She was still stretched out on the massive couch, where she'd apparently been sleeping all day. The last thing she remembered was the steaming bowl of stew that Troy had handed her in the morning shortly after the other alpha left.
Faith's stomach roiled at the memory—Maddox was no 'visitor,' as Troy had called him, but the monster who had impregnated her sister.
The same fate that Troy had told her he planned for them.
She should have thrown that bowl of stew in his face. But she'd eaten very little for days, and her body rebelled, demanding sustenance. In fact, she had rarely eaten anything so satisfying as the simple combination of roasted meat and root vegetables.
After that, she had no memory at all of time passing, no dreams to mark the hours. It was as if she'd been unconscious. No sun came through the windows; night had fallen. She lifted her head to find the only light source, a subdued, flickering golden glow.
A fire blazed in the hearth, fresh logs piled on top. Troy had recently been here. He'd also lit a couple of oil lamps and set them on the mantel.
Faith sat up the rest of the way, pulling the wooly blanket around herself, taking in the cozy scene. At home, her father had installed harsh overhead fluorescents so that they could read the scripture from every seat in the house. Troy’s simple, deeply-grained hardwood furniture was as different as Faith could imagine from the fussy upholstered settees and ottomans jammed into every corner of her family's living room. A handwoven basket held pine cones for kindling, and on the wall was what looked like an antique engine schematic framed in birch bark.
"You hungry?"
The sound of Troy's voice behind her in the kitchen startled Faith. It shouldn't have—this was his house, after all. Where else would he be after dark?
But no matter how many times she heard it, Troy's voice invoked a confusing reaction inside her, stirring some part of her that she'd never known existed until just a few days ago.
Faith hesitated before twisting around to face him. His presence wasn't unsettling, exactly. It didn't provoke a reasoned response. Instead, Troy struck a chord deep within her, activating an edgy, hair-trigger sensitivity that was as unsettling now as the first time she'd heard him speak.
That her reaction was undiminished made it that much worse.
…Or better. Faith wasn't actually sure.
He was waiting for an answer. What was it he had asked again? Faith shook her head to clear the fog of sleep and shifted so she could look into the kitchen, where Troy was standing at the counter. In front of him, her plain blue suitcase lay open, its contents exposed.
"Where did you get that?" she demanded, jumping up from the couch. As she stretched her muscles for the first time in hours, she marveled that all traces of the aches, pains, and exhaustion had vanished, and her body felt refreshed and strong.
"It was in the back of that pile-of-crap van you crashed at Evander's."
Wait. Her car was here? Faith sucked in a breath as she absorbed the news. Maybe she could leave after all.
"It won't work, you know," Troy said casually before she'd even completed the thought.
"What won't?"
He looked up from rifling through her things. Even from across the room, she felt him assessing her with his piercing blue eyes, as though she'd disappointed him. "You won't be able to escape in that hunk of junk."
"I wasn't—"
"Yes, you were," he interrupted. "Don't lie to me, Faith. First of all, you're terrible at it, and second, I can always sense the truth. You ought to try to remember that—for your own good."
Faith stopped with her hand on the back of the sofa. He was right—she should have known. She tried to drum up some that fiery rage she'd felt earlier, but it had lost its power, almost as if it had silently escaped from a hidden leak without her even noticing. The best she could manage seemed to be a sort of resigned annoyance.
"That 'hunk of junk' got me here, didn't it?" she said. "I don't see why it couldn't get me home again."
Troy rolled his eyes in disgust, returning his attention to the contents of her suitcase. "You'd be lucky to make it to the Central Road before the fuel pump gave out. And besides, you're an omega. Your nature won't allow you to stray too far from an alpha."
An alpha…
Faith zeroed in on the technicality. "Not far from any alpha?"
Troy stilled, his shoulders going rigid. "You think you'd be happier with one of my brothers?"
It was clear that he didn't like the question.
But what was really strange was that Faith didn't like it either. In fact, she wished she could take it back.
Alphas were terrifying, mystifying, threatening men. She remembered her first glimpse of them, the night she'd arrived. There had been three alphas present, but only Troy had elicited a response in her other than fear—even before he'd touched her.
Even now, she couldn't explain what exactly that response had been, only that it came from a place in her so deep it must have always been there.
Her nature.
Had she not come here, it might have always been dormant. But if what her body was telling her was true, even if another of those alphas had triggered her awakening, she still would have ended up in Troy's arms.
She considered the other alpha she'd met today—Maddox, her sister's captor. He appeared to be every bit as strong as Troy, every bit as virile. But nothing about him, not his dark, smoldering features or his rough-timbred voice, stirred the emotions she felt with Troy.
His words hadn't released butterflies in her stomach. His growl didn't increase the temperature of her blood. His gaze didn't coax any embarrassing slick between her legs.
Only Troy did any of that.
"No." Faith dropped her gaze when she answered, unable to muster
