“You don’t want me to stay away.”

Brice’s stubbled chin grazed the underside of her jaw, making it impossible to refute his accusation.

How could she even speak when the ethereal vibrations of his hot breath skimming her skin paralyzed her vocal cords?

All that escaped was a small mewling sound from the back of Cassie’s throat. It didn’t sound like the protest she meant to project and Brice didn’t take it as discouragement.

Delicate kisses replaced his breath along her jaw. The feathery sensation penetrated her senses, muting the wisdom to push away and run. What was the point? She’d already learned the futility of trying to outrun a wolf.

Cassie tipped her head, exposing her neck. He could rip out her throat if he wanted, but he seemed content to nip and lick and suck every inch. Trembling, she felt no less devoured as her strength failed from the hum of sheer pleasure.

Dangerous, oh, so dangerous.

Southern born and bred, KRISTAL HOLLIS holds a psychology degree and has spent her adulthood helping people and animals. When a family medical situation resulted in a work sabbatical, she began penning deliciously dark paranormal romances as an escape from the real-life drama. But when the crisis passed, her passion for writing love stories continued. A 2015 Golden Heart® Award finalist, Kristal lives with her husband and two rescued dogs at the edge of the enchanted forest that inspires her stories.

Awakened by the Wolf
Kristal Hollis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Sylvia Plumey, my 9th grade English teacher—a promise kept.

Sincere thanks to Brenda McLaughlin, Candace Colt, Joanne Calub and Raven Winter—my awesome critique partners. To my first fans, Angela Jarvis, Michelle Ochoa and LuAnn Nemeth, much love for your unwavering encouragement and support. Mom, thank you for the gift of reading. An extra special thanks to Keith, the hero of my heart. And to my editor, Ann Leslie Tuttle—thank you for believing.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

Naked and wet, Brice Walker crouched on the back porch of his grandmother’s log cabin. The splintered grooves of the weathered boards bit sharply into his sore hands and feet, intensifying the throb in his right leg.

He focused his better-than-human night vision and tuned his ears to any movement along the forest’s dark tree line. Every muscle clenched in fight-or-flight readiness, though he was too tired for either. The three-day trek in wolf form and subsequent swim up the Chatuge River had overstretched his endurance.

If things were different, he would’ve driven from Atlanta to his grandmother’s home. His present situation being what it was, he no longer enjoyed that freedom.

He’d fucked up. Colossally.

One careless mistake and he’d lost his family, his friends, his home.

Regret flared inside him like a backdraft. He tried to swallow the burning ache, but its fiery fingers fastened around his throat and squeezed until his mouth prickled from the embers.

His banishment was well deserved and if he got caught slinking into the territory, the sentinels would waste no time hauling his bare ass in front of the Alpha.

All things considered, Brice would’ve preferred catching rabies to facing his father. Distance didn’t always make the heart grow fonder. Sometimes it fostered bitterness.

A faint August breeze stroked his skin like a lover grown cold and distant. Out of habit, he sniffed the night air. The familiar scents of pine and honeysuckle eluded him. Once his nose had been his pride. Now he depended on his eyes, ears and gut instinct to compensate for his lost sense of smell.

The evening symphony of crickets calling their mates salted the wound of his loss. Scent triggered a Wahya’s mating urge. Despite the heightened acuity of his other senses, only his nose could lead him to his true mate.

With a heavy humph, he shook. The water droplets that had pebbled on his heated body thwacked against the deck. A silver-coated house key fastened around his biceps with corded silver—the only substance that wouldn’t disintegrate during a shift—slapped against his arm. Each time it struck, electric shocks pinched his skin.

He untied the key and rubbed it between his fingers to dispel the residual shift energy, wondering if he wasn’t about to make the second biggest mistake of his life.

When his uncle, Adam Foster, had whisked Brice to Atlanta after his first epic fail, he didn’t have time to say goodbye to his beloved grandmother. Of course, he hadn’t known that his uncle’s offer of respite disguised a permanent relocation.

Brice unlocked the back door. His heart paused at the click. For the past five years, the Walker’s Run pack had considered him wolfan non grata.

Trusting that Margaret Walker wouldn’t disown her only surviving grandson, Brice clamped down on his nerves and limped into the kitchen. The dim light above the stove softly illuminated the pie on the counter.

First his heart swelled. During his college days, Granny always had a fresh-baked pie for him on his weekend visits.

Next Brice’s gut clenched, his stomach bellowed and his mouth watered, putting him in serious danger of drooling. Despite the ample game he’d encountered on his journey, he hadn’t eaten in days. The thought of killing again triggered nauseating sweats—if he was lucky. God-awful flashbacks if he wasn’t.

Silently he snagged a small saucer from the cabinet, a spoon from the drawer, a knife from the wood block. Then he cut a large wedge out of the pie. The first bite of sweet-tart deliciousness slid down his throat, slow and easy.

Mmm, cherry! His entire body sighed.

One piece wasn’t enough. He had to have two. A chug of milk washed down the third. Abandoning all etiquette, he scarfed down the rest and licked the pie pan clean. At long last, a warm, cozy satisfaction ebbed from his belly.

God, it’s good to be home.

