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“You can’t reject her,” Hazel said. “Your wolf won’t let you.”
“Why do you want me to be with her so badly?!”
“Because I want you to be happy!”
“Why?! I’ve been nothing but a dick to you all your life.”
“Because I love you,” she said. “Because you deserve it, even though you think you don’t. Ember can and will make you happy. She’ll make you strong. We can find another way to defeat this curse. I know it.”
“There is no other way.”
“Yes, there is.”
“No, there’s not.”
“Yes, there is! I’m working on it with Dr. Yoder!”
“What the fuck do you mean, you’re working on it with Dr. Yoder?” I snarled. “There is no other way to get rid of the curse. The Moon Goddess hasn’t lifted it. She doesn’t want us to get rid of it. We must do as the curse orders to break it.”
“No, we can get rid of it another way,” Hazel said. “I know it. Please, trust me.”
“We don’t have time to wait,” Linda said to me. “We need you to be strong now.”
“Shut the fuck up, you bitch,” Hazel growled.
My eyes widened because Hazel never talked like that to Linda’s face. Silas chuckled as Linda’s face turned bright red. She lunged at my sister, who lunged back, grabbing a fistful of Linda’s hair and ripping it right out of her head.
But Hazel didn’t have a single chance against Linda.
I peered back at Silas, expecting him to handle it, as I had ordered him, but he was watching Hazel pitch a fit and rip out Linda’s hair while chuckling, as if he approved. I growled, shoved myself between them, and forced them apart.
“You’re both acting like pups. I told you both to drop it. We don’t have time for—”
The door suddenly opened, and Matt stepped into the room, a grim look on his face. “Alpha, the River Pride Pack is back … and they’re not alone.”
Chapter Forty
Ember
I dipped my paintbrush into some black paint and placed the tip against the canvas, finishing up some detail in the background. After Hazel had left, I tried to continue this painting because I really needed to send out this commission soon.
My stomach growled, and I glanced at the pathway that led toward Java.
Cade hadn’t returned. Neither had my brother. And I was beyond hungry.
Once I set the brush down and put the canvas inside the house in case it rained, I grabbed my keys and headed toward the path. Cade had told me not to leave the house anymore without him, but I was feeling bratty today.
Between that hoe and the other one who had stormed out of my bedroom earlier, I didn’t feel like following orders. My stomach had been begging me for some banana bread since this morning, and Cade hadn’t gotten me any.
An actual hoe for that, SMH.
Wolves howled in the distance toward Davix’s property, and I decided to take the longer way that didn’t head in that direction at all. I didn’t want to see that alphahole right now, and it sounded like they were out in the woods, training.
From behind, someone slapped a hand over my mouth and pulled me against their hard chest. I inhaled sharply against the callous hand that nearly fit around my entire jaw, the warmth gathering between my thighs.
One of them had caught me … and now they’d punish me for it.
For all those thoughts about not wanting to see them, bratty Ember surely couldn’t wait.
