The Millennium Wolves Book 3

The pack house corridors were strangely empty…not a soul in sight.

A cold draft blew through my sheer nightgown, unleashing a wave of goosebumps up my spine—and carrying with it the sounds of passion.

As moans of ecstasy echoed down the vast halls, a sexually charged fervor coiled itself around me.

Calling to me.

Drawing me in.

But where was it coming from?

A winding staircase loomed ahead, and I climbed—round and round—until finally, I reached the entrance to the pack house ballroom.

Throwing open the centuries-old oak doors, I found the room dimly illuminated by a flickering fire in a nearby hearth.

Movement from deeper inside the room drew my gaze.

A four-poster bed stood in the center of the dance floor, and three naked bodies were twisting and contorting atop its crimson-red sheets.

Despite the flames casting dark shadows across their glistening skin, I could see that there was one man and two women all tangled together.

As I cautiously approached, the man looked up from their throes of passion, and his familiar gray eyes, flickering red in the firelight, brought my heart to a thudding stop.

Konstantin.

But I couldn’t move. He’d taken control of my body.

Unable to look away, I watched as the vampyre continued thrusting into one of the women sprawled wantonly beneath him.

The sheet partially covering her began to slip away, exposing her thighs, waist, breasts…until finally she threw back her locks of wavy brown hair.

It was Michelle.

She glanced at me—her eyes glazed with lust—then smirked, as if enjoying the audience.

Beside her, the other woman appeared young and painfully vulnerable as she caressed the two entwined lovers.

It was only when she looked up at me that I saw it was Emily.

My former friend, who was now dead, and my current best friend both gasped in pain and pleasure as Konstantin’s lips curled back and his fangs elongated.

I tried to scream at him to stop, but no words came out.

She and Michelle both began to climax, their eyes rolling eerily back into their skulls, and a black substance began oozing out of every pore in Emily’s body, pooling on the floor beside the bed.

Then, just as Konstantin sank his teeth into Michelle’s throat, a tidal wave of the stuff washed over me…

I sat up, gasping for breath.

Morning sunlight cast brilliant beams onto the foot of the king-sized bed. Two suitcases lay open on the floor.

It took a moment to collect my bearings.

After baby Vanessa had arrived, Selene and Jeremy decided to stay with my parents a little while longer.

But the house had gotten even more…crowded, to say the least.

So, for everyone’s sanity, Aiden and I had decided to crash elsewhere. And since our house was currently under renovations, a hotel suite was the easiest option.

The bathroom door opened and Aiden came out, damp and wearing a towel. He hurried to my side.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, gently taking my hand.

“Yeah. It was just another fucked-up dream.”

It had been over a month since the night of the disastrous Yule Ball, when a dangerous vampyre had almost defeated us both, but I still didn’t feel like myself. And the nightmares weren’t subsiding.

But as always, the sight of my mate, his warm green eyes filled with love and concern, was enough to slow my racing heartbeat.

“Konstantin?”

I nodded. “But I’m okay now. Really.”

My eyes dropped to his naked torso. In the morning light his skin was golden, and my legs felt weak just looking at him…the sheen on his shoulders…the chiseled lines of his abs…

My heart sped up again.

“Especially when you come to the rescue wearing that,” I said, eyeing the towel around his waist.

“Oh, this old thing?” he joked.

I nodded, then got up on my knees and ran a finger through the droplets of water on his neck and chest, making a show of licking my lips.

Aiden’s eyes darkened, hunger replacing the amusement on his face. “Well, I guess I should wear this more often.”

Like a simmering flame beneath my skin, my haze flared so hard it nearly knocked the wind out of me.

I gave a breathless laugh and ran my fingers down his abs, slipping them in between the terry cloth and his skin. “I thought the season was over, but I guess I was wrong.”

Aiden made a low noise in his throat, and his hands found their way under my nightgown and up to my breasts, cupping them and squeezing, before sliding around my waist to pull me close.

I breathed in deeply, letting his touch banish all my dark thoughts.

If only I could stay here forever, safe in my mate’s arms, the haze singing in my veins.

I pressed my mouth to his yielding lips and tugged at the towel—just as the phone by the side of the bed began to ring.

I groaned, then glanced at the digital clock beside it.

She’s early.

Reluctantly, I pulled away from Aiden and answered it. “Hello?”

“Mrs. Mercer-Norwood? You have a party waiting for you.”

“Oh yes, thank you.”

When I hung up, Aiden raised his eyebrows.

“It’s Healer Lowell,” I told him. “I guess she’s downstairs already.”

Sharon Lowell was one of the head healers at the Lawrence Healer’s Retreat in Kansas, and though she rarely traveled for consultations, at Aiden’s request, she’d agreed to examine Michelle.

A disturbing fragment from my dream surfaced—my best friend’s legs wrapped around Konstantin’s hips, her cries of passion as she came…

I shivered, then tried to pass it off as being cold.

