THE AWAKENING

Memories from her childhood floated through her mental theater, plucked from the past and pasted together in a jumble of thoughts, sounds and feelings as she sank under a black blanket of total lethargy.

The sharp bite of pain as the skin split beneath the rusty saw blade. Blood welling from a small finger. Crimson spilling in a beautiful trickle from a nasty wound. Her adoptive mother’s fretting and worrying as the wound streamed red.

“I told you not to play by that dirty old thing,” her mother had admonished, rushing to put Cassandra’s wounded finger under the faucet.

The cool water soothed the angry cut, washing away the blood, staining in the porcelain sink a light pink before swirling down the drain. “You could’ve cut your finger clean off!”

Cassandra had remained silent, more fascinated by the blood than the pain of her cut or her mother’s muttering about tetanus and blood poisoning.

Without thinking, Cassandra popped her finger into her mouth just as her mother went to grab a bandage.

“Cassi!” her mother had cried, appalled. “What are you doing?”

“I wanted to know what blood tasted like,” Cassandra had answered.

Her mother’s mouth tightened in a disgusted moue. “Well, that’s disturbing. Don’t do that. Little girls don’t need to be wondering about such things. Do you hear me?” she chastised as she quickly bandaged Cassandra’s finger.

Cassandra had nodded, sufficiently convinced that she ought to never do such a thing again but deep down…Cassandra had been afraid to admit that she’d liked the taste of the blood.

The copper tang had thrilled her senses, as if lighting her insides and creating a pervasive hunger for more.

From that point forward, Cassandra had always preferred her meat rare and slightly bloody. Her friends had always shuddered and called her a carnivore. If only they knew…

Of course, now it made sense. If anything about her new life could make sense, that is.

How would her life have been different if she’d been raised with full knowledge of her heritage? What if her biological parents had been able to raise her within Clan Janus?

would that have meant for her life? Would she have gone to college? Would she have been as driven to push

the moment but she supposed being as dumb as a

“You are awake.”

Jandin watching her with a warm,

sighed and struggled to sit up. Jandin rushed to her side to help. She graced him with a brief grateful smile and took a good look

“Two days.”

never slept that long in my life. Am

sit beside her. Her heightened senses picked up his unique body odor and it

now that she wasn’t Phasing, she wasn’t wildly attracted to him.

can’t be normal,

experience with these sorts of things but wasn’t she supposed to feel something

can’t tell you how happy I was to hear you’d found your way to our compound,” Jandin said, breaking into her thoughts. “We took some losses that night. As much as I hate that blood-sucker Cristophe, taking you away

and his clan found us just as we were leaving the cave,” she

happened next. “There is no shame in what happened. The Phase is a powerful force in a female’s body, not to mention there are forces at work that go beyond the simple biology of our species. You are unlike any female

so I hear,” she grumbled, rocking her head to the side to crack her neck. The crackle of bones felt good but only briefly so as her stomach growled like a beast trapped under her

she grimaced at his word choices. “Too much?” he asked and she nodded. “Okay, Cassandra it is.

food and

food of the Gods. Only the best for

she suggested with a weary smile. “Besides, I don’t think your Alpha shares your feelings about my worth. No sense in making it worse with fancy meal requests. I think I’m just a problem that’s been thrust in his lap to solve. Doesn’t really make for the warm and fuzzies, you know?”

On either side.

apparent frustration at his brother. “Tieran has always been stubborn. Hardest head of

The Prick any

interested in pitting the brothers against one another when she needed all of their help to get through this epically screwed up

long as I breathe, you will not be harmed in this house by anyone in Clan Janus. I make this vow to