(Eye Of The Storm)




Chapter One



How did anyone even begin to make sense of these diagrams?

Lydia stared at the text book in front of her, her brain already faltering from the little she’d read over the past twenty minutes. There’s a reason why I chose not to take Biology at school.

But this? This was just bizarre, seriously … stuff about werewolf sperm and fertilisation, and something about acidity and alkaline levels needing to be balanced – some tie-in as to why their sperm was cool instead of warm – to placate the female when she’s on heat…

Placate. As if we’re wild and unruly just because we’re lusty females, pur-lease!

She shut the heavy book with a slam. This was the most patriarchal bullshit she’d ever heard. Okay, so maybe they were ‘werewolf facts’, but the way these books were written… She looked at the author’s name on the front: Dr T. J. Huntley. Gotta be a man.

Rummaging through the other books Lawrence had left for her to study—and how many books does he think I’m going to get through?—she finally landed on one that looked different to the rest.

She pulled the small, hardcover edition from the pile, barely able to make out the title because it had faded so much: Werewolf Myths & Legends.

“If there are no molecule diagrams in here, I’m game.”

She opened the book and it landed smack in the middle, the binding barely holding the pages together. An ink drawing stared back at her, of some animal that she assumed was a werewolf lying upon a human-looking woman, her head thrown back in ecstasy, her breasts splayed and a full moon in the background. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what they were doing.

Great. Studies in bestiality. She quickly flicked through more pages, uncomfortably aware that the drawing had left her slightly aroused. My life is so fucked.

She stopped at a chapter titled, The Wolf and the Lightning-Bearer.



Once upon a time, before even the dawn of time, Himet, the Great God and Yemet, the Great Goddess, had a fight. In growing knowledge of their status and abilities, one was no longer willing to yield to the other, nor to share the space of the universe they had created together.

One day, their fight was so great, their anger so palpable across the cosmos, that their consumed rage tore them apart forever.

Thrown from each other, Himet soared up and became the sky, the stars, the sun and the moon; Yemet soared down and became the earth, the trees, the plants and the animals that walked upon it. But they were lost without the other, and there was no way to mend the great divide they had brought upon themsel—



An unwelcome scent that she recognised straight away, wafted towards her through her open bedroom door from the downstairs kitchen.

Damn it … Selena. What’s she doing here?

Reluctantly, Lydia closed the book, her wolf rising territorially, and made her way downstairs trying to look unperturbed. That female would just love to know she could rile her up.

She arrived in the kitchen to find her with her strawberry-blonde head in the fridge.

“Can I help you?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed as if she hadn’t been expecting anyone. Then she threw Lydia a grin that anyone else would interpret as friendly – Lydia interpreted it as motive-laden. “I baked you some cookies; I was wondering where to keep them.” She shut the fridge door and pointed to a sealed container on the table. “We got off on the wrong foot. I wanted to apologise.”

“Well … thanks. I’ll find a home for the cookies.”

“Great.”

They stood there in silence, unmoving.

“How are you settling in?” asked Selena, finally.

“Very well, actually, thanks.”

“Oh, good. Can’t be easy keeping three males in check.”

And there it was – the bitterness in her tone. Now we were getting down to it.

“Of course, I grew up in the pack. I can give you some pointers.”

Please don’t.

“We’ve all had our turns with all the males before they mated…”

Oh, god…

“Ryan likes it rough, and – wow – he knows how to make you forget you might die every full moon, you know?”

Bitch.

Jealousy reared its head.

Ignore her.

“Lawrence … well, he’s a bit more detached, but ain’t nothin’ wrong with his equipment – I mean, the guy’s tall and so’s his…” Selena stopped mid-sentence and smirked, and that’s when Lydia realised she was growling. Fuck. So much for remaining unperturbed. She was close to clawing the stupid woman’s face off.

“He always keeps his trousers on though – it’s a little quirk of his. And he never shifts, not even in moments of wild passion – no one’s ever seen his wolf. He never runs with the pack. Ask me anything personal about them; I know all their quirks,” she added, silkily.