Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 73170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73170 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
I’ve got my work cut out for me with Cicely’s father. That much is obvious. He took the keys to my restraints. She came back from retrieving them more emotional than when she left so they had words. And even if I didn’t have the footprint on my ribs I’d still be able to tell by her reaction that he’s amped.
I don’t blame him. If she were my daughter, I’m sure I’d have dragged her away from here kicking and screaming. And I might’ve done more than kick me in the ribs while I was down.
“Message me the footage,” I say. “I want to see it.”
“No good’ll come of that, Jared,” Linc tries.
“He’s right,” my woman agrees, putting her hand on my arm.
“Send it anyway.”
“I’m gonna go find out what Dad said. Be right back.” She storms out.
“Sending it?” I ask Linc.
“I’ll send it when we finish the call. Chew on the Scotland idea for a couple hours. Call me back before you turn in tonight?”
“Yeah. Bye.”
I hang up.
And two minutes later, a video comes in. It’s taking a minute to load.
I’ve set up my camera twice in the past to capture what happens when I shift.
When I reviewed footage after the first time, all I saw was the transformation, what my wolf looks like, and it ran off. The next time, I set up four different trail cams in a forest and got multiple looks at it, including watching it take down a regular alpha wolf after killing three other wolves from that pack, one being the alpha’s female who was trying to protect her mate by putting herself in the line of fire while my wolf tried to get his throat.
And the image of what that looked like was burned into my brain, so much that I had nightmares where instead of my monster ripping into wolves it ripped into my family members. My dreams became my playback of the night my mother and sister died, and I’ve never known if it’s a real memory or a manufactured imagining.
The video Linc sent finally loads and turns my stomach watching myself become that beast, that beast that hurts my female.
The look of fear in her eyes when she faced the camera briefly. It was clear she was trying to talk to it, reason with it. The rage in the monster’s body language as it raked claws across her hand. The blood on her hand. The way those claws shredded the back of the shirt she had on as the two other males moved in.
She comes in while I’m on my third watch of the video.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, then her expression hardens. “I told you not to watch it.”
I throw the phone aside and open my arms wide.
Fuck, I need her. Need to touch her, smell her. Need her to know how much I fuckin’ hate that it hurt her.
She climbs onto my lap and wraps her arms around me.
“Fuck. I’m sorry, Cicely.”
“Stop it. It’s not your fault. Anyway, Dad called for help,” she says, looking relieved. “Not because he wants you locked up and the key thrown away.”
“You look surprised.”
“Yeah.”
I’m surprised, too.
“Dad says there’s no way Mitch is calling you to come there as a trap to put you in prison. Dad asked if he could help.”
“Sure he’s not just saying that because it’s for your own good?”
“My father would never lie to me. Never. If that’s what he was trying to do, he’d admit it. What you see with Lorenzo Oakes is what you get.”
“Good to know. Wish I could say the same about myself.”
Her expression saddens and she wraps her arms tighter around me.
“Your weapon is jabbing me, woman,” I grumble, trying to reposition her on my lap so the taser doesn’t dig into my side.
“Well…” she says, “Your weapon is not jabbing me. And why not?’
She’s good at breaking tension. I laugh. She smiles, watching me laugh.
“Fuck, how’d I end up with you?” I ask, running my nose along her hairline from behind her ear to her temple, taking in her scent, her softness.
She grabs my face with both hands. “It’s about time you got to have a family again. A pack. Someone to love you. You have all that now.”
“If my wolf doesn’t fuck it up…” I add.
“Believe, baby.”
“Tryin’,” I tell her.
And the relief in her gaze is everything. I burn it into my brain, hoping a few brief memories won’t someday be all I’ve got left of her.
“That’s enough.”
“You got the shitty end of the stick, Cicely.”
“Um, no I didn’t. You’re hot. You have a big dick and you use it very well, I might add.”
I laugh.
She keeps going, “Plus you have a cool Airstream and like to travel. There’s also the fact that you’re sigma, meaning all the good stuff an alpha has but without having to look after anybody but me. I kinda dig that. More than kind of. Because I don’t have to share you with a whole pack. Though, if you do decide to help out around here as one of the pack alphas, that’s totally cool, too. Sounds like you have quite a few skills that’ll be useful to help our pack when there’s a need but with your business and your nature, we won’t have to give up freedom, and I don’t have to be mated to a beta. Win-win-win.”