to give a relationship between them a chance, after having fought what was between them for months.
Months that had felt like goddamn years, Jeremy had wanted her so badly.
After he’d left the pack, he’d heard that Danna had gone on to marry a small-brained, chauvinistic jerk, and been miserable ever since. Tonight wasn’t the first time she’d challenged another female—and if her husband’s track record was anything to go by, it wouldn’t be the last. Magnus Gibson was like a dog in heat, slobbering after anything with a pulse.
Jeremy shook his head in disgust. If it was a true match based on love, the males of his kind were never tempted to stray from the loyalty pledged to their wives…but when couples were married without belonging to one another both in heart and soul, well, the rules of nature changed. Sad, but all too true.
“I wonder what the hell’s going on up there.” He cut Cian a questioning look from the corner of his eye, but the Irishman lifted one shoulder in a hell-if-I-know gesture, his attention warily focused on the warm glow of light up ahead.
“Whatever it is, I’ve got a bad feeling about it,” the Runner grunted, a deep crease seated between his ebony brows.
“Yeah. Me, too.”
When a new voice, soft and smoky and lilting, rang out through the night, Jeremy nearly tripped over the gnarled root of a sprawling oak tree. “For the last time, Danna, I did not touch your mate.”
Oh, hell. The voice behind those words knocked the air from his lungs like a vicious kick to the chest. Jeremy slammed to a jarring stop, while senses already sharpened to precision revved into overdrive. His mind didn’t want to accept it, but his body knew the truth.
It was her.
Jillian.
He was close enough to scent the damning details now, everything narrowing into a concentrated focus that had him pulling in angry gulps of air, greedy for every drop he could take in. The sensory intake was shocking and almost painful in its intensity, the heat of her lush little body, all hot and angry from battle, nearly doubling him over, while panic suddenly had him exploding into action.
He shoved a low-hanging branch out of his way, wondering what the hell she’d gotten herself into this time. Even though Jillian had the blood of a wolf flowing through her veins, the fact she was witch made it impossible for her to shape-shift. Danna was twice Jillian’s size and as vicious as a pit bull, not to mention underhanded—no doubt the Lycan was cheating like hell.
And what in god’s name was Jillian doing fighting one of her own wolves?
Vaguely aware of Cian at his side, Jeremy’s booted feet moved faster with the speed of his thoughts, until he finally broke through the last yards of the forest at a full run, erupting onto the edge of the clearing in a blur of movement. Then he nearly staggered to his knees, his legs all but crumpling beneath him as he took in the scene playing out before him like some kind of macabre nightmare.
Jillian Murphy stood in the center of the Challenge Circle—beautiful, brave and bleeding.
And she was about to die.
Chapter 2
Jillian glanced his way for a startled second, before jerking her attention back to Danna. Jeremy realized that although shock had dried up his ability for speech—leaving a gaping hole of cold, jarring disbelief in its place—he’d made a sound. A dry, choking kind of noise, like a wounded animal. It didn’t matter that she was covered in dirt and sweat, her temple bloodied and her left cheek scraped raw. She was perfect and sexy and a part of him. Hate. Hurt. Pain. In that moment, none of the injustices of the past mattered.
My mate, he thought with a possessive snarl, realizing that he was growling low in his throat, drawing curious stares from the members of the pack who had gathered to watch. “Did you know about this?” he growled, cutting an accusing look at Cian. “Did you know Jillian was fighting?”
The Irishman arched one dark brow. “Do you think I’d have been late getting to the Alley and almost missed seeing something like this if I did?” the Runner drawled with a slow smile. “Not bloody likely, boyo.”
“Just keep your damn eyes off her. I don’t want you looking at her.”
“And how do you plan on stopping me?” Cian laughed, clearly goading him.
“Don’t push me,” he warned in a deadly rasp, working his jaw. “Not tonight, Hennessey.”
No, tonight he had no control. It’d just been stripped away by the sight of Jillian Murphy engaged in mortal combat with a Lycan.
It was painfully obvious he was going to lose her—but he couldn’t grasp the concept, like something slippery and slick that kept wriggling through his fingers. He struggled to get his mind around it, but he might as well have tried to grasp an ethereal trail of smoke, or the puffy white confection of a cumulus summer cloud set within the deep rich blue of the sky.
None of this was right! Had everyone in the pack lost their goddamn minds? Spirit Walkers did not fight their own wolves. To challenge a witch was one of the greatest taboos throughout all of Lycan culture, right up there along with eating your neighbors and shape-shifting in the middle of Time’s Square on New Year’s Eve. If the wolves were expected to survive in the modern world, rules had to be followed. If they weren’t, their way of life would come crashing down around them faster than a house of cards.
No, Lycans didn’t challenge their own Spirit Walkers. Jillian might be wolf in spirit, but her body was all too vulnerable when it came to physical demands. Even in her human shape, Danna towered over Jillian’s lithe five-five frame. And Jeremy had no doubt that Danna would press her physical advantage.
As if spurred by his thoughts, the Lycan’s hands shed their human shape, transforming into lethal, claw-tipped weapons. Danna pulled back one powerful arm, then lurched forward, her claws cutting through the air like a scythe, aiming straight for the vulnerable flesh of Jillian’s pale throat. Jeremy felt his heart drop, a primal shout of outrage trapped in his chest as he waited for the fatal blow he was helpless to stop. But the death strike never came. At the last second, Jillian dropped to the ground and rolled, avoiding the vicious slash of Danna’s long, deadly claws.
Danna quickly lunged, leaping for Jillian before she could scramble to her feet. Again, Jeremy expected to see her ripped by the Lycan’s claws, but Jillian threw up her arms, palms out, as if to hold off her attacker…and Danna’s body slammed to a jarring halt. The air between the two women sparked with a pale blue electrical charge that sizzled, crackling like oil in a pan, while the air filled with the scent of burnt ozone.
Feeling as if he’d been cracked across the forehead with a two-by-four, Jeremy stared, stunned to witness how Jillian’s powers had grown since she was a girl of eighteen.
“Well, now. She looks like a right handful,” Cian murmured, slapping him on the shoulder, his wide mouth curled in a devil’s smile. “I almost envy you,” he added, the words softened by the Irishman’s low, lyrical laughter.
“Piss off,” Jeremy grunted, which only made the Runner laugh harder.
In the circle, Danna flexed her claws at her sides, shoulders hunched, her tangled hair all but standing on end in her rage. “Using your powers is cheating!” she snarled.
“And shifting your hands isn’t?” Jillian panted, rolling to her feet, her wary gaze fixed on the woman determined to kill her. Danna made a low, chuffing noise and stepped slowly to the side, her movements mirrored by Jillian, who Jeremy noticed was carefully keeping the Lycan in front of her.
She couldn’t afford to let Danna catch her unawares. Already, blood trickled down her left arm from an ugly gash that slashed across her bicep. Impatiently, Jillian wiped at the wound, smearing the crimson color over her pale skin. From there, Jeremy’s gaze traveled over her body, lingering on the sexy strip of glistening bare abdomen revealed between the low waistband of her shorts and the hem of