“See,” she said, too annoyed to care that her voice came out whiny and high, “now why can’tyoujustwork—"
—and then the sound came.
Tires crunching on gravel.
The flame wobbled piteously.
Layla froze, her eyes growing wide.
No. It was too soon. They weren’t supposed to be back yet.
She listened, not daring to breathe. The night outside was silent. But then, another crunch, closer. Laughter floating through the window. Multiple voices, deep and loud.
Her blood went cold.
Theodore. And the others.
Layla shot to her feet so fast she grazed her knee on the ratty old carpet. Panic clawed at her throat. She grabbed the candle first, blowing it out in one desperate breath. Smoke rose instantly, thick and sweet and damning. She waved it with both hands, but it only spread, the pine scent curling around her like a warning.
Her heart thundered in her ears. Multiple books lay scattered across her floor. A salt circle gleamed on her altar tray, the pure white disrupted by the multiple herbs she’d mixed in.
Boots hit the porch, the low tones of her brother and his friends growing louder.
“Shit,” she whispered, frantic, “shit, shit, shit—ow!”
She’d half-tripped as she stooped to gather the incriminating evidence, knocking her knee against her bedpost. Without worrying about the potential mess, she dumped the salt mix into a satin bag, tying it shut.
Smoke still curled around the room. She waved her arms about, kicking the grimoires under her bed, shoving several blankets in after them, desperate to conceal the scent of leather and herbs.
She could hear keys in the lock, a metallic jangle, and she quickly spun about, chest heaving, desperate to see if she’d missed anything.
The lock was jamming; she could hear Theodore swearing at the broken mechanism, the jeering laughter of his friends.
Without pausing to think through the consequences, she thundered down the stairs and spilled into the kitchen, racing to the cupboards. As the lock finally clicked open, she wrenched open the cupboard door and grabbed a pot of loose-leaf herbal tea, dumping nearly half the contents into a mug. As the frontdoor slammed open, the thick scent of rose and jasmine clogged in her nostrils, and she muttered a prayer that it would be enough.
Wolves had strong noses, after all.
“Still awake, Layla?” Theodore called, kicking his muddy boots off as he strode into the kitchen. “Christ, have you got enough tea there, d’ya reckon?”
She swallowed reflexively. “I…I spilled it, I was just…”
Her words died in her throat. The other boys were following close behind Theodore. Leonid. Rhett.
Dominic Volkhov.
He didn’t say a word as he stepped through the doorway, but his presence immediately overwhelmed the room. The son of the Alpha never needed to so much as speak to command attention. He simplyexisted, and the rest of the world accommodated him.
Layla’s fingers curled around the edge of the counter.
His eyes tracked across the room, the edge of a sneer pulling at his lip. Then, his gaze fell on her. And stilled.
All the breath left her lungs.
He was, without a doubt, the most painfully beautiful male she’d ever seen. He always had been. Sure, Leonid was the golden boy, the shining angel-faced heartbreaker. Arthur, the young alpha of the neighboring Norden Pack, had a savage wildness to him that she’d always found alluring. Even her brother, she had to admit, had a certain rough-and-tumble charm with his chestnut curls and cheeky, dimpled smile.
But Dominic was made from a different material altogether.
His dark hair fell in carefully controlled waves around the sharp planes of his face, slightly tapered ears poking out. It gave him an ethereal edge, a constant reminder that he was not entirely human. None of them was, of course, but none of the others carried themselves with such marked distinguishment as him. It was a sign, Layla had always thought. A sign that his wolf was always closer to the surface than the others’.
