She needed to be sharp tomorrow, needed to prove herself worthy of her son. To be useful when the lucani went to rescue Alex.

But she couldn’t sleep because she’d worked herself into a state of complete panic.

Until that damn wolf had walked through the doggie door.

Then she’d actually felt her muscles begin to relax. All because she knew exactly who this wolf was.

Now with her hand stroking his pelt and his head on her lap, she felt her nausea ease and the dizziness disappear.

Because of him.

He couldn’t take away the fear, though. That remained a cold lump in her stomach, a raw ache in her chest.

But having Kaisie lying on the couch next to her made everything else settle.

And that should’ve been a scary thought.

Too bad everything else in her life was even more terrifying.

“We have to succeed tomorrow,” she said, knowing he understood her. “And if we don’t, at least Alex has to know we tried. I can’t let him believe I abandoned him to that monster.”

Kaisie’s wolf whined and shook his head.

Amazingly, she knew exactly what he couldn’t say.

“Yes, he could think that. He’s only a boy. Whose mother has done awful things. Horrible…”

She’d done them to save her son, yes, but the blood of two young Etruscans was on her hands. The men she’d hired to kidnap her test subjects had been less than honorable.

“I know I should’ve known when I hired them. But Alex was dying. And I was naïve enough to think those men would simply release those young people. I didn’t know they were going to kill them. I should have. I know I should have.”

It was why she’d expected the lucani to simply kill her and be done with it.

She’d begged the lucani king, Colerus Luporeale, to promise her Alex would be well cared for, should anything happen to her.

He’d agreed without hesitation.

Which was why she was fully prepared to die tomorrow to ensure that Alex got out with the lucani. They wouldn’t care if she didn’t— Well, that wasn’t completely true.

For some reason, the women here had rallied to her side. Probably only because she was Alex’s mother. But they wouldn’t miss her.

She’d also spoken to Tamra privately and coerced a promise from her. Alex would have another woman in his life to mother him if she didn’t come back. Yes, he would miss her but eventually…

She sighed and Kaisie whined again, drawing her gaze back down to him.

In the darkness broken only by the soft glow from the television, she stared into the wolf’s completely human eyes, so green they reminded her of spring grass.

Such beautiful eyes.

She’d harbored a hopefully well-guarded secret since she’d met Kaisie, one she really hoped no one ever discovered.

She thought he was wonderful. Sure, his manners could use a little polish and his hair needed a trim. And he definitely needed to shave that scruff off his face.

But the man was strong, fiercely loyal, smart as all hell and steady as a rock. Everything she’d always thought she wanted in a man.

She waited anxiously for the minute he walked through her door every day, longed to hear his deep voice, even though all they did was argue.

Oh, she realized he felt a faint spark of attraction for her. She wasn’t an ugly cow with warts who weighed three hundred pounds.

She knew men usually were attracted by the red hair and the haughty looks. But the only men she’d known growing up had been introduced to her by her Mal grandmother or her Mal- brainwashed parents. Men who cared only for wealth and power and what she could mean to their careers.

They didn’t care that she was a damn good scientist, that her dream date would be dinner and a show or that she loved to read to her son.

But she and Kaisie would never get beyond attraction. At least, he would never. She’d already lost half her heart.

And she wished he’d shift back into his skin so she could tell him to take her to bed. To take her mind off what was going to come tomorrow.

She’d never had sex just for pleasure. Sex had always been a duty, a chore. Sometimes it hadn’t been consensual, though she’d never said no. If she’d ever said no…

She’d be like her older cousin Marie, spending her days staring out the window of her apartment in Manhattan, her mind a vast field of nothing, wiped clean by a spell to make her docile.

Marie was the perfect breeder. She’d already produced three Mal for the man her parents had sold her to.

Grace did not want to become Marie.