been joined by two other circling stars—caught in its orbit, always at risk of being eaten alive.
Two Christmases ago, Caine had defeated Parker in combat. Suddenly, the black hole had vanished. Now, when Fleance closed his eyes and looked inside himself, past his hellhound’s smoke-filled den, he saw a constellation of lights whirling through a black night sky. Still caught in orbit, but no longer crushed into place by a cruel alpha’s control.
That was what made Pine Valley so precious to Fleance, and Christmas even more so. It felt like a charmed place and time. The longer he spent there the more true that seemed, as he learned about the other miracles the town had experienced each Christmas season. The Christmas before he’d moved to Pine Valley, one of the local dragon clan had found his mate, breaking a curse that would have forced him to lose either his dragon or his human side forever. Then, Caine had met his mate, and broken Parker’s control over his pack. And again, last Christmas, another piece of magic. Two more hearts made whole.
In Pine Valley, Fleance felt safe for the first time since he was a teenager. He didn’t need to keep one eye on his pack-sense at all times, and this must have been why he never noticed the newest changes to his psychic night sky.
Two new points of light, barely pinpricks against the darkness, whirled near the central star, around the shining moon that represented Caine’s mate. Fleance blinked—and there was another rippling shiver, and they were gone.
Two almost-there new pack members. Twins.
Fleance’s eyes flew open and he met Caine’s tired gaze. “They’re hellhounds? Without being bitten?”
“Seems that way.” Caine became agitated. “And Abigail’s been telling Meaghan about things that changed for her after she had Ruby, and there’s going to be two of them, and… It’s going to be a lot.” His eyes went glassy. “A lot.”
And he doesn’t need an uncontrolled, violent, broken hellhound to deal with on top of all that. Fleance gritted his jaw. “This isn’t your fault,” he told his alpha. “It’s—I can handle it. I will handle it. And if worse comes to worst—”
He reached towards the central star in the constellation that represented his pack. Almost invisible against the darkness were the threads of power that linked him to his alpha. They were only threads, not the coiling, choking chains Parker had used to control his lackeys. But they were there. “You can make me stop.”
“It won’t come to that,” Caine replied.
“You don’t know that.”
Caine levelled his gaze at him. His hellhound’s fire moved behind his eyes, assessing. Thinking. Fleance forced himself not to show his discomfort.
Then Caine sighed, ran his fingers through his dark-red locks, and stood up. “Sounds like they’re finished out there,” he said. “Bob’s taken the tourists off into the trails, and Rhys and Manu ran at the first sign of trouble like the sensible bastards they are. No one left to cause you any trouble.”
Fleance didn’t mention that the reason the other hellhounds had vanished like smoke was that they were afraid they’d catch his hellhound’s rage. It was contagious; he might not be an alpha, but something in his hellhound’s hunting instinct lit a similar instinct in the others.
Thank God for Caine, he thought, standing up. He would hide himself away in a cabin if he needed to. Pine Valley had plenty of hunting lodges, farther out in the mountains where you’d have to run for days to meet another soul. But having Caine’s alpha authority as a backup if everything else went wrong…
He’d never thought he’d come to consider his chains with relief. But he’d never thought he’d be free of Parker, either.
“Let’s get a move on. I’m driving Meaghan down to town for her ob-gyn appointment this afternoon.” Caine paused at the door. *Hmm.*
The voice in his head was Caine’s, but the rumble underlaying it was all hellhound. Fleance bowed his head. Caine was his alpha, and he was a good one, but Fleance knew from bitter experience how these things worked. If his alpha said jump, you didn’t wait to hear how high. If your alpha said hmm, you kept your mouth shut until he finished thinking.
Caine stared at him coolly over his shoulder. “Before we go… one more thing.”
He walked over to the safe that held the Puppy Express’s cash earnings for the week and pushed his hand through the door of it. The metal shimmered around his wrist as he used his