The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates

Chapter Two Hundred Eighty–Eight

PAUL

Every single suspicion I’ve been having, every single doubt, disappears while I watch Anastacia choke to death on the yacht. It’s as if someone or something has wrapped its invisible hands around her throat and closed it off. Her eyes go bright purple, glowing with a pulsing light and violet mist shoots everywhere I look. Clouds of plum velvet fog roll from her body to dance about the drizzle coming off the sea, so thick that I notice for the first time that they do not touch the. Also… that no one else seems to see them.

“Baby!” I shout, reaching for her as she convulses and drops to her knees, “Breathe Anastacia, please!”

This can’t happen! It can’t!

She’s mine and I won’t let anything take her!

“What the fuck is wrong with her?” Rainier shouts from the helm. “Do something, Paul!”

In the back of my mind I’m aware of Timmons, Koda, and the others as they haul the shadow hound onto the yacht. I hear him squealing and begging and crying out for his Alpha to save him. Somewhere in my head I take notice of the yacht shaking with the weight of a struggle just as the sun peeks over the horizon. I hear the reverberating sound of a terrorized howl that fills the air until it’s cut from the skies like death, then the splash of water that signals the drop of a body into the sea and finally, I return my attention fully to the beauty at my feet.

Ahelpless sort of fear crowds over me as I pull Anastacia into my arms. Her hands are clawing at her throat and her face is a mask of pure

horror.

I shout down at her, “If you won’t breathe, then I’ll breathe for you!”

I dip her back over my lap as I crumple toward the ground, then I place my lips over hers and the entire world erupts in magenta fire. The air stills around me, not a whisper of wind or breeze catches my skin. Every inch of me heats, igniting with a kindling flame. For too long a moment, I forget where I am and what I am supposed to be doing, simply content to burn with her. Against her. Too intoxicated by pleasuring myself with the erotic devilry that is Anastacia’s mouth to do something as trivial as saving her life. It takes more than a moment of flashing warmth and flames to remind me that my girl isn’t breathing in my arms, she’s choking.

Kiss her later, idiot!

“Fuck,” I snarl, shaking myself of the phantasmic trance.

Focus, Paul. Get a grip.

Readjusting my lips over Anastacia’s, I push my own air into her lungs. Her chest inflates and her eyes darken to blue, the purple clouds around her drawing back and caving in, as if reversed. She suddenly sucks in a deep gasp of air and sputters into a coughing fit.

she rasps as I coil her body into mine and hold her close.

whisper, drawing her into my

she stammers. “Since when?”

beating against my chest erratically, my helplessness from a moment ago – the fear I experienced at the thought of losing

almost angrily. “What was wrong with you? You scared the fuck out of

lost this. I almost lost her.

1/3

Two Hundred Eighty–Eight

let it

She looks around as if confused. “What happened to the

she looked only minutes ago as she

so much smoke… so much heat…” she closes her eyes. “I think I was burning, Or…

What?

fuck is she

my chin, I scan the skies above Port Orchard, searching for any wisp of smoke

don’t find

it’s best if I just keep her in my arms forever. That way nothing can touch her but me and everything will be as it should be. Controlled, Complete.

take a seat inside the sitting room on the couch. With Anastacia cradled in my arms like a small child, I lean back against the cushions to relax and watch

in their hands, the length of which disappears over the yacht’s railing. I can only assume they’ve hooked the shadow hound to the other end of it, and

roars to life and we’re in motion. A chorus of haggard howls

mourning him,” Anastacia hisses, meeting my gaze briefly before scrambling off of my lap

don’t let her, reeling her back toward me with a gentle tug of her hand. “Get back here,” I demand, my voice thick with emotion. Her eyebrows furrow curiously as she studies my hand on her wrist. Throwing out another arm, I circle her waist and pull her to me where I can press

glimmers with moisture and her delicate fingers string themselves into my hair, tugging and massaging as if to chase my fears away. It is exactly what I need from her at

that I have ever

that I have ever been

immobilized… that helpless…