Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 454(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 454(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Bracken’s sister, Ashley, had trusted him to get her son to safety . . . but he hadn’t. He’d failed Hayden. Failed her. Failed himself.
At first, he’d found it hard to return to day-to-day life—even more, he’d felt that he had no right to. He couldn’t relax. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. Hell, he hadn’t even been able to play Call of Duty because the sound of bullets firing took him back to that day. Just the same, he hadn’t been able to smell popcorn without finding himself once more in the middle of a field while the world went to hell around him.
So he’d played COD every day until the flashbacks stopped, and he’d eaten popcorn every day until the smell no longer bothered him. Other times, he’d simply sat there, reliving the attack over and over. Trying to make sense of it. Torturing himself with it. He was an enforcer; protecting people was what he did, but he’d failed to protect his own family.
Bracken had done his best to isolate himself from the rest of the pack. He’d drank. And drank. And drank. Jesse and another pack mate, Zander, had run an intervention. The three of them were as close as brothers, but the two wolves just hadn’t been able to reach Bracken . . . mostly because he hadn’t wanted to be reached.
It was Cain Holt, the foster brother of his Beta female and a player within the Movement—a group of shifters that retaliated against anti-shifter extremists—who’d gotten through to Bracken. He’d said that the Movement was planning to take care of the bastards responsible for the attack, but that Cain would give him their names and leave the matter to him, provided that Bracken agreed to get his head straight.
Cain came back three weeks later. Bracken had his head straight.
Singularly focused on revenge, Bracken had set off alone to track the extremists. And he’d discovered some things about himself. One, he was very, very good at hunting. Two, he could be very creative when it came to torture. Three, he could kill in cold blood and not lose a minute’s sleep over it.
He’d shown no mercy. Had been unmoved by pleas and apologies. Not only had he killed the fuckers, he’d destroyed the compound that housed their entire faction. He’d set it ablaze and watched it burn, listened to cries of pain . . . and felt nothing—not even grim satisfaction.
Other factions of anti-shifter extremists believed that Bracken was the culprit, since he had the perfect motive, but there was no physical evidence linking him to the crimes. Still, he remained a suspect in the eyes of the human authorities.
While he hadn’t expected the extremists’ deaths to bring him some element of peace, he’d still hoped they would. They hadn’t. The nagging sense of restlessness to go hunting had been what had kept Bracken going. Now it was gone. Without the drive to avenge his family, he felt adrift and without purpose. He went through the motions. He ate. Breathed. Slept. But he didn’t live.
His wolf was similarly taunted by restlessness. Finding peace by exploring their territory and being surrounded by their pack mates simply eluded them both.
The position of enforcer used to give Bracken purpose, but he couldn’t feel that same pride in it anymore. He’d tried giving up the position—and, yeah, that was partly because he didn’t feel like he deserved the responsibility of keeping others safe. His Alpha, Nick, had bluntly told him to shove his resignation up his ass, had said to give himself time to “heal.”
What Nick didn’t realize was that Bracken couldn’t heal. Although he didn’t have as many flashbacks now, and he was no longer running on grief and rage, the emotions were still there. They just simmered beneath the surface, always ready to take him down.
He wouldn’t ever be the person he’d been before—not even close. He was harder. Disconnected. Hypervigilant. Couldn’t laugh or relax. And the darker side of his character—the unpredictable and quick-tempered side that skated the edge of rational—often took over.
“What about Shiloh?” Jesse asked, referring to his mate’s cousin.
Bracken’s brow creased. “What about her?”
“Well, you were pursuing her pretty hard before the attack. From what she told Harley, you haven’t contacted her since then. Does that mean you’re not going to pick things up where they left off?”
“There’s nothing to pick up. I was never serious about her.” Plus, she felt like part of a past life. Part of a world he no longer fit in. Part of a path he could no longer take.
“Did you know that Claudia Brookson warned her off?”
Bracken’s head whipped around. “What?”
“She very politely suggested that Shiloh should reject any advances you make. Shiloh just stared at her with a vacant expression, but her twin tried to lunge at Claudia. It seems the she-wolf isn’t giving up on trying to lure you into her pack. She’s been watching you since she got here.”