He watched the scene playing out before him. Frantic action at the Tao household—healers rushed in and out. Ryker stood by the door instructing the dominants.
Rain pounded on all of their heads.

He was the giver of death. The reason his so-called pack lived in fear. The end of the untruths. The ultimate power.

Not one of them suspected him or ever would.

He was more powerful than any of them. When he was done, the Tao pack would pay. The sins of the father had been visited on the son. He wasn’t done yet.

The Day of the Shooting….

Luanne Magnolia—Mags to her family and friends—Holden walked down the street toward the coffee shop, Perkulater, anticipation making her jumpy. Sioux Falls didn’t have many coffee shops and the truth was, Mags didn’t much care for caffeine. The substance made her wolf jumpy.

Clayton Davies wrote there sometimes—more and more regularly it seemed—and going in meant she got to gaze at him for a little while.

The street smelled of rain, and she would likely get wet on her walk back to her family’s dress store. She didn’t care a bit. Seeing Clay—the mate she would never get to claim—soothed the ache inside of her caused by living as a human when she was most certainly not one. Mags had felt dead inside for years until Clay bumped into her outside the shop.

Breathing the same air as he for a few minutes each day offered her a reason to wake in the morning.

If only he weren’t so very human. She turned the handle, letting herself inside the establishment. Humans loved the smell of brewing coffee. The way they inhaled the scent deeply as though it soothed them, the aroma of so many different types all at once, sent her senses into overdrive. She sucked down her discomfort. From previous experience, she knew the discomfort would pass.

“Mags.” Clay waited for her in his spot, the tall, brown chair in the corner of the room. Her heart skipped a beat, and she grinned, knowing she probably looked stupid. The human girls in the place were all so polished. Tall, dark, and handsome, Clay could speak to any of them.

Yet, he greeted her.

She maneuvered her way around the tables, all stuffed together tightly to accommodate as many customers as possible, until she reached him.

“Hi.” She held his eye contact for a moment before she had to look down. If he were a wolf shifter, he’d be a dominant to her very-omega self.

Clay motioned to the chair across from him. “Will you sit?”

“I can. For a minute.”