I step back as Jabari’s body begins to change. It starts with his eyes—the green intensifies, becoming almost luminous. His skin ripples, muscles bulging and shifting beneath. There’s a sound like fabric tearing as his clothes shred, unable to contain his expanding form. Bones crack and reform, his spine elongating, his jaw extending into a muzzle. Dark brown fur erupts across his body, covering him completely.
Where Jabari stood moments before, a massive bear now towers. He’s enormous—at least eight feet tall on his hind legs, with paws the size of dinner plates and claws like daggers. His roar is deafening, sending the humans scattering in terror.
The ship tilts more severely now, the deck angling downward. But before Jabari’s bear can take a step, Kade flashes forward with vampire speed. She pushes against his massive chest with strength that seems impossible for someone her size. His claws drag across the deck, leaving deep gouges in the wood as he’s forced back.
Black smoke begins to form around us. It happens so fast I barely process what’s happening. All I hear is Kade’s voice: “Oh hell no, you aren’t staying on this ship, Jackie.”
She grabs my wrist roughly, and suddenly the world dissolves. It’s like being sucked through a straw—my body stretching, compressing, disintegrating. Colors blur and blend, sounds become muted and distorted. There’s a sensation of immense pressure followed by complete weightlessness. My stomach lurches as reality itself seems to bend around me, folding in impossible ways. The air is sucked from my lungs, and for a terrifying moment, I think I’ve ceased to exist.
Then, just as suddenly as it began, it stops. I’m standing in what looks like a police station, the world still spinning around me. My head turns just in time to see Jabari’s bear collapse to the floor in front of me, unconscious.
That’s when it hits me—a feeling like my stomach has been turned inside out and twisted into knots. I clutch my belly and drop to my knees, violently expelling everything in my stomach onto the floor. Wave after wave of nausea crashes over me as my body rejects the impossible journey it just took.
Through watery eyes, I see expensive leather shoes click against the floor. A tall figure towers over me—a white male in an impeccably tailored suit. His short blond hair is styled perfectly, not a strand out of place. When he flashes me a smile, I catch the flash of fangs. His eyes are the same vibrant green as Jabari’s, but colder, more calculating.
“Oh, how nice,” he says, his voice unwavering and charming. “Another daughter of Wintermoon.”
I can only respond by throwing up again.
“He sank my fucking ship,” Kade rants beside me. “A million dollars. You think money grows on trees?”
“Calm down, Kade,” the man says with a bored sigh. “It does for us, actually. That ship is a drop in the bucket. Stop being dramatic.”
“DON’T TELL ME HOW TO FUCKING FEEL!” Kade screams, then vanishes in another cloud of black smoke, leaving me alone with the vampire.
He looks down at me, one perfect eyebrow raised. “I’m Damon, Kade’s older brother. Welcome to Wintermoon.” His eyes flick to the mess I’ve made on his floor. “I’ll go get Leah for help, and a mop.”
He walks away, his movements fluid, leaving me still heaving on the floor beside an unconscious bear shifter.
I just got snatched into Wintermoon. What a shitshow.
12
JACKIE
Ihurl up what little remains in my stomach, the acidic taste burning my throat. My eyes water as I stay hunched over on the floor, not even bothering to look up when another black mystical cloud of smoke begins to whiff and fade around me. The teleportation has done a number on my insides, twisting them in ways human bodies were never meant to experience.
A soft voice, definitely not Kade’s, breaks through my misery. “Oh, you poor thing.”
I tilt my head up, blinking away tears to find a beautiful woman standing over me. She’s wearing a pretty floral dress with an apron tied around her waist, her dark hair pulled into a messy bun that somehow looks intentional rather than chaotic.
Her figure is gloriously curvy, with a curvy figure that make me feel a little less uncertain. When she smiles down at me, her fangs flash briefly—another vampire, but her warm brown eyes hold none of Kade’s sharpness.
“Hi,” she says with a small wave. “I’m Leah.”
Leah. The name clicks in my foggy brain—Kade’s mate, the one she was voice chatting with on the ship. She’s holding asmall plastic bag in one hand while extending the other toward me.
“Here, let me help you up.”
I take her offered hand, surprised when her seemingly delicate frame effortlessly pulls me to my feet in one smooth motion. The room spins momentarily, and I sway.
“Kade’s gotta do better with the hospitality,” she says, steadying me with a gentle touch. “She knows humans don’t handle teleportation well. Are you all empty?”
I clutch my stomach, feeling it contract painfully. “Yes, I think so.”
A sharp sting shoots through my arm, making me wince. The makeshift bandage Kade wrapped around my bullet wound is soaked through with blood, the crimson stain spreading. The sight of it brings back the memory of the bullet tearing through my flesh, and my stomach threatens to rebel again despite being empty.
Leah notices immediately, her brows lifting. “Oh boy, well that explains why Jabari sank the ship.” She shrugs like a sunken cruise liner is just another Tuesday for her.
