Every Miraculous Moment (Hyena Heat #6)(4)

The security team escorted her and Tonya to the car and then followed them to Miracle’s parents’ home. She stared at the house, knowing her parents were inside, unaware that Tais had done something so cruel. They would be upset for her, and her dad would threaten to shift and tear him apart.

This was her home now, and she was going to do just what Ness had suggested and start her life over.

“What’s the plan?” Tonya asked as she got out of her car and Miracle joined her.

“I’m free. Even though it was a terrible thing that Tais did, he actually saved me from having to go back over there again. I’ll rebuild my business and it’ll be better than before.”

Tonya smiled. “The best revenge is to not let this get to you and to have a better life. Although, I’m still not against making him bleed a little.”

Hugging her best friend, Miracle said, “He’s not worth the effort.”

“Ready for a new start?”

“Definitely.”





Chapter 2





The day after the January full moon, Mack Callahan sat in his bedroom and looked at a photo album his mate, Elise, had made of their mating ceremony. It hardly seemed possible that twenty-three years had passed since they’d gone for a hunt on the full moon and she’d been killed by a hunter’s stray bullet. He’d thought he’d never be able to pull himself out of the depression that losing his mate had sent him into, but then he’d been delivered by an angel on earth – his adopted daughter, Whisper.

The little girl had been shoved into his house by the human government at the tender age of four. He’d agreed to let her stay, and promised to raise her, because of Elise. She would’ve thrown open the doors eagerly and claimed the little girl as her own without hesitation. Mack had no regrets about the life that he had with Whisper and the other two boys he’d adopted, Kross and Kayne. But he did miss having someone to share it with.

As alpha, he was the most powerful male in the pack, and he knew he wasn’t too bad-looking. Dark hair, gray eyes, and a body honed from years of hard work. He was alpha, not only because it was his heritage as the son of the previous alpha, but also because he was a badass motherf*cker.

Pardon his French.

His life wasn’t the way he’d planned it, but he supposed that was how things went. If someone had asked him what his perfect life would entail, he would have first asked to not have Elise killed, and then for them to raise a lot of kids and grow old together. But no one asked him. He’d been robbed of his mate far too soon, and he’d never mated again.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t dated, because he had. He could snap his fingers and have any unmated she-wolf in the pack. But meaningless sex had stopped appealing to him long ago, and none of the she-wolves in the pack made his wolf stand up and take notice. His kids were grown now, and Whisper was mated to a clan of hyena males. His sons were bringing their new mate, a pretty hyena named Heaven, to dinner that night.

After staring at a photo of Elise in her mating-day gown, he said goodbye to his past, closed the album, and put it in a hope chest that had belonged to her. Hefting it, he carried it to the hallway and pulled down the attic stairs. He set the box in a corner, along with her other things, then walked back down the stairs and closed the attic door. He was ready to move on. It was time.

The front door swung open and Luther called out.

Mack walked into the family room and shook his hand. “Thanks for coming.”

“Sure. What’s up?”

Luther occupied the third-ranked position in the pack, and was one of Mack’s oldest friends. He and Mack had grown up together in Beyton, fought their way up through the pack rankings together. And when it had come time for Mack to take over when his dad retired, Luther was right there, pledging his loyalty.

Mack motioned for Luther to follow him into the kitchen. They sat across from each other at the table, and Mack cleared his throat.

“First, I want to let you know how much I value you. You and I have been through a lot during our years in leadership.”

Luther arched a dark brow. “Are you dying?”

“No,” Mack said, and frowned.

“You sound dire. What have you done? Is this like that time you thought it would be a good idea to have weekly barbecues to foster pack togetherness, and all that happened was the females got disgruntled from having to do all the work?”

Snorting, Mack shook his head. “No, I promise. I’ve just decided to go to an all-shifter resort.”

Luther frowned. “Resort? For what?”

Mack’s cheeks burned, and that mortified him on some level. “It’s a shifters’ singles’ resort down in Florida, like the gatherings we used to go to in Pennsylvania where unmated wolves could meet. Someone in the pack – I’m guessing one of the females – put me on some kind of mailing list, and I started to get ads for dating websites and cruises. This one appealed to me. Basically I’ll get a nice vacation out of it, and I might meet my mate.”

Luther paused for so long that Mack wasn’t sure whether he’d stroked out, or was trying to decide if Mack was insane.

“You don’t think you could mate one of the she-wolves? Or a human in town? The female who runs the bakery is pretty.”

Mack was aware of the human, and the unmated she-wolves. But none of them made his wolf so much as twitch an eye, and that told him if he did pick one of them to mate, his wolf wouldn’t be part of the equation. He wanted to find someone who made his wolf go crazy, and also spoke to the human part of him. If she even existed, he was certain she wasn’t in Beyton.