RYAN
The forest was thick with worrisome stillness as I stepped into its darkness, the pungent scent of pine and earth suspended in the night air. The moon filtered through thinly overhead, casting fragmented bars of light on the ground. With every crack of twigs underfoot, I seemed to sound a warning, and I could not stifle the growing knot in my belly. Ares, my wolf, roamed beneath the surface, agitated and tense, straining against the limits of my brain like a storm ready to blow.
My mate Hailey was expecting; to everyone else, it would be a blessing. To me, it was a ticking bomb.
The tension among the pack had been mounting for weeks now, and now it would spill over.
And then, of course, there was Adrian.
The Vampire King's nearness to Hailey was getting harder and harder to igno
