Keeping Watch🌶️

‘December 14th, 2017’

‘Lumen’

Reyna

I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen. The man… he was shooting fire from his hands!

And then he said he was here for us. For us!

And then Eve, she was holding him in the air with her mind. And killing him!

She stuck a blade right through his heart!

And then she just… passed out. On the floor.

I started breathing so hard I thought I was going to pass out too. I was hyperventilating.

Jed noticed. He’d been standing beside me the whole time. He took my hand and guided me out of the ballroom.

“Come on, let’s go somewhere safe.”

I nodded at him, grateful, but before we got out of the ballroom, I saw the Alpha of the Millennium scoop Eve up off the ground. She was still unconscious.

But I didn’t see anything else because then Jed and I were outside, walking to the main Pack House building.

“You’re freezing,” he said, putting a hand up to my cheek.

“I’m fine.”

“Come on. Let’s get you warm,” he said, pulling me inside the building, into some sort of library room.

He led me to an armchair and draped a blanket around my shoulders, and then he took a seat in the chair beside mine.

“Do you… know that man?” he asked me, worry in his eyes.

I shook my head. “I’ve never seen him before,” I whispered.

“But he was here… for your family?”

I nodded. Before I could get any words out, I burst into tears.

“We’re being hunted,” I managed to get out.

Jed grabbed my hand and held it tightly. “It’s okay, Reyna. Don’t worry. I’m here. I’ll protect you. You won’t get hurt.”

I looked at him, feeling the same warm tingles deep in my belly.

~God, he’s cute~. But then I shook those thoughts away. Eve had just passed out trying to protect us! And here I was swooning over some guy!

“Reyna,” Jed continued, “is that why Eve’s living with you?”

I nodded. “She’s protecting us.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… what’s in it for her?”

“I don’t… I don’t know, really. She said she cares about our bloodline. Whatever that means.”

“The Morgan bloodline?”

“Yeah… why?” I asked.

“It just doesn’t add up. I mean you didn’t know her before, right? And now she’s here, living with you. Putting herself on the line to protect a family of strangers? And besides, what even is she? You saw what she did out there. That’s not normal. None of us know anything about her.”

“Your Alpha does,” I said softly.

“What?”

“Raphael. He and Eve know each other.”

Jed got off his chair and knelt in front of me, grabbing my hand harder. “Do you know anything about that? About their history?”

I squinted at him. He was acting really weird now. “No, why? Don’t you?”

Jed shook his head. “No, Raffe won’t tell us anything about her. And when Zack tried to ask her questions, she fought him. Pushed him right to the ground.”

I couldn’t help but smile. The thought of little Eve pushing a full-grown Beta to the ground was amazing.

“Hey, can you do me a favor?” Jed asked me, his green eyes showing nothing but determination.

“Sure,” I said.

“Can you keep an eye on Eve? Maybe dig a little? If there’s anything about her that… seems strange… I really think we should know. Because Raphael, he hasn’t been like himself lately. Not since they’ve been in the same city. And we need him to make sure the world’s in order.”

I nodded, slowly understanding what he was asking me.

He was asking me to spy on the woman who’d been protecting us.

“Can you do that for me, Reyna?”

Eve

I heard voices, voices coming from all around me.

Male voices. Yelling. Arguing.

“Quiet down!” I heard a voice say from somewhere close to my face. Somewhere in arm’s reach. But it wasn’t just any voice.

It was ~his~ voice.

My eyes fluttered open. Light, I saw light.

It seared through my achy head at first, but then I adjusted. And my eyes were fully open, taking in the room.

I was looking up at a ceiling... ~what?~

That was when I realized I was lying horizontal. On a couch. In someone’s lap.

I tilted my head up farther, seeing Raphael’s face above mine. The lap belonged to him.

I tried to shoot up, out of his reach, but he put a steady hand on my shoulder, keeping me down. “Relax,” he said. “You need to rest.”

He was wearing a navy blazer and a crisp white shirt.

~Oh.~ The Equinox Assembly.

