Chapter One
Joanna
I stared at the phone in my hands, reading the text from James for the twentieth time.
We need to talk about your sister, Joey.
I’d been doing a great job keeping the tears at bay, but this time, I failed at repressing my shudder. And as I expected, the Alpha stirred beside me.
I never thought teaming up with a werewolf to solve a string of human murders would lead to me banging one, enjoying it, and sticking around… but here we were: With a complication that made no damn sense—no matter how hard I tried to untangle and justify it.
The king bed, which barely contained Marcus’s large frame, groaned under his body of corded, honed muscle. He rolled over to face me, amber eyes glowing in the darkness as he studied my expression.
“What’s wrong?” His low rumble was still thick with sleep yet already laced with a protective edge that made butterflies flutter in my stomach.
I searched within myself for a simple answer before I finally responded with a shrug. “It was only a nightmare, Blackwood. I’m fine.”
As long as I remembered to breathe.
It was all so strange because the damn nightmare wasn’t new—I’d live with it for five years. It used to make me strong, but now…
Marcus’s eyes sharpened, the wolf within him stirring from my lie. But he reached out, tracing the line of my jaw with his fingertips, and the tender touch softened the dangerous glint in his eyes. “Then lie back down with me,” he murmured.
After the battle with the rogues, I’d spent the last few nights by Marcus’s side. Most were at my safe house—a comforting neutral ground—but tonight, I gave in to his coaxing, and we were at his pack compound.
But honestly… there was no way he was comfortable all those nights in my queen-sized bed when he barely fit his own.
I placed the phone on the nightstand and scooted down into the massive mattress, pulling the silk sheets up to my neck.
Marcus watched me shiver, and his frown became a small smile. “The covers wouldn’t be so cold if you’d been using them.” He wrapped an arm around my stomach and dragged me closer until his mouth nuzzled my neck. “How long have you been awake?”
I swallowed; an almost imperceptible gesture. “Not long,” I said.
“Liar.” He placed a soft kiss on my neck. The warmth of his body seeped into my sensitive skin, banishing the chill from the sheets. His breath was hot against my flesh, caressing me with every word he whispered. “Your heart is racing, Joanna.”
“What do you expect when you’re doing that, asshole?” I retorted sharply.
I couldn’t hide the hitch in my breath as his lips brushed against my skin once more.
“You might be able to fool your hunters into thinking you’re invulnerable, but that doesn’t work on me.” His hand found its way onto my stomach, splaying his fingers as it traveled up to cup my breast.
“I needed a moment to think,” I protested, trying to dismiss his already waning concern while controlling the cadence of my voice.
Marcus pulled back, and I felt his eyes on me as I kept my gaze glued to the ceiling. “You needed to think at,”—he glanced at the clock on my side of the bed—“3:11 in the morning?”
I huffed. “Maybe I was thinking how it’s impossible to sleep with all your snoring.”
Marcus chuckled, the sound low and intimate in the darkness. “Your headscarf might be on too tight, Miss Sullivan, because we both know which one of us snores.”
I gave him a playful shove and admired as the moonlight highlighted the silver streak in his hair.
“Fine. Maybe…” I paused, brushing the lock from his forehead and wondering how much of the truth I would share.
“Maybe I was thinking about how nice it is to have somebody next to you… when a nightmare scares you awake.”
Marcus’s hand continued its exploration, tracing the curve of my waist. “Was it about Latoya?” he wondered, and the blood left my face.
I’d flinched at the sound of my sister’s name, and Marcus knew better than to wait for my answer.
“I’m interrogating her again today… in case you wanted to join me this time?” he offered, his tone soothing and comforting all at once.
My sister, whom I’d believed dead for years, was alive.
Only… she wasn’t the same person I’d mourned.
The woman who bore my sister’s face was now a werewolf; and after being rounded up at the end of the battle with the rogues, she and her filthy comrades were prisoners of Marcus Blackwood, Alpha of the Blackwood Pack.
Detective James Cooper saw something in me the night we met, and he took a chance telling me a truth so many humans didn’t know. James’s pig-headed partner sure as hell didn’t know it.
That werewolves were real. And we were the sheep.
The revelation left me raw and uncertain, but next to James, vengeance was such a formidable teacher. And in a few years—earlier than most—I earned my tattoo, the mark of a hunter.
But what are you supposed to do when you learn the sister responsible for you becoming a killer is the very thing you’re trained to kill? The thing you despise?
“No,” I finally whispered. The thing I used to despise. “…But thanks for asking.”
Marcus nodded, the menacing glimmer in his eyes finally extinguished to leave a soft understanding in its place. He pulled me closer, sliding one arm under my neck and draping the other over my body.
“Whenever you’re ready, Joanna,” he said lowly. “There’s no rush.”
The sincerity in his voice suppressed the shame gnawing at me from the inside. The words were dangerously comforting and all types of wrong, but I felt them all the way to my core.
