Jacque shrugged. “Who would know they out-fetished us?”

  “Whoever hears me moaning in ecstasy when Dec’s fetish turns out to be hotter than fireballs.”

  “To be clear”—Sally held up her hand—“you’re talking about the candy, right?”

  Jen blinked and looked at her brown-eyed friend. “Are you and Costin into fire play?”

  Sally shook her head.

  “Then why would you think I would mean literal balls on fire?”

  “That’s not—” Sally sighed as Jacque and Jen giggled like schoolgirls. “Y’all are buttheads.”

  “Yes,” Jen agreed. “Now, let’s talk about the possibilities of fire play.”

  “No,” all three males said at the same time.

  Jacque tapped her chin. “Hot wax?”

  Three male voices immediately said, “Maybe.”

  Jen’s eyes lit up, and she looked at the girls. She mouthed, Wait for it. “I think we should try knife pl—”

  “Bloody hell.” Decebel hissed

  “Absolutely not,” Costin added.

  “Jacque, didn’t you mention you thought therapy would be good for our pack?” Fane asked.

  Jen held up her hand, and they each high-fived her. “Get some paper. We need to write this stuff down.”

  “If you want me to spank you, baby, all you have to do is ask,” Decebel said through their bond, his bedroom voice in full effect. She appreciated he was playing along with her. Rolling with her crazy and all that.

  “I thought I just needed to bend over.”

  “Time to go to bed,” she heard her mate say before the door flew open. Jen threw her head back and laughed as her mate picked her up. She knew Decebel wasn’t taking her seriously. The only thoughts in his head were of him holding her in their bed and Thia tucked away, sleeping in her own bed. Together, as a family. Not quite whole, but they would get there again. One day.

  Fane kissed Slate and then laid him in his crib. The alpha next walked over to the bed he shared with his mate. Jacquelyn laid on her side, watching him. Her green eyes glowed slightly with her wolf.

  “What’s on your mind, Luna?” He climbed in beside her, propping himself up on his side and resting his hand on her hip.

  “I love our pack. I love what your parents built. And I love we get to keep it safe.”

  It wasn’t what he’d expected her to say. But then again, his beautiful female was good at surprising him. He felt it then—her worry she tried to hide. He pulled her to him and cupped her cheek. “We will keep it safe.”

  “Hybrids, Fane.” She breathed out. “That’s… I mean… It’s not possible. Right?”

  He bit his lip and considered her question. “I don’t know. There have been so many things over the years that have happened that weren’t supposed to be possible, and yet here we are. Maybe, if hybrids are possible, they don’t have to be a bad thing.”

  “Cain wants to be the king of more than just vampires. He’s building a freaking army for the government. How can any of that be good?”

  “If we can convince these same government people that whatever Cain has told them is a lie, then perhaps we can sway them not to be on Team Cain.” Fane ran his hand down her hair, enjoying the soft curls. “And if they have control of the hybrids, and they listen to us, they won’t let Cain use them.”

  Jacquelyn grabbed his hand and pulled it down and bit him. The minx. “But the government obviously wants to use them,” she pointed out. “How do we convince them not to use the hybrids as if they’re some kind of super soldiers or whatever the hell the government is planning?”

  “I don’t know, Luna.” He rolled his body over hers until she was flat on her back. “It’s not something we’re going to worry about tonight. There’s a solution, and we will figure it out. But right now, I have a bigger problem.”

  She laughed and shoved at his chest. “If you make a dirty joke right now, I might just knee you in your bigger problem.”

  “You’re the one who said it,” he teased and then dipped his head to nip her neck.

  She wiggled beneath him. “What’s this so-called problem?”

  “Remember that fetish Costin suggested that you girls couldn’t figure out?” He reached for the nightstand beside their bed, pulled the drawer open, and removed what he needed.

  Jacquelyn’s eyes widened as he opened his mind to hers.

  “Our son is right over there.” She sounded scandalized and breathless at the same time.

