Chapter 2

      Forty-five minutes later, Wyatt stood with his shoulders propped against the thick trunk of an ancient pine, waiting just inside the dark line of the wooded park that bordered the back of the meticulously kept house before him. Silvery rays of rain-dampened moonlight bathed the small home in an ethereal glow, giving it a spectral appearance, like an apparition rising from the mist. The rain wasn’t heavy, the trees shielding him from the pattering drops, but the rumble of thunder promised that another storm was on its way—which meant he was in for a long, wet night.

      Doing his best to ignore the thick weight of sexual hunger keeping him company, Wyatt used his wolf eyes as he kept watch over the silent house, noting the personal touches that he knew were the work of the woman who lived there. The lavender trim had to have been Elise’s doing, as well as the vivid red rose bushes that climbed the white walls. Everywhere he looked, there were little sparks of her personality that set the house apart from its neighbors, much like the woman herself.

      Even in a pack full of preternatural werewolves, Elise Drake stood out as something vivid and bright and unique, no matter how hard she tried to hide it.

      She was shimmering and white-hot to the touch, and yet, she worked so hard to conceal herself beneath a cold, excessively controlled exterior. Struggled to cut herself off from the world, as if she needed no one to help her along the way.

      On the one hand, Wyatt still savored the memory of how she’d felt in his arms, somehow better than any other woman he’d ever held before. Soft and lush, despite her nerves, with the mouthwatering scent of her body filling his head; the sensation had been richer, deeper...and impossibly sweeter than anything he’d ever experienced. Something that he knew would keep him up in the quiet hours of the night, when his body craved the feel of her curves beneath him, cushioning his heavy thrusts, welcoming him into the slick, clutching depths of her body. He loved that she wasn’t a little stick-and-bones wisp of a woman. Loved her shape and her height and the way that she fit against him.

      On the other hand, he couldn’t ignore the frustrating fact that she deserved a man who could give her a hell of a lot more than he could. One who wasn’t riddled with the guilt of his sins. Who could hold her through the night after losing himself in her beautiful body. Who could offer her everything, instead of something that would most likely end in a bitter nothing for both of them. But fate was a fickle bastard, and he was done arguing with himself about it. Elise wasn’t someone he could ignore or forget. Staying away from her wasn’t an option, and though he’d promised her patience, he wanted her now.

      Ever since the night of Max Doucet’s Novitiate’s ceremony, Wyatt had known she was his. A rogue wolf had bitten Max because of his sister’s association with the Runners, and the purpose of the ceremony had been to determine whether or not the teenager would survive his first change. In a surprising act of loyalty to the Bloodrunners, Elise and her brother had sided with the half-breed hunters that night, standing against their sadistic father and his maniacal plans.

      It had been a macabre, hellish scene, and yet, Wyatt hadn’t been able to take his focus off the woman standing no more than a handful of feet away from him. The late-autumn winds had raged, whipping the thick, shimmering strands of her dark red hair against the perfect angles of her face, pulling her shirt tight against the womanly curves of her body. The violent gusts had surrounded him with her warm, intoxicating scent, creating a reaction in his body from which he doubted he would ever recover.

      Take. Keep. Mine. Those three guttural words had echoed through his head over and over, too many times to count. Primal, raw and savagely possessive.

      But while Elise Drake’s scent might have told him she was meant to be his, body and soul, he wasn’t going to allow that knowledge to rule his life. Even if his past had been...different, that wasn’t something he would just accept. And he wasn’t looking to make her the answer to his problems, as if saving her could save him from the mistakes he’d made. This wasn’t a goddamn do-over. He just wanted to protect her. To hear her laugh. See her smile. And be there when she finally realized there were still things in life worth living for, rather than just existing.

      She’d arrived home only a handful of minutes ago, and as she moved past one of the back windows, Wyatt couldn’t help but follow the lines of her body with his gaze, appreciating the graceful, sensual way that she moved. Tension gripped him, and it took a significant force of effort to hold his position. He was debating whether or not to move in closer, when his cell phone silently vibrated in his pocket; a quick glance at the number told him it was Carla. Knowing she was going to rib him over his dance with Elise, he choked back a curse and quietly answered the phone. “What’s up?”

      Carla’s husky laughter filled his ear. “And here I was wondering if I should be asking you the same thing.”

      “Cute,” he muttered with a snort.

      “I know, huh? But believe it or not, I had a reason to call beyond trying to get a rise out of you. A set of scouts on the south border called in saying they saw something. They tried to track it, but the rain that was coming down made it impossible. Just thought you might want to know, seeing as how your lady bird is in that vicinity.”

      Wyatt glanced at his watch. “When did the call come in?”

      “They phoned it into the command center in Shadow Peak about an hour ago. Guess the guys on duty figured we were all too busy with the wedding to pass it along. And before you freak, a bunch of us are already on our way up to talk to them. We’ll make sure they never make the same mistake again.”

      He grunted in response, wishing like hell that Eric had been able to convince Elise to relocate to the Alley. The siblings had argued about it for days, after Eric had permanently moved into one of the cabins there with Chelsea. But for some reason the stubborn woman refused to leave her home, even when so many of the townspeople continued to treat her like shit simply because of what had happened with her old man.

      He started to get a bad feeling in his gut. “You think someone’s sneaking around on Silvercrest land again?” The last time it’d happened, they’d nearly had their asses handed to them.

      “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Carla responded, while the guys in the vehicle with her talked in the background. “Every pack on the eastern seaboard knows we’re still recovering from Daddy Drake’s bullshit. They’ll all come sniffing around eventually, just to test us. The Silvercrest have been dominant for too long now not to have a long list of Lycans who’d like nothing more than to see us tumble.”

      Lifting his free hand, he rubbed at the knots of tension in the back of his neck. “We’ve already tumbled.”

      “Yeah, but we’re still on our land. Trust me, there’s going to be someone who wants to try to change that fact, if for nothing more than the bragging rights. The pack that knocks out the Silvercrest, even when we’re not at our best, will be one that makes others cower. After what happened between Eric and the Whiteclaw a few weeks ago, you know those bastards have to be drooling for it.”

      Wyatt didn’t doubt that she was right. Eric had met his human wife while she was searching for her younger sister, Perry. Making a bad choice, Perry had gone chasing after the wrong guy and ended up falling in with the Whiteclaw pack who lived to the south of the Silvercrest. With the Runners’ help, Eric had been able to prove that the Whiteclaw had partnered up with the Donovans, a corrupt local Lycan family, on a number of illegal activities, the most horrific being one that involved human girls. With the Donovans’ support, the Whiteclaw had been drugging the girls and pimping them out for Lycan gang rapes. The drugs not only acted as an aphrodisiac on the girls, but also