Chapter 1
Elodie
My breath burned like a blowtorch, and my chest felt like I’d been hit dead-on by a semitruck. How was I still alive while my insides were being barbecued? No clue.
A fresh surge of agony ripped through me, and I arched, biting back a scream until it finally ebbed.
This time, the flames went with it, cool relief flooding me, starting at my chest and filling me up, even as it made me feel lighter. I could drift away on a cool breeze, leave all my troubles behind?—
“Elodie!” The sharp, masculine snap of an unfamiliar voice yanked me from the nothingness. No, not unfamiliar. Something about that voice pinged a recent memory that I couldn’t quite grasp. The significance slipped away, soft grains of sand running through clumsy fingertips.
My eyes flew open, and it took me a moment for the shapes and colors to solidify into recognizable faces.Worriedfaces. The closest was Olivia, her hands pressed to my cheeks, her eyebrows scrunched with worry and concentration as she worked her healer magic. A green glow lined her hands, bright enough to make me squint.
Brielle was right next to her, hands on my upper chest, right where… between one blink and the next, memories flooded back in.
Oh shit.
My healer females weren’t the only two faces hovering above me. Valens.
Broody, grumpy, disarmingly persistent… The man who claimed he was my mate. Heat flooded me—embarrassment? Desire? I didn’t want to examine it too closely—as our eyes locked together.
He was all alpha, male, and avenging fury rolled into one far too deliciously masculine package. Damn him. A light coating of scruff lined his cheeks, the golden hair making his eyes even more startlingly bright. He stared at me as if I might float away, his gaze the only thing still tethering me to this earth. Those blue-green eyes saw everything I didn’t want them to. My vulnerability, my confusion.
As I slowly came back to myself, more details filtered in. Strong arms supporting me, a warm chest under my cheek. Strong thighs supporting my body.
I was lying across his lap. And his scent was positively everywhere. Inescapable notes of smoky sweetness soothed me, and I knew it was him, his signature scent. Smoke and wood, like a campfire, with the delicious curling undertones of brown sugar.
It was everything I never knew I wanted, and that scared me.
“Elodie!” Oli gasped, shoulders slumping with relief when she saw my open eyes. “Goddess bless, I thought we’d lost you for a minute, there.”
“I’m not that easy to kill, in case you haven’t noticed.” I added on my best cocky grin, to ease her mind.
Brielle chuckled, but Valens growled. “Someone has tried to kill you before? Name him, and I will see he never draws another breath.”
“She already did that, bucko. Big, badass troll warrior. He gored her with a tusk, but she split his skull like a ripe peach. She won and saved my life in the process.” Leigh drew the words out nice and slow, watching Valens’s every reaction as if this was her own personal reality TV show.
“Is this true?” He studied me carefully, as if he wished he could burrow into my brain and ferret out the answer for himself. It was too much, too soon. Intimate. The urge to take the coward’s way out and run for the hills was overwhelming.
“Are you implying my pack mates are liars?”
Picking a fight had to be the next best thing.
He stiffened, his whole body going rigid at the insult. “I would never.”
“Then there’s your answer. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m just gonna hop up and pretend this never happened.”
I moved to do exactly as I said, but his grip tightened around me like unbreakable iron bands.
“Absolutely not. You were struck, injured.”
“And that means I just live on your lap now? No.” I narrowed my eyes at him, blatantly making eye contact despite my status as a beta and his clearly dominant alpha mojo.
Not only didn’t he look away or growl, his eyes heated with the challenge, the intensity building between us sending a shiver of new awareness all the way down to my toes.
Terror followed in its wake. This was not happening.This was not happening.
“Tell him I’m good,” I demanded of the healers beside us, not daring to break the staring contest Valens and I were locked in. I definitely wasn’t drinking in every detail of his appearance, from his luxurious, golden-brown hair to the thick, short beard thatmatched it. The way his eyes were so blue-green, they seemed bottomless like the ocean. His absolutely addictive scent, like a campfire with brown sugar and toasty marshmallows, made my mouth water.
