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“Well, this isn’t it,” I say firmly, shaking fantasies of silken locks slipping between my nimble fingers from my mind. I need to get a grip. “And there’s no houses nearby. So you can just turn around and try again.”

He nods once, but his eyes linger on me, sharp and unsettling. I don’t like how he’s looking at me, like he’s trying to unravel a puzzle.

“Your door,” he says suddenly with a chin nod towards the offending item. “The lock’s weak. You should fix it.”

I blink. “Thanks for the advice.”That I didn’t ask for,I silently snark, sounding like my sister in my head at least and applauding myself for my bravery.

He doesn’t move. None of them do. The blond leans lazily against the post now, his gaze flicking between me and the other two. He has kind, intelligent eyes, but from here I can’t make out the exact shade. Dark. A brown maybe. Warm. He doesn’tlook amused like the grinning redhead, but there’s a quiet sort of curiosity in his expression that puts me on edge.

“Look,” I say, my grip tightening on the door, “I don’t know what you’re expecting here, but this isn’t some rental cottage, all right? You’ve got the wrong place.”

The teasing redhead smirks. “She’s charming, isn’t she?”

“Go,” I say sharply. “Now.”

The deep-voiced dark one raises his hands in a placating gesture. “We’re leaving.” He glances at the other two, his tone brooking no argument. “Come on.”

Reluctantly, they back away, moving towards the 4x4. I stay in the doorway, watching, waiting. Only when the engine starts do I finally step back, shutting the door and locking it again.

I lean against it, my knees threatening to give way as my whole body trembles, the rolling pin still clutched in my hand. I glance down at it. The colour has bled from my knuckles and been replaced with white purer than the winter snow. My heart is racing like I’ve run a marathon, and my mouth is dry with something other than just terror.

They’re gone.

For now.

But the air still feels heavy, charged with something I can’t name. I’m not sure if I survived the storm – or if I’ve just been pulled into the eye of it.

XAR

“Bloody hell, mate, did you see the state of that place?” Blaise mutters, slamming the car door as he slides into the passenger seat. He tosses his head back, shaking droplets of misty Devon rain from his riot of messy red hair like a fucking untrained dog. That’s pretty much the first time he’s spoken to either of us all day, as if his sudden chipper attitude is going to somehow undo all of the fucking damage him and his girlfriend – sorryexgirlfriend – have done over the past few months. “Falling apart at the seams, that house. She’s lucky the roof’s still standing.”

Dane settles into the back, his long, thick legs stretched diagonally to fit more comfortably. Stupid big fucker. He’s the reason I’ve been stuck with Blaise in the front seat beside me thewhole drive down. I wish we’d brought separate cars, but there wasn’t time to go and collect them and we got stuck with one of the label’s vehicles instead. I swear Dane deliberately claimed the back seat to force Blaise and I to be closer together, thinking we’d crumble and start talking about our differences or some shit. Joke’s on him – we’re both far too stubborn for that. So we spent the last six hours, thanks to the fucking holiday traffic, in sullen silence. The radio was a no-go the one time we turned it on and our name was all over the airwaves.

“The porch almost took my foot off,” Dane says dryly, brushing at a stray feather stuck to his shirt from one of the chickens that had clucked noisily nearby. “That’s a health hazard if I’ve ever seen one.”

Right. So we’re doing this are we? Ignoring our issues to hyperfixate on the girl who doesn’t want to know us. Fantastic.

The beautiful, terrified looking tiny slip of a girl with the biggest, bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, and messy locks that looked like pure spun silk, so pale it appeared almost white-gold in the light.

The girl who made my alpha sit up and take notice for the first time inyears.

Sighing, I grip the steering wheel but don’t turn the key. “And she’s living there. Alone.” My voice comes out sharper than I mean, but the whole thing’s been niggling at me since we pulled up. The door. The lock. The mess. The bloody scent neutralisers humming through the place. What kind of person pumps that stuff out in their own home?

“Yeah, I noticed,” Dane says, his tone calm but edged with concern. “It’s not exactly safe for someone like her.”

“She told us to piss off, didn’t she?” Blaise says, grinning as he pulls a half-eaten pack of crisps from the glovebox, dropping crumbs everywhere in the process. I bite back a warning growl, trying to play nice now that we’re finally talking at least. “Didn’tseem too fussed about safety then. She was ready to bash us with that rolling pin, though. Fierce little thing.”

He says it with glee, and I just know that he’s hard from it. I have to admit, seeing her gripping that huge marble rolling pin in her tiny little hand did something to me too…but maybe it’s just the idea of someone finally silencing Blaise that has me almost smiling for the first time in weeks.

“Fierce,” Dane echoes, his tone flat. “Or scared. You saw how pale she went when Xar spoke. And she wasn’t just annoyed. She was…” He trails off, but we all know the word: afraid.

Blaise shrugs, stuffing crisps into his mouth and not bothering to swallow before he speaks. My blood pressure spikes as shards of crisp fly out of his open mouth. I’m in half a mind to turn back and ask that girl for her rolling pin to beat his head in my damn self. “Yeah, well, you two come across like a pair of uninvited loan sharks. Bet she thought we were there to nick her chickens or something.”

I exhale sharply, ignoring his attempt at humour. “She’s an omega. Seemingly on her own. Living in that wreck of a house, with no evidence of a pack in sight. And she doesn’t smell likeanythingat all.”

Silence fills the car for a moment, broken only by the crunch of Blaise’s crisps and the grinding of my teeth.

“You think she’s in trouble?” Dane asks quietly.