Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 454(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 454(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
“Yep.”
“You cared about the guy, didn’t you?” Black jealousy lanced through him, and he barely held in a growl.
“He’s not real.”
“Was it him who bought you that bracelet?” Because if so, Bracken wanted it gone.
She skimmed her finger over the pretty, expensive jewelry. “I won it.”
“You won it?”
“Through Cosmo magazine.” She pointed at the coffee maker. “Won that too, along with a year’s supply of coffee after entering a Walmart prize drawing. Also won my TV in a sweepstakes. You haven’t heard Makenna call me a walking lucky charm?” He gave her what could only be described as an indulgent smile, and she felt her eyelid twitch.
“You won those things because you entered the competitions, not because of luck.”
“You don’t believe in luck?”
“Believing in luck stops people from taking control of their lives. It makes people leave decisions to chance. I’m not saying that the belief in good luck is a bad thing—it’s what drove you to enter prize drawings and stuff like that. It’s probably also helped you succeed in other ways. But no, I don’t think it really exists.”
Not something she hadn’t heard before. “I was pronounced dead once.”
His mouth dropped open. “What?”
“Yep. When I was ten, a truck hit my school bus and knocked it into the river. I couldn’t get out. My parents came to identify my body, and I snored.”
He blinked. “You . . . you snored?”
She nodded. “I’ve been hit by lightning. Went right through me. Hurt like a bitch too. A few years back, I was supposed to go on a cruise, but my alarm didn’t go off, so I got up too late and missed it. The ship sank two days into the cruise. I also once had construction scaffolding fall over me. But the pieces fell around me, almost framing the shape of my body. I could go on and on with stories.”
Bracken sank into the chair. “Shit.”
“Yeah.” Amused by the stupefied look on his face, she said, “It’s my turn to ask questions now.”
“What do you want to know?”
Madisyn was surprised that there was no guarded glint in his gaze. If anything, he looked pleased. She wanted to ask about his childhood and years in Arizona, where he’d lived up until he joined the Mercury Pack, but she knew that speaking of his family would be hard for him. “Do you like being an enforcer?”
“That wasn’t what you wanted to ask,” he accused softly. “I can talk about my family without breaking down. My childhood was normal enough, I guess. My parents had a pretty mellow relationship. Out of my two sisters, I got along better with Ashley than I did Kim, but we never had huge fallouts. Not even after Kim handed my pack’s business to a reporter. She apologized, and I let it go because, you know, I loved her. We weren’t the tightest family in the world, but we were . . . just normal.”
She’d expected to hear a little sorrow in his voice. It was flat, emotionless. “How come you left your childhood pack?”
“Me, Jesse, and Zander suspected that the Alpha was involved in the disappearance of some of our family members.”
“Was he?”
“No. Turned out our relatives were taken to a game reserve that was run by a shifter and a human. Working with Nick and Derren, we tracked the bastards, who are now dead. Rather than return to our old pack, me, Jesse, and Zander remained with Nick, an Alpha we could truly respect and follow.” Bracken nipped at the tips of her fingers again. “After the attack at the drive-in, my old Alpha didn’t dispute my right to have my family buried on my territory. There wasn’t much left of my father, Kim, or Ashley’s mate to bury.”
Her chest tightened at that. “Did executing the extremists help?” she asked, her tone gentle.
“No. I wasn’t looking for justice—there is no restitution for what they did. And I doubted it would give me peace. But the fact was that my family deserved to live, and those fuckers deserved to die. So I made it happen.”
She gave a slow nod of understanding. “I’m sorry you lost them.”
“So am I. The need to track and kill the extremists was like a niggle in the back of my brain. It never stopped. Never eased up. Then the bastards were dead, and it was gone. And my wolf—who’s always wanted you—went from obsessing over hunting them to obsessing over having you. I didn’t know if it was real or if he just needed to cling to something. Now I get it. He needed the one person who could anchor him, anchor me.”
It surprised her to hear that his wolf had wanted her before now. “I don’t think I’ll make a very good anchor. I’m not the most stable of people.”
His mouth curved. “I like that you’re a nut.”