he couldn't focus. The names of the Great Lake pack members blurred together, a list of people with inconsistent paper trails. Data on them was spotty, but it existed—a mistake Lucas had never allowed them to make.
All for nothing now. They had to assume the rest of the Great Lakes pack knew where the lodge was. They had to assume they'd come looking for their missing pack members—and for Grace. More aggressive security measures were on Connor's list of things to accomplish. He couldn't feel the danger coming as clearly as Mac could, but with enough cameras and sensors strategically placed around the property, he wouldn't need to.
He flipped back to his browser, ready to prepare his next equipment order, and hesitated over the knives. Some were as simple as Mac's. Some were expensive, touting steel folded over five hundred times, hand carved handles, a dozen different lengths and designs.
Connor didn't know which might appeal to Grace, or if she even wanted another weapon, but he still couldn't help himself.
He ordered every damn one of them.
Wolves chased Grace through her dreams.
Knowing she was dreaming didn't make it less terrifying. She ran for miles, for years, until her legs were jelly and her breath rattled in and out. Sometimes she ran fast enough to claw out of sleep, but it sucked her back under every time, back into a new town and a new set of crowded streets and dead-end alleys.
But always running.
She skidded down a familiar street and saw her last apartment at the end of the block. Just a shitty studio she paid for by the week, in cash, but no lease meant no records. No one would know to look for her there. She could catch her breath—
Wake up.
Grace raced up the steps and fumbled with the keys that magically appeared in her hand. Behind her, wolves howled. More answered from other directions, a pack converging on her location. Cursing, she jammed the key into the lock and twisted, shoving through the door—
—and into flames.
The building was on fire. She couldn't see it, but she could feel it, heat blasting at her from all sides. She closed her eyes and tried to suck in a breath, sure she'd choke on the smoke.
But there was no smoke. Just heat, throbbing, burning flames. They tickled beneath her skin, and she couldn't outrun them. She would be consumed, reduced to nothingness.
The wolves howled.
Grace shot upright in bed, whimpering as the sheet tangled around her legs. She fought free and rolled from the mattress, coming to her feet with Mac's knife gripped in one fist. The cool air should have soothed her, but she was still burning up.
Not fire. Fever. The mating heat had risen fast and hard, leaving her aching with a need she couldn't deny, not anymore. Not when she was wet and shaking and so turned on she thought it might actually kill her this time.
She craved. It had been easier to resist before, because the Great Lakes pack had stirred only rage and hatred in her. But this was no nebulous, unfocused frustration. The wolves here made her curious. They made her wonder.
Run. Run before you hurt them.
Buffeted by conflicting desires, Grace started for the door. She could go to Lucas. She could do what Ashley had suggested and beg for relief, even just a few hours, long enough to get herself together and get gone.
A solid plan. She wanted to do it. And every step down the hallway jacked her panic higher.
Dazed, she turned. The first step in the opposite direction turned her panic into wary approval. The second sparked anticipation. Two more and she was stumbling, half-running, and she collapsed against Mac's door and banged both fists against it, her whole body trembling.
The door opened, and she pitched forward into a solid body. But it wasn't Mac's scent that curled around her along with a pair of strong arms. She twisted in his grasp, growing frantic as recognition slammed into her.
Connor. Sweet, gentle Connor. And she was wild, out of control—and still gripping her knife.
"Hey, hey." His voice was low, easy. "It's okay, Grace. You're okay."
She was fine, but he wouldn't be. "Mac. I need—" Someone she couldn't hurt. Someone who wouldn't let her hurt anyone else.
"The knife, Grace." He was there, dressed in nothing but his jeans, holding out his hand. "Can you?"
She expected it to be impossible. But she was so desperate to get it away from Connor that she shoved it forward blindly. "Take it, please."
He wrapped strong fingers around the hilt, and another wave of anticipation slammed into her. Her skin burned everywhere, especially where they touched her, Connor's arms and Mac's fingers sparking electricity between them with every glancing brush.
