When I tell you I lost it, I mean I really lost it. My dad had given me Mr. Binkers as a kitten, just before he’d been killed when I was nine. In a way, I felt like the cat was all I had left of my father and now it seemed like he was dying too—I was losing him, just like I’d lost my dad!
I was sobbing my eyes out when Jake drove up in the sleek new sports car he’d just gotten. He worked in my stepfather’s business and did well for himself, even though he still lived at home in the mansion with the rest of us.
The minute he saw me, he got out and ran around to find out what was going on. I was crying so hard, I couldn’t explain, but Jake saw the problem right away.
“Come on—get him and let’s go to the vet!” he insisted.
When I still didn’t move, he scooped up Mr. Binkers in one arm and put his other arm around me. Then he put me in the passenger seat and laid my cat carefully in my lap. He didn’t seem to care that Mr. Blinkers had gotten blood all over the front of his immaculate white business shirt—he just drove like crazy to the nearest emergency animal clinic and helped me inside.
While the emergency vet was working on my cat, Jake sat beside me and held me close, letting me cry all over him, further ruining his nice clothes. He held me and stroked my hair and murmured soothing nothings in my ear. And when the vet came out with the good news that Mr. Binkers was going to live, he paid the entire bill—which was well over three thousand dollars—and wouldn’t even hear of me paying him back.
Jake had saved Mr. Binkers’ life that day, I was sure of it. And if my cat walked with a limp and had a scratchy little meow instead of his old full-throated yowl, well, I didn’t care about that—I was just grateful to my stepbrother for acting so quickly and being so kind and supportive through the whole awful ordeal.
Strangely, though, my mom and Jake’s dad hadn’t seen it that way. I remember the worried way my mom looked at us when we walked in the door with Jake’s arm around my shoulders. Mr. Binkers was going to have to stay at the vet’s for a while, but he was going to be okay. I still felt shaken though, and Jake was still comforting me.
When I explained, my mom’s worried look cleared, but she didn’t thank Jake and she was quick to get me away from him. And later, I heard the strangest conversation between Jake and my stepfather.
I had been walking down the second-floor hallway—which had a banister around it and a view of the first floor down below—when I heard their voices speaking my name. Quickly, I had ducked into an alcove, wondering what they were saying about me.
“I smelled her when she came in,” Marcus was saying, his voice filled with cold anger. “Anastasia had your scent all over her, Jacob!”
“I was comforting her! Her cat nearly died!” Jake protested. “You don’t think I did anything, do you? That I would ever do anything—especially at a time like that? She was crying her eyes out—I’ve never seen her look so…so broken.”
“Well, you’re not the one to try and fix her,” his father snapped. “You know she’s off-limits. The Blood-Mingling makes her your sister by blood as well as by adoption!”
“I know that!” Jake’s voice was fierce. “You made certain you got your Omega but you denied me mine.”
“I couldn’t help it, son—that’s they way Winifred wanted it,” Marcus protested. “She doesn’t want her daughter to have to go through what she did when the two of us first met.”
“She’s going to go through it anyway—she lives in the house with two Alphas,” Jake snapped. “You really think you can keep her from having her first Heat Cycle by telling me to keep my distance? My scent is still in the air—and so is yours!”
“Yes, but I’m bonded to her mother,” Marcus had pointed out. “My scent shouldn’t stir her like yours would. I’m telling you, Jacob, stay away from her. Winifred wants to keep her out of the Were world as much as possible.”
“Good luck with that,” Jake had said flatly.
Then there had been the sound of footsteps and the two men had gone their separate ways.
At the time, I had thought it was just more of the crazy cult stuff they all seemed to believe. But now, lying on the bed and stroking Mr. Binkers, who was doing his level best to purr, I began to wonder.
What had Marcus meant about Jake’s scent “stirring” me and what exactly was a “Heat Cycle?”