THE AWAKENING

Cassandra gave up trying to convince Arja things would be different at the other clan. Truthfully, she didn’t know if what she promised was true.

Although Jandin and Koris had been protective and kind, she didn’t know if that was their true nature when not mating with a Breeding female. Particularly a Prophesied One.

Cassandra accepted the brutal scrubbing of her skin as Arja made sure not a drop of Cristophe’s seed remained on her body, even going so far as to swish her vagina with an efficient sweep of her finger to make sure nothing remained inside her womb, and then Cassandra was dried and dressed in an frumpy brown sack of a dress that looked as if it’d been salvaged from a bag meant for the thrift store.

She lifted the hem of the ugly dress and let it drop.

“It matters little what you wear. Ulster will simply tear it from your body when he mates with you.”

Cassandra stared in open repulsion. “I don’t want to mate with him.”

A small smile lifted Arja’s mouth. “That won’t matter either. A word of advice: Don’t fight. Accept your fate with grace and maybe he won’t mark you for sport. Ulster is a mean bastard with a penchant for inflicting pain on others.”

Fear snaked its way to her heart and her knees had begun to quake as they walked down the dingy hallway to another room.

At one time, the decrepit house may have been grand but time and disrepair, vandals and neglect had aged the classy Victorian to a shell of its former grandeur.

Much like a great courtesan who had fallen on hard times and was forced to service rough patrons in a filthy alleyway to make ends meet, the old house struggled to retain some semblance of what it had once been in its crumbling cornices and creaking maple balustrade.

“Who does this house belong to?” Cassandra asked.

“Someone dead.”

“Oh.” Cassandra took that as a warning not to ask too many questions.

Her gaze darted from one room to the next, looking for an escape but everywhere she looked, pairs of eyes peered at her from darkened alcoves and musty rooms.

Arja led her into a room different from the rest. The room was awash in opulent tones of red and purple and Ulster, the scarred barbarian, lounged in his oversized chair like a king on his throne.

Three large men stood at wary attention, their eyes narrowing and their noses twitching as Cassandra entered the room.

“Ahh, there she is. The lady of the hour. Tell me, did you manage to wash that bloodsucker’s stink from your body?”

Arja bowed. “She is clean, Master.”

whip the worthless flesh from your bones,” Ulster promised with a sick smile as if he rather liked the

said, “What do you think of our accommodations?” he asked, almost mockingly, daring her to give him a reason

and Cassandra wasn’t about to play his

worries, I have ways to make my women say whatever I’d like them

inside she was shaking like a

you think I won’t tear them to pieces first?”

She sent a derisive look around the motley group, noting their moth-bitten clothes and the pervasive sense of abject poverty that clung to everything she saw, and said, “You are not their equals in any way. It’s

forward, baring his teeth. “You dare much, girl. Do not speak of that bitch in my presence if you enjoy breathing. She abandoned

from snarling a bitter retort in a bid for self-preservation.

the star-crossed lovers had defied everything to be together, even a timeless prophecy that had doomed

didn’t raise me and I know nothing about this damn prophecy everyone keeps talking about.

seemed taken aback by her frank statement, so much so that a

Cassandra with open distrust. “She’d say anything to avoid her fate. Hurry up and put your seed in her belly. Your son, our

in a time warp. There’s no prophecy. Just a bunch of werewolves stuck in the past. I mean, look around…this place could use

Cassandra swallowed nervously. Perhaps she’d taken

had said to her that she was a werewolf, let alone a Prophesied Breeder of Epic

in her body, ones she couldn’t possibly explain away logically — not to mention the whole losing her virginity during some feverish Phasing to two different strange men and then the subsequent wild sex with a vampire — but she’d say or do anything to dissuade the scarred bastard staring her down from sticking anything of

she didn’t phase

her lips, dehydrated from everything that had transpired. “Can I get something to drink,” she asked, hating to show even an ounce of weakness but she was truly

fingers and another woman scuttled inside. “Yes, Master?”

water

woman nearly tripped in her haste to obey and it was everything Cassandra could do to hide her disgust at Ulster’s treatment

my

on her lips and shrugged. “Unless you’re talking about my adoptive mother, which I highly doubt,

he scented fear, he’d overrun her. She sensed there was a dangerous game

if she wanted to escape unscathed. She held onto the hope that Jandin and Koris would find her

There were faint things floating in the water and

was, she squeezed her eyes shut and downed the glass. The woman quietly took the empty glass and melted from

brow. She nodded and his gaze narrowed. “Take off your clothes. I wish

“Excuse me?”

stutter and I don’t