He never wanted a mate. Until he found her—and now she's all he wants.
I won't—
Colton Wolfe has never liked witches.
There’s something about their magic. With a snap of a finger, a witch can cancel out his brute strength, razor-sharp claws, and inch-long fangs. It just isn’t natural. The Para-proof wards constructed by witches always made his fur itch, and it has bothered him for years how they betrayed all paranormals by selling their services to the highest bidders.
Then a witch nearly killed him and his dislike turned into full-blown hate.
His brother thinks his anger is unhealthy. Following his brush with near-death, Colt refuses to talk to any packmates. Dodge, his ghostly best friend, can’t even get through to him. Colt keeps himself confined to his workshop, shutting every one out. His wolf is just about rabid and he keeps his beast locked up tight.
His wolf wants its mate. Colt won’t admit it, but he does, too... even if he’s spent the last four months rejecting her.
Because Shea is a witch.
And Colt hates all witches—
Doesn’t he?
I can't—
Shea Moonshadow is a healer first, a witch second. Considering her magic has a way of backfiring on her whenever she tries the simplest of spells, she sticks with what she knows will work. Her herbs and her poultices have never failed her before.
Now if she could only say the same about her brother.
Hudson is a Donor, a blood junkie who gives blood to vampires in exchange for a high only a dangerous Nightwalker can give. When he gets in over his head, he does what he’s always done: runs to Shea for help.
She can’t say no. She’s never been able to say no.
Not to Hudson.
Not to anyone.
And that’s how she finds herself pledged to a blood-bonding with an obsessed vampire...
In a world where paranormals live side by side with humans, everybody knows about Ordinance 7304: the Bond Laws. Or, as the Paras snidely whisper to each other, the Claws Clause—a long and detailed set of laws that bonded couples must obey if they want their union to be recognized.
Because it wasn’t already damn near impossible to find a fated mate in the first place. Now the government just has to get involved…
I remember—
Three years ago, Maddox Wolfe lost his mate. Since there’s nothing more dangerous than a bonded shifter on his own, Ordinance 7304 gave him three choices: voluntary incarceration until he’s no longer deemed a threat; a lobotomy-like procedure performed by government-employed witches that would dissolve his bond; or, most final, a state-sanctioned execution so that he could be with his mate again. And while death held a certain appeal in the hazy days following the tragedy, Maddox had his family and his pack to live for. So, refusing to give up his memories of his sweet Evangeline, he chose to spend the rest of his days in the Cage.
***
I forget—
There's a hole in Evangeline Lewis's memory. The doctors tell her that it's normal, that she'll recover fully in time. After all, it's only been three years since the accident that nearly killed her. They never thought she'd wake up; a nagging, annoying sensation that something's wrong is the least of her worries. Especially since she has so much going on: a new apartment, a new job, her mother's well-meaning attempts at match-making... but tell that to her wayward psyche.
By day, she can't shake the feeling that something's missing. And, by night, she can't escape the dreams of a shadow man with glowing golden eyes…
The prophecy is coming true. It's either the Fae Queen dies or I do—and, for the first time ever, I have something to live for.
My parents are alive. Melisandre, the cruel Fae Queen, is holding them hostage. She thinks that they’re all the leverage she needs to lure me into her clutches.
She isn’t wrong.
But Nine, the Dark Fae who has looked out for me since I was a kid, won’t let me sacrifice myself. The Shadow Prophecy says that only I can defeat the Fae Queen and end the Reign of the Damned.
Then again, it also says that I’m gonna need the help of my fated mate. Who, I just discovered when he gave up his freedom in my place, is Nine.
Whoa.
I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the fae.
Too bad I don’t have a choice.
Okay. Okay. One step at at a time.
Step One: Save Nine.
Step Two: Get to know my parents.
Step Three: Defeat the Fae Queen and save Faerie.
When I discover that there’s a way to do all three of those, I’m game… until I find out that it requires me to do something I swore I wouldn’t.
I have to go back to Black Pine. I have to go back to the asylum. Then, if I survive the confrontation with the Fae Queen, I can finally—finally—put this whole Shadow crap behind me.
No biggie.
With my Shadow Man at my side, and my newfound powers, I know I can do this.
And all it will cost me is one last touch.
The fae are after me because I’m the Shadow. But what the hell is that supposed to mean?
Black Pine Facility for Wayward Juveniles. The asylum. I always thought it was a place for broken kids like me and it is, I guess. But that's not all.
It's also a place where the fae put troublesome humans to forget about them.
After I was blamed for my sister's death, I was trapped inside for more than six years. My doctors—my captors—told me that I'd be free on my next birthday. In a couple of weeks, I would walk out of Black Pine forever.
I believed them, too.
The fae can't lie, but that doesn't mean they tell the truth. On my twenty-first birthday, I would be leaving the asylum... because the Fae Queen has decided it's time I was finally brought to Faerie to face her.