When we got off the elevator, a short, stout woman was waiting in the lobby. Her gray hair was pulled back into a no-nonsense bun, but her voice was warm and kind when she greeted us.

“Alpha Norwood!” She held out her hands. “And Mrs. Norwood!”

“Mercer-Norwood,” I corrected, smiling.

I took one of her hands, Aiden took the other, and she gave each a little shake.

“Thank you so much for coming,” Aiden said. “I have a car picking us up.”

When the car dropped us off in front of the hospital, Jocelyn was waiting for us in the foyer. But while she and Healer Lowell exchanged greetings, I excused myself and headed straight for the gift shop.

“Just this.” I smiled at the cashier, placing a bouquet of tulips on the counter.

She rang me up, and then the four of us continued to the elevator bank.

When we reached the third floor, my favorite nurse was behind the desk. “Sally!” I exclaimed as she looked up at us.

“Sienna. Alpha. How are you this fine Monday morning?”

“Good, good,” Aiden responded, giving her a warm smile. “How’s she doing?”

“She’s doing okay. Him, on the other hand…”

“Oh no. He’s causing trouble?”

Sally gave us a look. “Not for me, he’s not.”

She led us down the hallway and opened the door.

I shot Aiden a “here we go” look, and he squeezed my hand in response. And then we walked inside while Jocelyn and Healer Lowell hung back to give us a minute.

My eyes immediately went to my friend, and my heart wrenched at the sight of her—even though she looked pretty much the same as the last time I’d visited.

Thin and pale.

A heart monitor beeped at her side. Tubes stuck out of her arm. Her eyelids were closed, and her skin was even lighter than that time she accidentally bought foundation four shades too light.

She was wearing another god-awful hospital gown, this one in some mix of dull blue and putrid green that I’m pretty sure Michelle would have proclaimed “disgusting” if she were awake to see it.

But she wasn’t.

The television in the room was on, and my ears perked up when I heard my name.

“It’s been over a month since the frightening events surrounding Alpha Aiden Norwood and his mate, Sienna, at the East Coast Pack Yule Ball,” the reporter was saying.

She was petite, with curly brown hair and a camera-ready smile.

“And the authorities are still no closer to catching the culprit, who is rumored to be an ancient saint vampyre, a creature previously thought to be mere myth…”

“…Meanwhile, the beta’s mate, Michelle Daniels, remains in a coma…”

I took note of the reporter’s name on the bottom of the screen: Monica Birch.

As I tried to figure out how she’d gotten in, I noticed Josh slumped over in the chair next to Michelle’s bed.

He looked terrible. His skin was red and patchy, his eyes bloodshot, and the scruff on his face told me he hadn’t shaved in days. In fact, I wasn’t sure who looked worse, him or Michelle.

I grabbed the TV remote and put it on mute. “Good morning, Josh.”

He lifted his eyes and glared at me with open hostility.

I felt Aiden stiffen beside me, but I took his hand and squeezed it, giving a tiny shake of my head.

I couldn’t blame Josh for his anger.

We all knew that what had happened to Michelle had been my fault.

“Can I get you a drink, Josh? Some food?” I asked as Sienna went around to the bedside table, throwing the old tulips into the trash before settling the new ones in the vase.

“I’m good,” he bit out.

“Come on, man, when was the last time you slept? Or showered?” I put a supportive hand on his shoulder, but Josh brushed it off and jumped out of his chair.

“We’ve been over this, Josh. She didn’t bring him here.”

Jocelyn stuck her head in the door. “Uh…is it okay for Healer Lowell and I to come in and examine Michelle now?”

Grateful for the interruption, I ushered a stiff Josh and a quiet Sienna out to the waiting area.

Josh took a seat as far away from us as possible, refusing to look at my mate. I’d known for a while that he blamed her, but she was just as much a victim as Michelle.

Honestly, if he needed someone to blame, he should blame me. I’d failed everyone when I’d let that vampyre waltz into my territory. Let him get close to Sienna.

Assumed bodyguards were enough to protect her.

In the weeks since the Yule Ball, the need to find the bastard, to kill him—to tear him limb from limb—it had only grown.

But for Sienna’s sake, I’d been able to put the pulsing rage, the desire for revenge, temporarily aside.

At least well enough to hide it from her. She’d been through enough. She didn’t need my fury to manage on top of her own trauma. She needed me by her side, not out scouring the earth for Konstantin.

And the nightmares…

Was she even aware of how many times I’d rolled over and spooned her, calming her whimpers, soothing her tense muscles—comforting her so she could let go of the fear and sleep peacefully?

I didn’t think so.

But each time, I made her the same silent vow.

No matter how long it took, Konstantin would pay for what he’d done.

Finally, after thirty minutes of awkward silence, the door to Michelle’s room opened.

The three of us immediately stood as the two healers filed out, their faces grave.

Jocelyn was the first to speak. “We’ve finished the examination…” She cleared her throat.

“And you may want to sit back down.”