If you thought having blue balls was bad, then try having the fading throes of your mating fever interrupted. It was like being starved while the food sat right in front of you—close enough to touch, yet untouchable. The frustration was maddening, leaving Violet in a sore, seething mood.
But even the relentless ache of the mating fever couldn’t hold a candle to the cold, jarring shock of seeing your evil mother-in-law teetering on death’s door.
In that instant, Violet’s arousal didn’t just fade, it was snuffed out like a candle.
Zara Storm lay motionless on the hospital bed, looking nothing like the evil mother-in-law Violet knew. Her face was a mottled canvas of purple and blue, as though someone had punched the daylight out of her. Angry red bruises circled her neck, stark evidence that someone had tried to strangle the life out of her.
The beep-beep of the machines monitoring her vitals filled the room, but it was the sheer number of wires and tubes attached to her body that made the sight even more unsettling. Zara’s usually proud presence was gone, replaced by a pale, fragile figure teetering between life and death.
Violet’s eyes quickly shifted to Alaric. His expression was full of shock and disbelief. Sure, he’d wanted to kill his mother with his own hands more than once, but this sudden, brutal attack was jarring, even to him.
"What happened?" Alaric asked numbly, his voice hoarse, as if he still couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Alaric’s gaze slid to Ace, suspicion in his blue eyes. It wouldn’t surprise him if his brother also wanted revenge on their mother after everything she had done.
Ace caught the look and immediately scowled, his brow furrowing in offense when he decoded what that accusing stare meant.
Alpha Caspian noticed the tension between his sons and intervened before it escalated. "Your mother was attacked." he announced, his tone heavy with restrained fury.
Alaric froze, his tone sharpening instantly. "Attacked? By who?"
He wouldn’t have cared if Ace had done it. Family vengeance was one thing. But an outsider? Absolutely not. If members of the pack started believing they could punish the Luna and walk free, then anarchy was just around the corner. Today it was his mother—tomorrow, it could be him, Ace, or his father or even Violet.
When his father didn’t answer right away, Alaric pressed, his tone cutting through the tense silence. "Who. Did. This?"
Ace broke the silence. "Your beta."
"What?!" Alaric was almost certain he’d misheard.
Ace didn’t flinch. "Finn attacked our mother, Alaric. Or, like I believe, he intended to kill her."
Chills ran down Alaric’s spine, sinking like ice into his veins. Finn?
When had Finn even returned to the pack?
Alaric had grown so used to isolating himself and keeping Finn at arm’s length for so long that it was almost easy to forget he even had a beta.
Now that neglect had come back to bite him. Hard.
The reality hit like ice water, numbing his veins and choking the breath from his lungs.
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: Defy The Alpha(s)