Covet

| Disperser

The pale moonlight streamed through the half-open window. The wait for Paul to return had lasted a lifetime and with every hour the clock elapsed, he still had not returned as promised.

A subtle shift in the air stirred me from a shallow slumber. My skin erupted with goosebumps. I propped herself up on her elbows and scanned the room with heavy-lidded eyes.

"Paul?" I squinted, seeking out any anomaly, but found nothing amiss. With a soft sigh, I allowed my head to sink back into the pillow. Suddenly, a rough hand clamped over my mouth. Panic surged through my veins as I writhed beneath the weight of someone. Another hand pressed a blade against the tender skin of my belly. Whoever it was, knew about the baby. I stilled instantly.

The window ledge outside was a good ten feet off the ground, an impossible feat for any normal man. How had they managed to enter so effortlessly? The realization that this was no ordinary intruder sent a fresh wave of dread coursing through my veins.

My eyes connected with Antoine, his grip ironclad. He'd finally found me.

"Dana, is everything alright?" Carlyle called from outside the door.

Antoine's eyes gleamed as he leaned closer, his breath hot against my ear. Then, as if to punctuate his unspoken warning, the knife edged deeper, just enough to elicit a sharp inhale from me, a bead of crimson blooming against the tip of his knife.

With deliberate care, Antoine eased the pressure on my mouth, granting me just enough freedom for a response, the blade remaining against my flesh and my baby. My mind raced, calculating the risk of truth against the potential cost of silence.

I let the falsehood echo through the stillness of her room. "Everything's fine."

Antoine's lips curled into a sinister smile and for the first ever time, I saw the amber halo's in his eyes.

How was that possible? I had met him back in Georgia where he had first approached me. I had taken his money willingly and with absolute fear of what he could do should I not be able to repay it. And he did his utmost to increase the cost of payback at every turn. Anytime I paid, the price shot up. It had never been about the money.

Antoine was a wolf.

"A lone one," he answered out loud. "For hire, at the right price. The deed? Find Dana Delane and get her back to Benton. Worked a treat, didn't it? Although, it was never clear, until now, that you inherited more from your grandmother than the freckles on your face."

"By whose orders?"

"Luke incited your return to town, not Lucille. As a last resort to draw her out... for burning."

A cold understanding settled over me. Luke wanted Lucille dead. Only then could he be the pack's true Alpha by ascension and not default—a stand-in.

Luke's deception was deeper than I could ever have imagined. And Antoine, the wolf in man's clothing, for hire, right from the first day I had met him. Orchestrated. The whole damn lot of it.

I was supposed to draw her back out of fear for her last living descendant. It had worked. What neither Luke nor Antoine had banked on was the bloodline, skipping a generation with my father, only to land firm on my shoulders.

"But now I have you here, Luke may be a current Alpha..." His canines began to elongate. "That doesn't mean I don't have a shot at claiming that title for myself, even with that bastard in your belly. There are ways of resolving that unborn problem."

He would live to regret harming my child if he ever dared try.

My skin tingled before I even registered what was happening. My wolf demanded his blood for every ounce of pain he had ever caused me. In mere seconds, I shifted, lunging toward Antoine's throat with a death grip of my own around his neck until I heard a snap, his body going limp in my mouth.

I scuttled back on the bed, startled. What had I done? I just killed a man. What you had to do. For your pack, a voice from within reaffirmed, and it was right. Antoine was a threat, now my sights would need to settle on Luke.

My eyes landed on the window, the same spot Antoine had come through. Without even changing, I fled out of the window and out into the forest. In my wolf form, I followed the scent of woodsmoke and rain-soaked earth into Luke's cabin. It took every ounce of resolve to push the wolf down inside of me as I shifted back, before letting myself in.