  Fane pressed his lips to her collarbone and kissed her, moving lower. “I slipped some of your wine in his bottle. He’s going to sleep like a baby.”

  She laughed. “You better not have, and he is a baby, you dork.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” He tugged the collar of her sleep shirt lower. “The night is only so long, Luna, and you’re wasting time.”

  “We are so not—”

  He placed a finger over her lips, and he could see the reflection of his glowing eyes in hers. “We so are. Now hush, and let me make you moan in ecstasy. Let’s see if you can put Jen to shame.” Fane ripped her shirt straight down the middle.

  “There is seriously something wrong—” Her words cut off, and then she groaned. “Okay, maybe we can just, yeah, we can totally just try.”

  “That’s what I thought,” he whispered against her stomach.

  The end … for now.

  Thank you so much for reading Reign of Blood! I truly hope you enjoyed it. If you did, would you please consider leaving a review. They are greatly appreciated!

  The Hybrid Rule Excerpt

  Prologue

  “You live your whole life being told that one day you will meet the one that was made specifically for you. You live with this hope inside of you even as the darkness grows daily. To combat the darkness, you continually remind yourself there is a light–literally–at the end of the tunnel. But then you reach the end of the tunnel and instead of seeing the light, you hit a brick wall. Not only do you hit the wall, you slam into it with the force of a Mack truck.” ~Finn

  “What do you look like?” Lizzy asked as the voice in her mind. She rolled her head around her shoulders, trying to stretch her neck. Lizzy had grown stiff sitting on the cold linoleum floor. Her captor hadn’t even bothered to lock her in a furnished room. She leaned with her back and head against the wall, trying to find a position that was, if not comfortable, didn’t cause her muscles to ache. At some point, she had stopped counting the days. Vampires came and went, bringing food and escorting her to the bathroom. Time had little meaning when nothing changed, and no one would give her any information as to how long or why she was being held prisoner.

  The worst part was she had come willingly. Looking back, she cursed herself for how stupid she had been, how easily she’d been manipulated. Now she knew the truth. Well, she knew some of the truth. The problem was, the truth was too unbelievable to believe. Vampires, werewolves, hybrids, and true mates? Strange men speaking into her mind. I am so confused. Lizzy didn’t know what to believe.

  “Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.” Finn’s voice intruded on her inner ramblings. Lizzy had forgotten she’d even asked him a question. Since she had regained consciousness, Lizzy’s thoughts were jumping all over the place.

  “Seems like it,” she said. “But, who knows how long I would have laid there on the gurney in that catatonic state if you hadn’t come along?”

  What was happening to Lizzy was almost too strange to describe. Apparently, Finn, who claimed to be her true mate, was somehow bonded to her. And he had used that bond to break into her mind. Since he’d done so, Cain had been unable to put her back to sleep. No matter how many drugs his goofy scientist boy tried to put into her, Lizzy’s body fought off their effects. Finn told her he was using the mate bond to give her some of his strength. Lizzy couldn’t begin to understand how it worked, but this whole mate bond thing was proving to be quite useful. Cain was pissed about it, which was the most useful benefit, and the memory of the vampire’s frustrated cursings caused her to smile.

  “Has he come to see you again?” Finn asked, his voice all growly. The sound in her mind made Lizzy smile, though after Cain’s first visit, Lizzy had been forced to figure out a way to block the wolf from her thoughts. As soon as Cain had entered her room, Finn had gone into a tizzy of epic proportions. Lizzy had found the tirade charming, but also distracting. She hadn’t been able to concentrate with Finn screaming obscenities at the vampire, especially when only she could hear them. Maybe she shouldn’t get a kick out of the fact that this man she’d never met was not only so protective of her but also jealous. And not jealous in a ‘I own your body and only I’m allowed to sell it’ sort of way. But jealous in a ‘I want to protect you with my dying breath, and anyone who gets in the way of me doing that will die’ sort of way. Maybe jealous wasn’t exactly the best way to describe it. She lifted her hand and tapped her chin.

