\*This short story contains explicit sex. It is not intended for readers under the age of 18. Anna Davis has accepted that her four-year battle with cancer is finally over. With only weeks to live, she makes peace with her life and makes arrangements for her death. Twenty years ago, Anna fell in love with Conor Evans at the wrong place and in the wrong time. She’d had to make the toughest decision she’d ever faced—and let him go. Now at the end of her life, he’s offering her a chance to finally follow her heart. He has invited her to the cull—a tradition of transformation from human into a lycanosapien by “bite and blood.” Anna has her reasons for refusing Conor, even if it means only living another month, but Conor refuses to give up on the only woman he’s ever loved—not without a fight. Anna has another tough choice—go back to her frail humanity or accept Conor’s invitation and…claim.

Braden Jackson wants Eve Taylor from the moment he sees her naked and confident, strolling around the tribe’s lands in the Ozark Mountains. The newly culled female is the only woman—human or lycanosapien—who makes him want to howl. There’s only one problem. And his name is Tom Ellis. The first generation lycanosapien has more muscles than brains, not to mention some serious control issues when it comes to the human woman he culled. Eve has finally escaped the unrelenting stalker who destroyed her life, and she’s grateful to Tom for giving her a new start within the lycan tribe. But it’s Braden who inspires her sparks-flying, inhibition-melting, mate-taking lust. Although it’s easy to desire him, it’s hard to risk her hard-won freedom to have him. But when Eve’s life is on the line, Braden will do anything to protect the woman who’s captured his heart. Even if it means sacrificing his own.