LUNA'S REVENGE: REBORN FOR LOVE

3: THE GAME BEGINS

AMY'S POV

Seven days. That is all the time I had to change myself into a totally different individual.

I trained myself over those seven days as if I were heading off to battle, and that's really not too much of an exaggeration about what I was doing. Each and every day, I was waking up before the sun, brutalizing my body harder than ever. Running until I couldn't catch my breath, weightlifting until my muscles were crying out for mercy, sparring with anyone dumb enough to get in my path.

By day three, pack members began to stare at me strangely.

"What's happened to Amy?" I overheard Mrs. Henderson say to her friend as I zipped past them on my fifth loop of the territory. "She's like a woman on a mission."

If only she knew how accurate that was.

Physical training was just the start, however. I studied days in the pack library through all of the data that I could locate regarding territory law, pack politics, and alliance diplomacy. I memorized the history of the Blackfang Pack forward and backward until I could recite their family tree backwards. I drilled trade treaties and border wars of a half-century ago.

Data was firepower, and I was preparing for war.

But the worst part wasn't the training or the books. It was being that girl that everyone expected me to be while silently losing myself every time I looked down the road.

"You're being strange," my little brother Jake told me at dinner on day five. He was seventeen and never swore, which generally got his last nerve and drove the devil out of me. Today, he spoked the devil out of me.

"I'm not strange," I lied, poking at my salad. Food was now this strange thing in which I was either famished or queasy, and I couldn't locate the middle. Pregnancy was hell.

"You are too. You're training for the Olympics, you're reading books on boring pack business, and you said no to Marcus when he asked you to go to the movies." Jake flashed me a grin. "The old Amy would have said yes just to be polite even if she weren't that interested."

My parents caught each other's glance across the table. Great. Now they were worried too.

"Perhaps I should be a better person," I stammered defensively.

"Or perhaps you're having a breakdown," Jake offered gently.

I stood in front of my mirror that evening rehearsing my faces. I had to be just like the Amy Damian he would know for – young, innocent, maybe shy. Certainly not the sort of woman who knew all his secrets and was busily engineering his downfall.

It was harder than I'd imagined. My face kept trying to fall into the harder features I'd built up over the years. My eyes stubbornly refused to remain soft and trusting. I'd been hurt too much to even be able to pretend I was one of the good girls.

But I had to try. Because if Damian ever got a sniff of a suspicion that I wasn't who I seemed to be, this entire charade would be over.

The Blackfang Pack arrived on schedule, their convoy of black SUVs streaming up our driveway like a funeral procession. I was at my bedroom window, my heart racing so hard it threatened to burst from my chest.

There he was. Damian Blackfang, emerging from the front car as though he were master of the universe. I could sense the dominance emanating from him, from atop the third story. Six-foot-four inches of unadulterated Alpha power, with black hair and wide shoulders that could bear the burden of his pack's desires.

I'd looked at him once, in my former life, and been completely swept away. Had consumed all the deceptions, every honeyed notion, every duplicity of promise.

This time, I was icy, cutting fury.

"Amy!" My father shouted down from the lounge. "Come and greet our guests!"

Time for the show.

The corridor was filled by both our packs, us all trying to appear nonchalant while overtly sizing each other up. I felt the strain of the moment, that bitter taste of wolves wondering if they saw friend or enemy.

And amidst it all, the man who murdered me.

"Amy, there you are." My father emerged beside me, his hand on my shoulder, warm and comforting. "I'd like to introduce you to Alpha Blackfang. Damian, my daughter Amy."

"Alpha Blackfang." I moved forward and held out my hand, my voice saying in even tones without a flaw. "Welcome to Silverclaw territory."

He wrapped his hand around mine, and I pressed the inside of my cheek together to prevent myself from flinching at the jolt of electricity traveling up my arm. The mate bond still lingered, still attempting to get my body to believe this man was the one it needed to be with.

My head was smarter than that.

"Call me Damian, okay," he requested, and that voice – oh god, that voice still affected me in ways I did not want to admit. "And you're the Amy I've heard so much about."

I yanked my hand back out of his as quickly as proper etiquette allowed. "All good things, I hope."

"Good things." His eyes were pinning my face like in an attempt to unlock a puzzle. "I was also considering maybe we could speak in private when I'm here. Maybe you could show me around the territory tomorrow?"

And there it was: the very same invitation that had started it all in my other life. The casual come-on that had led us out for a walk for the first time, shared our very first real conversation, our very first kiss.

In my original timeline, I'd jumped on my toes with excitement, held out so readily I'd made a spectacle of myself.

I smiled at him then, a cold polite smile. "I'm afraid I have other commitments tomorrow. Perhaps one of our territory guides would be able to help you, though?"

