Bewitching The Alpha (Hex My Heart, #3) by Talina Perkins Page B

knight-in-shining-armor for some other dumbass that didn’t know any better. Last time he held the position, the fucking world had split open and left him for dead.
    Need hummed along his spine. Need to reclaim his mate. Need to mark the woman he loved.
    Fuck it all to hell. He needed to run. Everyone could fend for themselves just as he did. He had his duty and he made damn sure the pack law was followed. Everything else didn’t matter. Staying the fuck out of witches’ business was at the top of that list.
    Knots bunched in his gut as the moon dipped behind the clouds. His eyes dimmed, then the world faded to gray with sharp accents. Smells from the surrounding forest intensified. Dead leaves buried beneath layers of ice and snow to the deer tucked away from the coming storm pinged on his radar.
    Unable to stop the shift, he dropped to his hind legs and let the moon call to his inner beast. Muscle stretched, bones snapped and popped. Human hands morphed into paws, and blunt teeth turned lethal.
    Lusting for the feel of the cool beams against his fur and the smallest of reprieves from the haunting shadows of her, he ran. Pine trees flew by, cold air filled his chest, replacing the sweet vanilla scent that plagued relentlessly.
    United, his human mind forged with his wolf. Why the hell did she have to come back?
    Why now? And why did he want her more than his next breath?

CHAPTER TWO
    “I f they didn’t want the law broken then they should have stripped my magick when they had the chance. Not my fault the old geezers are slow in the head.” They referred to the archaic cave-dwelling High Council Elders who ruled over all witches and warlocks. Or, card-carrying dickdouches if Ember was feeling particularly generous with her fury. Lucky for them tonight she didn’t care what they thought of her, her past or what they wanted to hang over her head as blackmail this time. They could kiss her witch-gone-rogue ass!
    Ember pressed her shoulder closer to her ear when her cell phone began to slip from its perch with all the winding bends and dips in the road.
    “I can hear you’re in full snark mode tonight.”
    She smiled and tightened her fingers around the wheel of her Jeep to take another curve.
    “Can’t seem to help myself lately.”
    “Ember darlin’, you know this ain’t gonna work, sweetie. Breakin’ the law again won’t change the past.” Harmony’s soft Southern twang added an effortless layer of exasperation to her tone. How the hell her coven sister did that, Ember would never know, but the woman was good, she’d give her that.
    The truth of the matter, she no longer had a family to worry about and that was a damn blessing in disguise. If they didn’t have her back, why should she stick her neck out for them?
    “The past can suck it. I’m so over it.”
    “Maybe...” a deep sigh crackled through the earpiece before her sister continued gently. “I don’t know. Maybe it is time to move on, Ember? Have you considered that?”
    Only half a million and a half times since breakfast. “Tried it, I really did,” she drew in a breath and on a long sigh of her own, asked a question she hardly had the guts to put out there. “Do you think he’ll forgive me? Or understand at least? Hell, maybe he’ll just shoot me and call it a day.” Threads of energy tightened in her belly and water rimmed her eyes to cast a blurry mirage over the road in front of her.
    Hades to blazes. She never cried. Or lost her cool. Not anymore. Not a single tear had trailed down her cheek in sixteen months. So why the waterworks now? She sniffed and passed a hand over her face. No way in hell she’d break that record tonight.
    “Sweetie, you know him better than that. If he’s gonna shoot you with somethin’, it’ll be with the only loaded piece of hardware the good goddess gave him.”
    Her brows arched and she smiled. She had nothing. What did you say to something like that anyway? Yes, please? “The man won’t look at