I turned to lie on my side and nestled my back against Marcus’s chest. He kissed my neck while exhaling through his nose, his warm breath on my skin making me shudder… So, he did it again. His light snort that followed in lieu of my reaction sent heat pounding between my legs.
He kissed me one last time. It was brief—his way of letting me know he was done toying with me. “Go back to sleep,” he whispered.
But he knew damn well I couldn’t after that. And especially not when his dick was twitching against my ass.
So, I arched my back and began rolling my hips.
Marcus groaned as his erection grew. He buried his face in my neck and shook his head. “Okay. Okay, Joanna. I’m sorry,” he rasped.
It didn’t matter. He started this… and I needed it.
“What are you sorry for, Marcus?” I taunted, keeping my voice low and breathy.
He moved his hand from over my stomach to grab my hip, pulling me closer to grind against me. “For teasing you,” he breathed.
“Ah.” I smirked. “And if I don’t let you fuck me right now, Alpha, how sorry will you be then?” I removed his hand from my waist and placed it between my parted legs.
Marcus needed no instructions. With a moan, he coated two fingers in my arousal.
“Damn, you’re already so wet for me,” he praised, rubbing my clit.
Without warning, he added more pressure, making my back arch.
“But to answer your question… would you like to see who begs for it first?” He thrust his fingers inside me, eliciting a cry from my lips. “Not looking too good for the hunter.”
I laughed through the pleasure. “Fuck you, Blackwood.”
“Ask nicely.”
Although my mind was still racing, our banter gave me something new to focus on. I would never confess the influence he had on my stability, but I suspected he already knew.
My first orgasm made me squeeze my eyes shut, and I bit my lip—not giving the Alpha the satisfaction of hearing me cry out. I stopped writhing against him, waiting for the wave to fall.
“Shit, Joanna,” he whispered. “Next time you come, it needs to be on my tongue.”
My walls stopped clenching around his fingers, and he pulled them out to dive under the covers before I grabbed his wrist.
“Alpha,” I said sweetly, though it came out in a ragged breath, “fuck me.”
“Hmm,” he mused. “That’s a far cry from begging. Why does your request sound more like you’re giving an alpha an order?”
“Because it wasn’t a damn—”
Marcus’s hand disappeared from between my legs. He grabbed onto my thigh, lifting it for better access to my dripping pussy before he shoved in, groaning as he filled me. I gasped at the sudden intrusion.
At first, his thrusts were slow. Sensual. I felt every pull and every push with an intensity that made me glad he caved first, because shit… I would’ve begged if I had another five seconds.
He soon picked up speed, pounding me harder from behind, just the way I liked it. My hands massaged my breasts, and I squeezed my nipples, giving the aching buds the relief they desperately needed.
No one filled me the way Marcus did. Nobody’s voice set me on fire quite like his either. It was a problem—a complication that I knew I’d also have to face eventually.
But right now, all I wanted to do was come on his dick.
He went from breathing into the crook of my neck to kissing my shoulder. His canines grazed my skin, and I instantly grew dizzy. But that was fucking dangerous—that shit should not turn me on.
I tried not to moan. “Put your wolf away, Alpha,” I warned.
Marcus said nothing, but I didn’t feel his teeth on my neck again… only his lips. And his tongue. And his hot breath from each of his grunts. Everything culminating into one giant aphrodisiac of him.
I cried out, unable to take more. My body convulsed against him as I came undone. He followed right behind me, as if he’d been trying to last until I found my release before claiming his and just barely made it.
Our pants filled the silence. Marcus swallowed hard before drawing in a heavy breath. “I love…” He pulled another breath, the slight pause sending my heart to my stomach. “Every sound, Joanna,” he finished.
Crisis averted.
“Every fucking sound you make when I’m inside you. Even when you bite that lip of yours to prevent yourself from screaming my name.” His chuckle bounced around in the dark.
He withdrew from me but refused to move from where we lay, entangled in each other’s limbs. Instead, his arms tightened around me, pinning me against his sweaty chest.
I burrowed into his embrace and waited until he fell asleep.
Alone in the bathroom, I kept the lights off as I crept toward the sink, the moonlight casting harsh shadows on my naked body. I splashed cold water on my warm face, allowing it to run down my neck—onto the delicate spots that Marcus knew so well.
He shouldn’t have known them at all.
The me five years ago would’ve ended this fucking complication before it began.
The me five years ago would’ve confronted my sister and demanded an explanation.
The me five years ago… would’ve known I couldn’t avoid problems forever…
I had to face them.
And through blood, sweat, and fucking tears, I did face them and became a hunter unlike no other, damn it.
So, calm the fuck down, Joanna. I had to get my shit together and face the facts.
Marcus was a werewolf, and I enjoyed fucking him.
My sister was alive, and she was also a werewolf.
Part of the uprising. A danger to humanity, and eventually…
James would demand I put a silver bullet between her eyes.