LUNA

“Do you want any help with those?” Knox asked her.

“No, thanks. I’ve got them.”

Seconds turned into minutes of uncomfortable silence, and she stopped herself from glancing back at him, a thousand questions pressing at her that she really shouldn’t voice. But why had he been the closest berserker in the area, anyway? Was it coincidence? And where had his scars come from?

Was he seeing anybody?

Not that she cared about that last one.

An impulse carried through her bond from the other members of her pack, like a tingling awareness passing through her mind, cutting off her babbling train of thoughts. The group had gone far enough. Time to put the stones in place.

She stopped, reaching up for the bag.

Knox glanced around, wary. “Is everything all right?”

“Um, yeah.” How much did he know about her kind? “The pack just… It’s time to stop.”

His brow twitched up, but he only nodded.

Feeling awkward, she slung the bag down to the ground and grimaced when her back protested the motion. Tugging open the top, she set to taking out stones the size of oranges, all of them gathered from what remained of the gardens around the manor. The rest of the pack was to her right, so she began arranging the stones in a line away from them. The line would become the edge of the barrier’s perimeter, at least until they decided to expand it again, and—

What the hell?

She froze, her hand gripping the last of the stones. At the top of the next rise, a crack hung in midair, and only darkness lay inside. It was like a tiny version of the enormous dark tears in the sky, except that instead of taking up all of the heavens like the ones above her, this one was only a couple feet in length.

“What the fuck?” With a speed that totally belied his size, Knox stepped past her and put himself between her and the thing. “Don’t go any closer.”

“You think I’m an idiot?” Cautiously, she released the perimeter stone, not taking her eyes from the dark gash as the rock thudded to the ground. Straightening carefully, she touched Knox’s arm, noting in spite of herself the wealth of muscles beneath his shirt sleeve. Gods, his upper arm was wider than her hand.

She shoved the observation down hard. “Come on.”

Together, they eased back a step, though Knox kept himself between her and the dark gash in the air the entire time.

It never moved. Never changed. After a few yards, the two of them stopped.

Knox’s eyes flicked over to her palm on his bicep.

A blush burned her cheeks. She dropped her hand. “Sorry. Um—” Floundering, she took another step back and then turned to head toward the pack. “I should go tell the others about whatever the hell this—”

“Stop!” Knox cried.

Ice shot through her like someone had injected pure winter night into her veins, and she looked back. A new gash of darkness lay at the end of her fingertips, the black slash hanging in midair even though there’d been no sign of it before. Where she touched it, her fingers were just gone, swallowed completely in black like she’d dipped her hand in ink. In an instant, the frigid sensation accelerated and expanded, charging up through her arm and out into her body.

Terror flooded her. “Knox—”

The world vanished.

READ NOW IF YOU LIKE

• Shifter romance
• Second-chance romance
• Tortured hero with a dark past
• Hidden powers
• Fated mates
• Norse mythology

WARNING: Contains a story you can't put down. Once you start reading, you won't want to stop.

Heat level:

• Spicy (3+ sex scenes)

Page count: 370

Print book dimensions: 5.5 in x 8.5 in

Series status: Ongoing

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