Total pages in book: 203
Estimated words: 199654 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 998(@200wpm)___ 799(@250wpm)___ 666(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199654 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 998(@200wpm)___ 799(@250wpm)___ 666(@300wpm)
She’s frowning. And her eyes are active. She’s putting things together, I think.
She looks at her arm, at the IV that’s attached. Her eyes move to the stacks of medical supplies on the table. She swings her legs over, as if to get up but reaches between her legs. There’s a hose there. A catheter.
Her expression hardens. I know my phone is in this chair somewhere, I just had it, so I’m feeling around for it.
“What do you mean sedated? Am I wearing a… a… diaper?”
“I can call Cat or your mom and put her on speaker for you.”
“Where’s my phone?” she mumbles, disoriented.
“I have no idea,” I say as I continue to feel around for my phone. Finally, I hear it hit the rug underneath.
“They left me with you?”
Awkward.
“I’m just lending a hand.”
I’ve called Cat’s line. It’s ringing.
Her expression sours. “Of all people?”
Something changes in her expression. Her nostrils are flared. “You’re mated to my brother.”
She’s looking at my neck.
The sourness on her face starts to take that turn, the turn I’ve seen so many times I’ve lost count. It always starts out like this, with her looking me over like she finds me disgusting. The next step is for her expression to twist into something sinister before she’ll say or do something cruel.
“Hello, Bailey!” Cat answers her phone.
“Sherry’s awake,” I say with urgency. “I’m alone with her.”
“Shit,” Cat says.
“Oh, I bet you’re happy, aren’t you?” Sherry sneers.
Yep. The sinister sneer has arrived.
“Finally snagged yourself the alpha of your dreams, huh? While I got stuck with… with…” Her expression crumbles and she’s suddenly hyperventilating and holding her stomach.
“I’m calling Jase now,” I tell Cat.
“On my way,” Cat replies.
I’m calling Jase, but end the call after just one ring because I remember Jase’s phone is at home and he’s not.
The council alphas are probably together, maybe still shifted, I don’t know, so I call my dad. If he’s home, he’ll be here in less than five minutes.
I think she’s remembering. She’s remembering what she did.
“No,” she says, looking down. “No fucking way.”
I don’t think she’s talking to me.
Dad answers his phone cheerily. “Hey there, Mrs. Creed!”
“Dad, can you get to the Creeds’ quickly? Sherry woke up and I could use some assistance here.”
Sherry’s eyes change, maybe because of what I just said, and she’s pulling her IV out, undressing, and fuck! She’s shifting.
“Shit!” I shriek as my phone is knocked from my hand by Sherry’s brown and gray wolf, who jumps me, growling, teeth bared.
As I’m landing on the carpet, claws swipe across my face with an instant burn. She’s on top of me, growling in my bleeding face. Her teeth are massive and very sharp-looking from this angle. But her eyes are filled with anger, with calculation.
An internal alarm bell is going off. Knowledge. She wants me dead. She’s going to kill me.
Her tongue swipes out and tastes the blood that drips from my face. Her eyes change. Yes, the angry female in predator mode? She’s just tasted my blood and she wants more.
I only just got Jase. I have children in my future. Jase’s children. Bookshelves with a rolling ladder and a trip to Italy kissing under the stars on a Venetian gondola with runs in the forest together as wolves and his dimples and I can’t let her fucking kill me!
The panic spikes even higher in my bloodstream, so high I nearly miss the sensation of bubbles bursting in my chest, but the sensation becomes bigger than the panic and suddenly I see muffled light and know my wolf is struggling to get out of the tangle of my clothes surrounding her small form.
As she gets free, I see the surprise in Sherry’s wolf’s eyes.
My wolf growls at her.
Sherry’s wolf looks baffled for a second but then her lip curls revealing those giant teeth, which now drip with saliva. She closes in, definitely still in predator mode, ready to attack despite my much smaller size.
There’s a sudden crash in the room as well as inside my chest that I quickly know the source for because Jase is here, shouting a deep and guttural, “Don’t you fucking dare!” as he’s grabbing her wolf by the scruff and physically whipping her across the room.
Sherry’s wolf yelps as she hits the wall and falls limply to the floor behind her hospital bed.
“Submit!” he shouts.
She immediately bares her neck and belly.
My wolf growls and lunges, running and sprinting into the air, getting a mouthful of fur, going at Sherry’s wolf’s throat. I get the strange sensation she thinks Jase is presenting it to her for her to ruin, but before she’s got more than the mane of fur in her mouth, Jase is quickly plucking her up into the air by the scruff.
My wolf growls and snarls, snapping jaws in Sherry’s direction, but Sherry shifts to her human form and curls into a ball.