Yeah. That’s, uh, that’s gonna be a no.
You see, I spent the last six years pretending that the fae don't exist. That all changes when a Dark Fae helps me break out of the asylum. Nine. The Shadow Man who was my loyal guardian and only friend when I was a little girl. Now that he’s back in my life for the first time in years, he swears he only wants to help me.
Right.
With a return to the asylum impossible, my only goal is to escape the fae chasing me. Even Nine. Especially Nine. And that’s way harder than I thought it would be. He’s… he’s different than the Shadow Man I remember from my childhood. The cold, emotionless fae is showing me a whole new side to him—and this sexy, devoted fae is helping me discover exactly who I am.
Abandonment issues, right? I have them in spades. So while I’m trying to escape the fae, I’m also trying to outrun my growing feelings for Nine.
If only I could get the hang of the whole walking through shadows thing...
The fae are real. I just pretend they're not.
Black Pine Facility for Wayward Juveniles. The asylum. It's a place where they stick troubled cases like me until we age out or they think they've fixed us.
Newsflash: you can't fix what's not broken. And I may have been thrown into Black Pine when I was barely fifteen, but I'm not crazy.
I'm cursed.
Because the fae? They're real. Gorgeous, ethereal, mythical creatures who can't lie but are experts at twisting the truth. Just one touch, that's all it takes. Just one touch and the fae have power over you. Just one touch and your whole world can go up in flames.
I was warned. He called himself the Shadow Man. With his raven hair and glowing silver eyes, he looked the part, too. He's the one who told me about the fae, who made me promise not to be tricked into giving up everything I have with the single touch of my hand.
I'm... I'm not so good at keeping promises.
Now I'm just about to turn twenty-one. I've kept my head down, constantly wearing my leather gloves as if that's not too little too late. At least they're finally letting me out of the asylum. I've done my time inside here, went through therapy, worked with my psychologists. I'm supposed to be released in two weeks.
That's when Nine, the Shadow Man who once haunted my childhood, returns for the first time in six years with another warning—plus one hell of a surprise.
There's a prophecy. The Fae Queen wants to get her hands on me because of it, and she has the power of the whole Seelie Court behind her. I'm screwed—unless I can hook up with the dark mate mentioned in the prophecy.
Too bad I'd rather die than let another fae male touch me again.
Noelle
You’ve got to be friggin’ kidding me!
It’s bad enough that I fell through an antique mirror and ended up in the enchanted forest of the Other. I thought I’d seen it all after being chased by giant scorpions, getting shot at by a mysterious archer, and being hit on by a horny satyr.
Yeah, right.
Thank the stars that I had Hunter, the gorgeous huntsman who’s been at my side since I landed here. Without him, I would’ve been scorpion chow within minutes. Kind and strong and a pleasure to look at when he isn’t wearing his hooded cloak, trying like hell to get back home to my condo (and my cat) wasn’t so bad as long as I had Hunter.
Then I met Alex, the mysterious archer I mentioned, and he dropped the bomb on me: he’s my brother.
Even worse?
Hunter’s been lying to me all along. He’s not helping me go home. He can’t. No one can.
Apparently we’re stuck in some stupid story. The magic of the Other? It brings people to this weirdo world to relive ancient Greek myths over and over again and I can’t leave until the story is complete.
One problem.
No one will tell me how the myth of Artemis and Orion ends.
A modern retelling of the myth of Artemis and Orion—with a few twists!She doesn't know she's Artemis, mythical huntress and goddess of the moon—but he does. And that's all he needs to make sure he gets his happy ending this time. Except he's expecting the Artemis he remembers. Who he gets instead is—
Noelle
With a potty mouth and a Jersey attitude, I've never been the type of girl who cries when things don't go my way. I'm no damsel in distress. Whatever life throws at me, I can handle it. No matter how rough or tough or... weird?
Because falling through a full-length mirror and ending up in a forest wearing nothing but a nightgown is definitely weird. Stabbing a giant scorpion in the eye with a stick? Yup. Weird. Discovering I'm a whiz with a bow and that I can apparently communicate with animals like some grouchy Disney princess—okay, not gonna lie. That's kind of cool.
Being told that I'm supposedly the reincarnation of the Greek goddess Artemis? Super friggin' weird. How am I supposed to believe that? Or that some gorgeous hunk of a guy insists we're meant to be together?
I mean, I might not know a lot about mythology, but wasn't Artemis some kind of virgin?
Hunter
She's back.
After all this time, after all this waiting, she's back in my reach and nothing is going to keep me from changing the way this story ends.
Not the tragedy of our shared history, or the countless times I've already died. Not the fact that her brother has proven repeatedly that he will stop at nothing to keep us separated.
Not even the undeniable truth that Artemis doesn't remember me—or even herself.
She's back. And, this time, she's mine.