  “Possessive, protective, and yes,” Finn chuckled, “maybe a little jealous.”

  “A little?”

  “He’s gotten to lay eyes on you more than once. And you were asleep when I saw you. So, maybe it is more than a little,” he admitted.

  “Hmm,” she said out loud and nodded. “Well, I haven’t gotten to lay eyes on you even once. So, I’ll ask you again. What do you look like?”

  Lizzy could feel Finn’s irritation at the question, but she didn’t understand it. Instead of pushing for an answer, she simply waited. A few minutes passed, and then the image of a man suddenly filled her mind—an attractive man. “Whoa.” Her brow rose even as she kept her eyes closed and focused on the image he was projecting into her mind. His hair was dark auburn, and he was rocking that messy but sexy look. His eyes were dark and rimmed in black, making him appear as if he was wearing eyeliner. Finn had a straight nose, and an auburn beard and mustache that he wore close to his face, allowing her to see a strong jaw and thin lips. All in all, he was hot.

  “It’s the last picture I saw of myself,” he explained. “That’s probably better than trying to describe myself to you.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said absently as she studied the image. Finn was standing beside a truck. He was muscular and tall, but not massively large as she imagined werewolves to be courtesy of television and movies.

  “I’m six foot,” he offered. “Not that tall among my kind.”

  “Okay, ‘not that tall.’ I’m a foot shorter. Nice to meet you,” she said dryly. “You’ve kind of got a rocker vibe going on. Though the auburn hair wasn’t what I pictured, at least not from your voice. I was thinking burly lumberjack, and I pictured you a little older. The auburn hair makes me think of a penny. Not like an old rustic penny but instead you’re more of a semi-new, still a little shiny penny.” What the hell was she going on about? A penny, Lizzy, really? Okay, so maybe his unexpected good looks were throwing her off her game. Not that she had any game.

  “How old are you, Lizzy?” Finn asked.

  Thankfully, he threw her a lifeline. “Uh, Nineteen.” She felt relief flow through the bond. Then she laughed hysterically. Maybe it was tasteless to laugh at this man who had pledged to love and protect her, but Lizzy was being held captive by a vampire because she apparently had werewolf blood flowing through her veins. At this point, how she was supposed to know how to act? “Were you worried that you were mated to jail bait?”

  “No,” he answered, though she felt there was a hint of hesitancy in his answer. “Our bond wouldn’t have connected if you weren’t of the appropriate age.”

  She frowned. “Who determines the appropriate age? A couple hundred years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for someone my age to not only be married but have a house full of kids.”

  “The Great Luna.” He said the name with reverence. “Our creator. She determines the time for a true mate pair to join.”

  Lizzy didn’t really know how she felt about that. Not because she didn’t believe there was some sort of creator out there, but if there was, then why hadn’t they cared about her? If someone, God, this Great Luna, or whoever had indeed created her and Finn, and destined them to be together like some great love story, then why had it taken her nineteen years of literal hell on earth to get to this point in her life. Lizzy laughed out loud again. “Like this is some sort of pinnacle,” she said into the empty room. She laughed harder, imagining all the crap she’d been through only to end up trapped in a six-by-six room waiting on a vampire to turn her into a werewolf vampire mix. “Holy crap.” Lizzy huffed and grabbed her stomach. Her muscles clenched, partially from laughing and partially from hunger. She had refused the last two meals the vamps had offered her.

  “Why won’t you eat?” Finn asked. At least this time, he didn’t growl at her. Spoke too soon, she thought, as a snarl came through the bond.

  “I’ve already told you. The food could be poisoned.”

  She could practically feel the eye roll as he responded. “And I’ve already told you, he wants you alive. He’s not going to poison you. And if he wanted to kill you, he could obviously do it without poison.” A mixture of fear and rage came through the bond with the statement.