The second surprise on his face was so brief I almost didn't see it. But I did, and it was worth half a dozen Martinis. Damian Blackfang was not used to being rejected, particularly not by unmated she-wolves.

"Oh, of course," he said, smooth.

"Maybe."

I apologized and stepped aside, fighting the need to sneak a look back over my shoulder. I felt his eyes on me, sensed his confusion. This wasn't how it was meant to go for him, and guys like Damian did not take surprises well.

"Sexist, girl," Sarah inserted herself beside me as I reached the kitchen entrance. "Did you just reject Damian Blackfang?"

"I had other things planned," I said primly.

"Pre-existing engagements my butt. You have nothing better to do tomorrow than help your mom wash the laundry."

Sarah stared at me like I'd grown an extra head.

"What is wrong with you?"

"Maybe I don't want to be some guest Alpha's notch on his belt."

"Since when do you not want to be claimed by a beautiful, powerful Alpha?" Sarah took my arm to lead me into her kitchen where we could have a private conversation. "Amy, I'm serious, what's going on? That's not you."

She was right, and exactly the problem. Old Amy would be walking on air at the notice from Damian. Would spend the rest of the evening torturing herself about what to wear on the walk, how to turn talk into romance and keep sneaking peeks.

But I wasn't that girl any longer. I couldn't be, if I was going to make it through what was coming.

"Perhaps I'm simply growing up," I said to Sarah.

She looked at me with those intense Beta senses. "Coming of age, or disintegrating at the seams? Because you've been weird all week, and now you're playing hard to get with the most eligible Alpha in three states."

"I'm not playing anything. I am simply. being cautious."

"Cautious about what?"

About falling for his deception once more. About giving someone like him the chance to love someone like me. About repeating the same mistakes that had gotten me killed in advance.

"About getting involved with someone who's obviously just seeking a political marriage," I replied instead.

Sarah's face eased up. "You've been hearing the rumor."

"Haven't I?"

"Yes, but." She glanced over at the big hall where we could still hear both packs talking. "Look, I'm not denying that the rumors are true. But maybe you should try to at least give him a chance to shoot it down before you totally write him off."

If only she knew that I'd given him three years to shoot it down, and that had earned me a silver blade in my throat.

"I'll think about it," I lied.

Later that night, after the Blackfang Pack had all dispersed to their guest rooms and the great hall had settled down, I snuck downstairs to the kitchen for a cup of tea. My stomach had been protesting all night, and I was hoping the ginger tea would settle it.

I was so focused on not waking a soul that I hadn't even realized anyone was in the kitchen when I turned to catch a whispered voice behind me.

"Couldn't sleep either?"

I spun around so fast that I nearly dropped my mug, my heart pounding up into my throat. Damian stood in the doorway, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt which did absolutely nothing to hide how buff he was.

"You scared me," I said to him, placing my hand over my heart.

"Sorry. I was thinking that a little hot milk would do its trick." He gestured towards the glass in his hand. "May I sit with you?"

All of me was aching to be able to say yes, for him to come in and sit down and converse like two mere human beings and not predator and victim. The mate bond was pulling at me, attempting to get me to believe that this was fate, that we were supposed to be together.

But I knew how the book would end.

"Actually, I was just heading back to bed," I said, moving towards the door.

"Amy, wait." His voice halted me, and I reluctantly turned. "Have I done something to make you angry?"

The question caught me off guard. In my previous life, he'd been nothing but suave and chivalrous. He'd never had to ask me why I was being cold because I'd never been cold.

"Not at all," I said. "Why on earth would you ever suspect that?"

"Because you've been ignoring me all night. You brushed me off a bit ago without even considering it." He leaned in close to me, and I tried not to move back. "Most she-wolves at least want to know more about me."

No pride, just sincere puzzlement. And maybe a bit of hurt? It was hard to tell with Damian. He was too good at hiding what he really felt.

"Maybe I'm not most of the she-wolves," I tried to be calm.

"No," he agreed, his gaze sweeping my face in the dim illumination of the kitchen. "You're definitely not."

For a moment we simply sat there, locked and gazing at each other. And I could see it – the precise instant when his confusion gave way to something entirely other. Interest. Challenge. The gaze of a man who had just discovered something that was worth taking.

In my first life, I would have adored that look. Made me feel special and chosen and worth noticing.

And now, it made me want to escape.

"Goodnight, Alpha Blackfang," I stated icily, and left the kitchen without even glancing over my shoulder.

But as I climbed up to my room, I could feel his eyes on me every step of the way. I knew, with no doubt, that I'd just become a great deal more fascinating to him.

The game has begun.