The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates

Chapter One Hundred–Forty–Nine

DREAM SEQUENCE

I’m running through the woods, wearing nothing but an inversized button ap shirt that I’m fairly a

doesn’t belong to me. Although my (feet are bare, I somehow don’t feel the sharp rocks when I land on them or the thorny bushes as barrel through them um laughing and playing. Iraping nimbly from tree to tree as hide. Each time I hear a brunch break, or catch a whisper in the wind, I move on. Slowly but surely making my way deeper and deeper into the kingdom of Evergreens. The further in Ign, the higher the ground becomes and soon I am climbing. over boulders and shattered tree stumps. Hurding my way toward the sover hala of light that beckons beyond a tight circle of redwoods. I must there. I have to find him. He is searching for me. I know it. No matter what it takes. I have to make it to that point so that I can fully meet Him. My guardian in the woods, my wolf I havent heard him howling for me but in my heart I can feel him calling. He waits at the highest point. Minding his secrets and my own at the top of this grueling hill.

Suddenly, I catch my foot on something and look down. At first, 1

the streets of LA Except

ether you might

slivers of

In woods so brevity beced

what is staring back at me. It just appears to be a face, like any

forest, on a mountainside rodilled with spikes of green and “there is a part who uta atop this peak smoking a cheroot and dressing the

trees in curfs of smoke.

This face ducunt belong here. As I pert closer, Enota

sht about the neck that I didn t before, it appears to be torn. A long gash has (the first tattered and uneven. I pop en my eyes curch on the letters written’ulong the chin and

“are ubu mumbers circling the evelib, hed etched along

ripped the onær soft skin of the thereket over the forehead. They mean some the jawline that end just at the aman

of the

I fall to my needs a pot of the face o Tinije”

meuth any bat bytt

and the terribly dead eyes burn incu ime and follow my movement. The ground

arway from the face. A rumble bus sturted behind me. An

Jew, than a black beast made from the dark of the

the base

of the

the black cou?

his powerful body almost

in Font of me. Freach and

as if he can’t understand any words

any bady before settling in the side

and shoulders are bare

I

the perfectly curved toge of hugs. They get drop of black und forming at the

frum has bya as he darts forward, plunging the points at his fangs into the side of my

DREAM SEQUENCE

panting

I

• zlom. “While the fud.” I say, dukim

meal beling dia,

Bartlett

Chapter One Hundred–Forty–Nine

to be on the yacht. Then

and I smell Vanilla Bourbon. My heart clenches with pain as the memory of Rainier’s wedding ring surfaces. My mind is still Hazy, and the events of the morning mill fogo,

floodgates, ready to cry it out, but a whispering in my head won’t let me release my tears. Bly neck on the tight side tingles and burns for a moment and I gasp as the sensation quickly becomes soothing Chasing away the melancholy in my heart of the events

that smells just like Heaven and I hold it

When did he leave?

him he had to let me go. The instant anguish… the panic. Then his loss of control when he snapped and latched onto my

his

my eyes I lift the shirt to my nose and take a deep satisfying whiff. The scent rolls over me, firing my insides and causing the sore spot on my neck to heat. Walking toward the full length mirror next to the window, I tilt my head to inspect my neck. It doesn’t long to find what I’m looking for, but when I do my eyes widen like saubers and the ending of my dream resurfaces. “Oh my God! 1 hiss, shifting closer to the mirror to get a better look. My throat is covered in hickles and even though the sight of them causes me to blush furiously and my core to start dripping with heat, they are not what I’m

shoulder- there is

He

le bit m

have som he punched right through my flesh. Studying it, I notice the two

the first

I hold up the shirt and realize for the first time that it is ripped beyond repai “Did that shit really happen?” I whisper, closing my eyes as the image of Rainier hovering over me on the couch superimposes onto the image of Rainier in

afford to turn reality y into fantasy. I need to think

me to Hector for his debt – I relied on my intuition. I was hurt, certainly. Ashamed, definitely.

was right wasn’t I?

not right,” I scolded myself. “He’s