Everything was coming back to me.

The pyromancer.

The fight.

The blood.

My eyes closed again, just for a second, and I realized just how exhausted I was.

Maybe Raphael was right. Maybe I did need to rest.

But then I heard Martin yell, “Under ~no circumstances~!”

I opened my eyes and turned my head toward the middle of the room and saw Gabriel and Martin deep in argument.

“There’s no other alternative,” Gabriel calmly responded.

“There has to be!” Martin declared.

“What is it?” I asked, my voice weak. “What’s going on?”

The men all turned to me.

“The guy out there, the pyromancer. He burned the Morgans’ house down before coming to the Assembly,” Gabriel explained. “Zavier and a few others from the Pack just went to collect everything inside that hasn’t been damaged, but the house is toast.”

“He wants us to move in ~here,” Martin said incredulously.

“I won’t have my girls surrounded by werewolves constantly! No offense. But this is the Pack House, for Christ’s sake. It’s more dangerous than—”

“Than what, your house that was just charred to ash?” Gabriel replied. “If your girls are here, we can keep an eye on them. There’s round-the-clock security.”

“I don’t like it,” Martin maintained.

“It’s not a bad idea,” I said, and again all eyes came to me. “There’s security here I can’t do by myself. Round-the-clock, like he said.”

“So then it’s settled,” Gabriel said. “We’ll move you in tonight.”

Martin looked from me to Gabriel then back to me. He hadn’t expected me to side with the wolves.

When he realized his battle had been lost, he grunted and stormed out of the room.

“Thanks.” Gabriel nodded at me. “What you did out there… how did you—”

“Not now,” I got out. I couldn’t handle any line of questioning.

“Can we have the room?” Raphael asked him, more of an order than a question.

Gabriel nodded once more and left us alone.

It dawned on me that this room… it was the same office that Raphael had pulled me into at the Pack House dinner. It was the first place we’d kissed in years.

I could feel my heartbeat speed up, even with my body’s exhaustion.

“What you did out there...” Raphael said, repeating Gabriel’s words.

“Raphael,” I warned. I couldn’t have someone asking me questions right now. Especially not him.

“It was incredible. That’s all I wanted to say. You’re the most powerful woman I’ve ever seen, the most intriguing and beautiful and… capable… woman. I was awed.”

The words… they sent my body spiraling. They sent blood to my cheeks, a rush of ecstasy to my sex. I could feel myself turning on.

Yearning.

I knew he could sense it.

In an instant his hands were on me, his mouth coming down to mine.

It was hot, the passion, the desire. I let my body give in to it. I wanted it. Just one moment, it wouldn’t hurt.

Before I knew what was happening, he was lifting me up and putting me back down on the opposite side of the couch so he could weave his way on top of me, cradling my head all the while.

And then the make-out got more intense.

Gone was the soft heat. It was replaced by a burning need, and I was more than a little hungry now.

I needed him. I ~needed~ my desire to be fed.

Again, he sensed it. His lips left mine and started kissing down my face, down my neck...

“Mmm,” I moaned, my mind blank except for the delicious feelings.

“Does it feel good?” He growled.

“Mmm,” I responded.

Then he was kissing farther down my neck and scraping his teeth across my skin, causing shivers to course through me. The most desire-filled shivers I’d ever had.

I needed more.

“More,” I moaned, my mind black except for the delicious feelings.

My need consumed me, and his teeth scraped me harder and harder until he was biting me.

He was biting me, and it felt like the hottest release, the most satisfying gush of pleasure and pain at once.

But ~wait.~

The biting. The pain. That meant something.

My mind was reeling. My hands lifted up, holding his shoulders, pushing him off.

“Raphael,” I murmured, my voice as strong as I could make it, “Get off. Get off!”

It took everything I had, but I jumped up from the couch. My hand flew to my neck, and when I brought it back to my eyes, it was red with blood.

My blood.

The bastard had bitten me. A lover’s mark.

And that meant for the upcoming Haze... I was his.