Arousal sharpened, and she shivered.
The knife clattered as he dropped it on the nearest table. Then he slid his hands under her jaw, beneath her hair, his thumbs resting just above the pulse pounding in her throat. "How bad is it?" he asked, his voice soothing and calm, two things she'd never dreamed Mac could be.
"I don't know." But when she pressed her thighs together, they were already slick, and she knew she was lying. She'd never slept with a guy, but she knew about sex. She'd grown up in bars and pool halls, around people who didn't censor themselves just because a kid was in the room.
It was bad. Worse than last time, because Mac and Connor weren't making her furious. She wanted them touching her. She wanted—
"It's okay," Connor whispered again. His voice was rougher this time, not so sweet and gentle. His hand fell to her hip, smoothing her rumpled nightgown, and she almost moaned as the fabric rubbed against her sensitive skin. "Mac will take care of you."
Mac's gaze sharpened, despite the softness—could it be compassion?—in his eyes. "I'll take her to Lucas."
"No." She tore free of Connor's grasp and slammed into Mac. As flushed as she was, his skin still blazed beneath her hands. "I don't want to go."
"Grace—" His hands tightened just shy of pain, and somehow that firm, commanding touch only made her hotter. "It isn't enough that you need this. Not if you don't want it."
Want wasn't a strong enough word. She spread her fingers wide, savoring the smoothness of his shoulder, the contrast between solid muscle and inviting skin. He'd feel so good rubbing against her, hard and soft at the same time.
"Ashley told me," she murmured, tracing her thumb lower, to his chest. He had hair there, coarse and rough. The difference was enough to intoxicate her lust-drunk senses. "About Lucas."
"He can make this stop."
"I know." Her lips were so close to his throat, and she could hear his heart pounding. He was steady and rigidly controlled on the surface, but underneath he wanted, too.
He wanted her.
Giddy with the realization, she swayed closer. To kiss him, to taste him—except when her mouth found his neck, that dangerous darkness boiled up. Before she could stop herself, she moaned—and bit him.
Mac tensed with a sharp growl. Instead of pushing her away, he pulled her closer, high on his thigh as he dragged her nightgown up.
W
hen his fingers met her bare skin, he growled again. "So wet. And you know what that means, don't you, Gracie?"
"That I'm ready." She'd marked him with her teeth, and that thrilled her for some reason. She touched the spot, traced her fingertip over the slowly rising bruise. "I want it this time."
He nipped at her lower lip, catching the soft flesh between his teeth as he hummed his agreement. "Every bit of you. Not just the wolf, but the woman, too."
She'd wanted as a woman before. She'd wanted boys, and her mother had always run them off. Now she understood why.
Human boys couldn't have handled her.
But Mac could. She gripped his arms and went up on her toes, cursing the fabric that separated her from his thigh. She should be rubbing against him, skin-to-skin, wreathing herself in his scent and covering him in hers.
He dropped his head back with a groan. "Connor."
Connor brushed her hair away from her cheek, his body warming her back, his breath so close to her ear she shivered. "Do you want me to stay, Grace?"
The words were easy, casual, as if the answer didn't matter to him. But his heart was pounding, and his hand trembled. He wanted her, too. Even though he was sweet and she wasn't. Even though he'd seen her come to the door with a knife in her hand.
She only had to turn her head a few inches. His mouth brushed her cheek, and then her lips, and it didn't matter that she didn't know how to kiss. When she didn't pull away, he took over with a groan.
Mac stroked her face, then pressed down on her chin, urging her mouth open wider. Connor's tongue swept in, finding hers, and the heat simmering through her exploded into wild, frantic need.
The world swung as they turned her, Mac's hands pressing her into the hard lines of Connor's body before drifting—not down, but up to cup her breasts through the thin gown.
Pleasure sparked through her. She broke away with a gasp, only to find herself staring up into Connor's eyes. He caught her face between his hands and made a soothing noise. Then his touch drifted, past her throat to trace down her arms. "Look at you. So beautiful."