“You little bitch!”
The wizard directed power on her injured ankle, sending fire licking along the wound. Alex bit her lip to keep from crying out. Grayness clouded her vision, threatening to drag her under. Not now… She fought against it.
She jumped on him, wrapping her hands around his throat and squeezing hard. “I don’t like the way you talk. Time to shut up.”
“You need me, Alexandra,” he wheezed. “Already the poison laced into the trap is working through your body.”
Another lie. But she hesitated, just enough. He threw her off and rolled.
“My traps…” He coughed. “Each trap is coated with a potion to reveal the victim’s true nature, to prevent Dominic and his werewolves from posing as real wolves. Whatever a person wishes to hide is exposed.”
He produced a hand mirror from his robes.
The wizard’s potion revealed her real face. Red runes swirled in an intricate pattern on her brow, chin and cheeks. She touched her hair, golden once more, curly and wavy.
Pretty hair. Butt-ugly face.
Panic surged in her mouth. She’d covered the tattoos with glamour, much as a mortal woman used cosmetics.
Alex summoned all her glamour to hide them. She squeezed her eyes shut. Opened them.
The runes still stood in ugly, stark relief.
She could no longer disguise herself. No longer hide her true identity from Dominic Farrell and capture him. The dream of freedom and a little cabin in the woods, payment for this assignment, vanished in the moonlight.
“The antidote is here.” Belaramos waved the vial.
“Give it to me.”
Uncorking it, he threw the contents. The liquid stung her eyes, dripped down her cheeks. Shrieking, she lunged at him.
And stopped, captivated by the image in the mirror he held out.
Alexandra of old… full, sensual mouth, large green eyes fringed with golden lashes, flawless cheeks. The face of men’s dreams, not their nightmares.
Her mother’s face. Everyone said how much she’d resembled her beloved mother, who had died when Alex was only ten.
Rubbing the potion on her cheeks, she stared, her chest tight with longing. For ten years, she’d been forced to use glamour to hide her hideous face. But not even glamour could restore her original beauty. Thanks to her stepfather’s curse, she would never look the same again.
Except now. Alex touched the glass in wonder.
“It’s really me,” she whispered.
Time to test drive this potion. Alex resumed the glamour of a dark-haired woman with round cheeks. Seeing no runes, she patted her face in disbelief.
“The potion will wear off in five days, but I’ll give you more. Enough to be beautiful for the rest of your life. When you bring me Dominic Farrell. Alive… or dead.”
The pain in her ankle became a dull throb, equaled by the cold seeping into her bones. Belaramos promised her wildest dreams. “He’s promised for the bounty.”
A slow, cold smile, icy as death. “A paltry bounty of what? Compared to having everything you ever dreamed of. You’ll never have to run and hide from the world.”
A lash of cruelty in that whisper. “You’ll never be ugly again. Bring me Dominic Farrell. You can still collect your bounty. I’ll give you evidence you caught him, and the Society will reward you.”
“Who the hell are you? Why do you want him?” she demanded.
“Five days, Alexandra. You have five days.” The wizard turned for the cabin, and soon, the lights inside winked out.
Leaving her alone in the darkness, and the rapidly dropping temperatures and a choice; to remain beautiful, or turn ugly forever.
Chapter 3
The woman was in trouble.
Dominic watched the last wolves vanish into the deep forest. The cold bit into his skin like an ice pick. He turned to his pack. “I’m going back for her. Go home.”
Michael ran a finger over the black patch covering his ruined eye. “No way, boss. Not alone. Belaramos will get you. This time it was too close.”
“I’m not leaving her to die.”
“She followed you,” Michael protested, as the others nodded in gruff agreement. “Her fault.”
“And she saved that wolf. Go back to the lodge.” A low growl rumbled from his throat. He’d been gone from home ten years, leaving Michael in charge. Upon his return, the pack immediately accepted him back as leader. But being alpha meant showing no weakness. Obey me or you’ll pay. And they knew the punishment would be harsh.
As his men started back, Dominic glanced at the full moon. The temperatures were plummeting. She wouldn’t last long. He lifted his arms, willing the Change and shifted into wolf.
Senses exploded as everything sharpened. The woman’s scent, gardenia and ice, burned his nostrils. He could track her through an Arctic blizzard.
Bounding over the field, he followed the trail back to the wizard’s cabin. Outside the tall chain-link fence, he paused.
The steel trap was empty. The woman had escaped.
Muzzle lowered, he sniffed the ground, picking up traces of blood and gardenia and sour fear. There, toward the dead tree.
A pale of moonlight dappled the meadow beneath the tree’s spindly limbs. Dominic raced across the field. The scent grew stronger, making his blood pump strong and thick through his veins.
At the tree, he found her, curled inside the hollow trunk. Crimson dotted the ground by her foot. Dominic shifted back, clothed himself by magick and squatted down. Admiration filled him. She was a fighter, this one. She’d dragged herself into the tree to get warm. Gently he lifted her into his arms, her silky black hair tumbling over his arms. She moaned.
“You’re safe now,” he soothed.
Beneath his hands, he felt delicate bones, so frail he could snap them in two. But this hunter was tough. The facade hid an inner core of steel. A worthy opponent for a powerful wolf.
An equally worthy mate.
A distant rumble broke the quiet night. Dominic watched the four-wheeler approach.
“I gave you orders to stay put,” he snapped.
“You gave orders to go home. If you wanted me to stay, be specific.” Michael left the engine rumbling as he climbed off. He removed a thick wool blanket from the attached trailer and went to cover the woman.
Dominic growled, his possessive instincts going haywire at the thought of another man touching her. Michael backed off, holding up his hands.
“Pax, boss. Was just trying to help, not stake a claim.”
With extreme care Dominic laid her in the trailer, climbed in and covered her with the blanket. He examined her ankle. Not broken, but bad enough.
As they headed for the lodge, the woman stirred a little and moaned. Dominic laid a warm hand on her icy cheek. Anger rose up in him, hot and swirling.
He’d like to break Belaramos’s fingers, one by one.
Strength radiated from the woman. He’d felt it in the bar, beneath the cover of buxom redhead glamour. But it wasn’t until he’d caught a whiff of the scent she’d failed to entirely eradicate that he could not resist. He had to kiss her.
Dominic