  “Even still,” she replied. “Best not to take chances. And yes, I’m always this hardheaded,” she said before he could ask her, because she knew he would. They’d talked so much since he’d woken her up that she felt like she knew what he was going to say. Or maybe it was because she could feel what he was feeling. Finn was like an open book. “So, Linc, how old are you?”

  “Linc?”

  The wariness in his voice made her smile. “Yeah, like Lincoln, cuz you’re a not so old penny. Remember?”

  She felt his humor through the bond, which was what she’d wanted. When he focused on things like her lack of eating or her periodic visits from the vampire king, Finn got cranky.

  “I’m…” He paused as if he had to think about the question.

  “Dude, red flags are going off in my head if you’re having to think about this answer.”

  “I’m not trying to lie about my age. I’m just—”

  Lizzy blew out a breath. “Good. For a minute, I was thinking you’re like some old dude who just happens to be hot and looks younger than his actual age. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. You know. I mean, to each their own. Cougars and silver foxes need love, too.”

  “You think I’m hot?”

  Lizzy rolled her eyes. “Either you’re actually humble or a narcissist looking for compliments. Please don’t be a narcissist. I’ve never thought I could be capable of murder, but after some dealings of the narcissistic variety, I am now completely confident I could murder someone under the right circumstances. And I’m talking premeditated, first degree, not that man-slaughter crap.”

  “I think we all have a little bit of narcissism in us.” Finn’s deep voice rumbled in her mind. “The reason I had to think about my age is because Canis lupus age differently than humans.”

  Lizzy’s eyes snapped open. She didn’t even flinch at the bright fluorescent lights that glared off the white walls. “Age differently how?”

  “We age one year for every six human years. But I’ve noticed that our aging slows down even more once we’ve bonded with our true mate.”

  “And that makes you…?” she asked slowly.

  “Um, I guess twenty-five.”

  Lizzy pursed her lips and frowned. “Okay, so by your math, that would make you like four and a half in human years.”

  She felt him sigh, as if her hand was lying on his chest. She could literally sense the rise and fall like a physical sensation.

  “Um, no. I’m one hundred and fifty Canis lupus years, which would make me around twenty-five human years.”

  “Oh. I see.” A host of thoughts assaulted Lizzy’s mind. Talk about an age gap. Older men weren’t necessarily her type—not that she had a type. And Finn certainly didn’t look like he was a hundred and fifty. So, I guess it’s not a big deal, she told herself. But then her mind jumped to the fact that she’d known guys who were actually twenty-five instead of a hundred and fifty. And they had been around the proverbial female block way, way too many times. What did that mean for a man who’d been alive for so long? Is this jealous I’m feeling? What the hell?

  “Canis lupus do not seek females other than our true mates,” he said quickly, having picked up on her thoughts.

  “Sorry, suitor mine,” she said, “but I’m not buying that. Apparently, I’m a dormant wolf thingie, which means I can only exist if a full-blooded Canis lupus had relations with a human.” Lizzy didn’t like the fact that jealousy made her blood boil at the idea of Finn putting his hands on another female, especially when she’d not so much as laid her physical eyes on him. Regardless of this true mate bond he said was between them, she didn’t have any sort of claim on him, at least she didn’t feel like she did.

  He growled again.

  “You’ve got to get that stuff under control,” she told him. “You can’t just go around growling.”

  “I’m not going around,” he snapped. “I’m sitting in a box, unable to get to you. My wolf is going stir crazy because we can’t get to you. We can’t keep you safe, and that is making us both a little irritable.”

  She snorted. “A little?”

  “Harrumph.” He huffed like a child who’d been told he couldn’t have his favorite toy.

  Lizzy’s butt grew numb. She rolled over and laid on her stomach, propping her chin on the palms of her hands. “How about we talk about something that takes your mind off what’s making you cranky?”

  “Nothing is going to take my mind off you being the prisoner of a bloodsucker.”

  “Well—,” Lizzy began, but then the door to her cell opened, cutting off her thought. She turned her head and saw a woman step into the room. The newcomer raised her hands in a placating gesture.

  “Lizzy…” Finn snarled.