LUCAS

    I stare down at my phone, reading Kellan''s texts with a furrowed brow, tapping my foot against the seat in front of me. I have yet to enter the ballroom, because I don''t like dealing with this kind of shit. The annual fated mate hunt, where barely legal women throw themselves at you in hopes of finding that mystical connection. Fuck that.

    [KELLAN: The Blackwood wolves are here, just as we suspected. There are definitely two daughters. The rumors might be true. I''m going in.]

    [KELLAN: Keep an eye on the younger daughter. Something''s off about her relationship with her family. Grey just about threw her away when I came up, and he''s trying to get the older one in my pants.]

    I''m surprised. It would make more sense if they had aimed for me, as the alpha, but to send Jessa Grey into Kellan''s arms...

    Unless they wanted another daughter. If Grey didn''t want Kellan anywhere near the other one, perhaps it was because he had another target in mind.

    If both his daughters were mated to the alpha and beta of my pack—yeah, I can see the appeal, if I was a two-headed snake like Grey. He would probably be running my pack within the year, if I were stupid enough to let something like that happen.

    He must really think less of me and Kellan for being so young, as if we can only think with our dicks. Unfortunately for him, I''ve never been tempted to dip mine into poison.

    I slip my phone into my pocket and slide out of the car, throwing my half-smoked cigarette to the ground and crushing it beneath my heel. Smoke wafts out of the car door before I slam it shut, nodding at the shifters stationed by the entrance to the building.

    I feel a sudden stirring of desire deep in my gut, and my wolf growls in the back of my mind. It''s a sound I''ve never heard before, a primal recognition of something I can''t quite put my finger on. All I know is that I want her, and I want her now.

    I''m too far to scent her, and my wolf urges me to get closer. Instead, I stick to the shadows and keep my eyes on her. She''s uncomfortable, and walks as though her shoes are foreign, but she''s clearly a little older than most of the first-time she-wolves who attend this Moon-forsaken matefest.

    She stiffens in a way that I can see from here, and her head begins to dart around, her brows furrowed. I''m certain she can sense my regard, and my wolf salivates at the idea of the hunt, even as he howls in my head that I need to get my ass closer. Close enough to sniff her, to hold her against my body, to scent her.

    Only her shoulders and arms are showing in that black dress she wears, and her pale skin gleams under the artificial lights of the ballroom.

    Then there''s that little hint of her breasts in that diamond-shaped hole over her chest. A tease, and a delectable one. I want to bite her there, to leave my mark for everyone to see that she''s been claimed by her alpha.

    I run my tongue over my canines, smiling when she scurries to another end of the room and looks around again. What does she smell like? What taste would explode in my mouth with the first lick? She strikes me as sweet, like honey.

    Take her, scent her, rut her, my wolf growls, and I can feel him clawing at the invisible boundary of our shared psyche.

    Could it possibly be that I''ve finally found my mate?

    I continue to circle and watch over my prize, excitement flaring when her diminutive form darts toward the gardens a half-hour before midnight.

    Oh yes, little wolf. I''m coming.