Fatal Contingencies (Book 2, the Fatal Trilogy Series)

Chapter 1.

Life does some twisted fucking shit sometimes.            

When I first arrived in Kettle's Bell, Kansas, I thought it would just be another dot on the map that I chose to lie low in for a while until my tormentor caught up to me again and I had to make a run for it. It was supposed to be just like all of the other little towns I'd hopped from. Boring, lonely, and temporary.

But as fate would have it, Kettle's Bell was hiding some massively big secrets in the shadows cast by that full moon.

Secrets that would take my life and toss me into a whole new one. A life nothing like the running and hiding I was used to.

The Alyssa Barnes of the past was put to rest once and for all and the new, badass Werewolf Alyssa was born.

It's still weird to think about. I was always far from normal, but I'd lived my whole twenty-one years without knowing the biggest secret about myself until I quite literally stumbled right into this little homely town that just so happened to house a pack of its very own.

And in my efforts to protect myself by keeping everyone at arm's length, I'd let my instinct to fight draw the attention of that pack's extremely moody and even more sexy alpha.

Daimon Kross was everything I knew to stay away from.

And everything I wanted.

I'd fought him and myself for months, but in the end, he'd helped awaken me to the person I want to be and with his help and the help of his pack, I'd been able to finally send my demon straight to hell where he belongs.

Everything from there on out should have been easy.

I should have finally gotten a life worth living, with the man I'd fallen hard for.

It was supposed to be me and Daimon against the world.

We were supposed to get to be happy.

Don't I deserve that shit by now?

Daimon deserves it too.

His life hasn't been easy either, and like me his heart and mind were also haunted by ghosts, but the most important ghost of all...the one he vowed to love and protect...the one he'd loved from the moment he laid eyes on her...the one he'd asked to marry him....the one true love of his life that was supposed to be dead...wasn't so dead anymore.

Instead she was back from the grave and crying in the arms of the man I love. The arms that are supposed to be holding me.

Life has one fucked up sense of humor.

I stand frozen in the rain as Daimon disappears into the renovated hotel turned Werewolf living quarters of the Krossway with his weeping angel in his arms.

I'm not sure how long passes, maybe only a few moments before I hear the bikes all flying into the parking lot, Toby laying his over right in front of the entrance where the taxi that delivered this final strike to my heart had been parked before he runs inside.

"Alyssa?" I hear Easton walking towards me but I can't turn to face him. "Is it true?"

He comes around me, putting a hand on my shoulder and I sway under the weight. I can't respond, the lump in my throat too much to speak around but I nod once and Easton frowns, the rain turning his blonde hair a brownish color.

"It's going to be ok," he says before stepping in to hug me.

"How?" I whisper. "You know how he felt...feels about her."

"I also know that she's been gone for five years and that it was before you," he tells me. "Don't go jumping to conclusions yet when you don't know the full story yet."