Jeanne kissed my forehead when I stood before Ryker, squeezing my shoulders with a warm smile. “I can’t wait to get to know my granddaughter,” she declared with happiness. “So, you can stay here, or we will stay with you. I have lost too much time as it is with you and my grandson. And we shall have to inform Shelly while you’re changing, so she’s ready to meet you and Matty once you’ve recovered.”
Marcus kissed my forehead as well, followed by Dakota and Rex, and it was time. A gentle squeeze to my shoulder reminded me of Jax’s presence, which seemed to be relieved and hopeful. Eyeing the vampire, I grimaced, and Ryker laughed. Kissing my forehead, he tickled my side, so I gasped. Before I could realize his intentions, my back was to the vampire’s chest, with his wrist in my mouth. The first swallow was disgusting and caused pain throughout my body. The next brought darkness.
Monster
The dark receded, leaving only pain when a sense of urgency woke me. At first, I didn’t understand. All I knew was the pain. Even my eyelashes hurt, which I didn’t know was possible. I lacked the strength to open my eyes, although I perceived sunlight through them. Muffled voices filled my ears, along with intense tingles chasing the pain away from my hand for a moment. My heart thumped, and my soul brightened, then tugged at my conscience and I found myself elsewhere.
It was like a dream, only everything was fuzzy. I was there, but not. When I looked at myself, my hands were transparent. Not in the sense I could see inside them, but through them. Whoever chose that color for the floor needed to get their eyes checked. Hideous. Downright hideous.
“Very well. Beat them all,” a cruel voice chuckled. “Then sterilize them. We don’t want such useless shifters breeding with our humans. My, the world would fail with so much incompetence wasting its resources.”
Anger burned in my veins at his words and I looked up, ready to snarl an insult to wipe off the smirk I expected the stranger to wear. Instead, I found myself surrounded by blurry forms on the floor. Six. There were six of them. Six souls damned to be beaten with their ability to have children stolen from them. By a goddamn vampire. Twenty shadows surrounded them, making it clear the poor shifters were outnumbered.
The next second, part of their forms became less blurry to reveal silver collars around what I assumed to be their throats. Don’t you dare, you bastards. In the center of them stood what I assumed to be a vampire since he was an ominous shadow. When someone moved, a person I could see but hadn’t noticed, the shadow in the center raised his hand to press a button on the remote he held. Screams of pain came from the six blurry shifters while the one I could see groaned his agony.
Blood leaked from the collar around his neck and my heart ached. Pain. They were in so much pain and suffered so much. The lord of the house chuckled and pressed another button, causing them to flinch with loud yelps. Did he shock them too? Bastard! I stepped towards him, only for the vile man surrounded by shifters to move back a step. Seriously!? Why show me this if I can’t help!? To torment me!?
A painful cough had me glancing at the shifter I could see and I bit my lip. His hair was golden brown tipped with black, and his eyes were a bright, burning gold. Hatred oozed from him while he got his arm beneath his body and tried to push himself up. A bright blue light blurred his edges and some part of me recognized that meant he was a delta, a third. We don’t have a third. Another yelp came from the shifter and I realized they shocked him to keep him from shifting. Bastards!
Shaking my head when information flooded my mind, I stumbled a step and my pain flared so much I saw nothing for several moments. Tyger is a beta, or Snow is. I’m not sure. Probably Snow. Arctic and Ryker are alphas, so those positions are filled. To be a proper pack- Pfft. Pack. No, we will be better than a pack. I don’t know the word for it yet, but we will be so much better. Regardless, we need a third, not a delta. No, we’ll have better terms too. We won’t strive to be better. We will be better. Arctic’s edges are gold, while Snow and Tyger’s are silver. That I knew this disturbed me. Does this mean that others don’t see their edges glow at all? One second, they’re human, the next an animal?
With a groan, I shook my head again to force the information to stop. It was great that the vampire blood unlocking my werewolf blood gave me information while making me a shifter, but now wasn’t the time. The room came back into focus, or as much as I could see. Enforcers will be- No, not enforces. We won’t enforce. Protect. Protectors will be violet. Shifters who can belong to us will be silver. I am black. What? Why am I black? No. Focus. Stop! Make it stop!
Gasping, I hit my knees. While I sucked air into my lungs, the skin between my shoulders itched and I raised my gaze to meet burning gold eyes. Now they softened to a burnished gold and a soft sigh escaped my lips. “Omega,” the jaguar greeted with wariness in his eyes. Jaguar? How do I know he’s