The snazzy penthouse apartment above his uncle’s law offices served as a place to eat and sleep. Brice felt no more connection to the space than he would a hotel room. His heart and soul resided here, in this simple cabin. Always would.

He hobbled through the dark house. Each right step shot pain through his calf.

“Granny?” He rapped a soft knock against the bedroom door. A few seconds later, Brice slipped into her unlit room.

Nothing seemed amiss or out of place, so he assumed she’d spent the night with his parents. She often stayed in the family’s private quarters adjacent to the Walker’s Run Resort whenever they hosted a social event. Granny never missed a good party.

Vacillating between disappointment and relief, he wanted his grandmother’s welcoming embrace and assurance that all would be well between them again, but he was too weary to face the alternative. He headed down the narrow hallway to his old room, each gimping footstep heavier than the last. At the door, his senses tingled even before he set eyes on the small lump in his bed.

The mixed feelings Brice had about his homecoming knotted into concern. Granny knew wolfan law forbade adult males and females of blood relation to share bedding, so why had she fallen asleep in his room?

“Granny?” He eased onto the edge of the mattress and touched her leg.

An unfamiliar feminine gasp prickled the skin along his spine.

“Who the hell are you?” Brice didn’t mean to sound so rough and angry, but pain and exhaustion made him edgy and terse.

“Stay away from me!” The woman kicked out of bed and grappled with the bedside lamp.

“Fuck!” The sudden brightness stung like a fistful of sand slung in his face. Shielding his light-sensitive eyes behind his arm, Brice tuned into his other senses. The air thickened. He could almost taste the sharp tang of her fear. Her breaths came hard and fast.

“Get out before I call the cops,” she demanded.

“With what? Telepathy?” To his knowledge, Granny had one telephone. A landline in the kitchen.

“I have a cell phone.” The uncertainty in the woman’s voice said she didn’t.

“Nice try.” Swiping his eyes, Brice sensed a change in the air pressure, heard a hitch in her breathing. His instinct warned that she had inched to her right.

“I don’t need my eyes to track you.” He pointed to where he knew she stood.

The woman stopped moving and quite possibly stopped breathing. Nothing but howling silence filled the space between them. Any second she would hit the floor in a dead faint. Brice forced his eyes to open.

Not that he had any doubts, but the fragile-looking young woman pressed against the wall was definitely not his grandmother. Wild spirals of red hair gave her a sexy bed-head look regardless of the cornered animal glint in her cinnamon eyes.

She wore an old Maico High baseball jersey. Wait. That was his old baseball jersey.

His bed, his clothes. What else had she claimed that belonged to him?

And why?

She was human and likely unaware of the implications of marking a male Wahya’s belongings with her scent.

As if he could smell her anyway.

Still, that this small slip of a woman had claimed his discarded clothes and his abandoned bed sparked a possessive thump in his chest. His gaze prowled the small swell of her breasts and the narrow curve of her hips cloaked beneath his shirt.

She sported the longest legs he’d ever seen on someone so petite. Soft, toned legs that inspired steamy visions of them tangled around his hips as he moved inside her until she shattered in ecstasy, breaking him with her.

The full moon had passed, so his attraction was real. Not something prompted by primitive hormones riddling him to fuck the nearest willing female.

That this one didn’t look so willing was like an ice dump on his stiffening cock.

“You need to leave.” A pink flush rose from her slender throat to color her face. She anchored her arms over her chest, her fingers tightening around her flesh in a vise grip that would leave marks on her porcelain skin if she didn’t relax.

“What I need is a good night’s sleep.” Brice watched her cute little toes curl in the shag of the small white rug in front of his dresser.

The rug was definitely not his. Neither were the feminine touches on the dresser.

A tightness squeezed Brice’s chest. His grandmother had been forced to take in a boarder because he wasn’t around to help out.

“Are you drunk?” Condescension hardened the woman’s delicate features.

“No. Why?” He flexed his foot. The pain stabbing his leg would scale his entire body if he didn’t lie down soon.

“Because you’re in the wrong cabin and you’re naked.” Her voice thinned on the last word.

“You’re only half-right. I am naked.” Although nudity was second nature to Wahyas, Brice pulled the rumpled bed covers over his lap. The tattered comforter’s hideous color scheme caused an unpleasant twitch to crinkle his nose.

Whack!

“What the hell was that for?” He rubbed the sore spot where the can of hair mousse smacked his head. “I covered up.”

“This is a private residence. The resort’s rentals are down the road.” Her voice sounded tight and her words were clipped. “Now, get out, frat boy.”

Boy? She thinks I’m a boy?

“Wait—” He barely had time to block the candle she lobbed at his face. “Hey! Take it easy, lady.”

She stood battle-ready, shoulders squared, feet spread apart, a hardcover book gripped in each hand.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m Brice Walker, for chrissakes!”

Okay, maybe his tone was a little too patronizing, but he didn’t deserve the wallop to the chest from the book she flung at him like a ninja star.

“Freaking perv, get out.” The woman wasn’t simply frightened. She was downright mad.

“I’m not—” he dodged the second book “—a pervert.”

Projectiles of various sizes targeted him with the precision of heat-seeking missiles. Who knew a woman’s hair and beauty products did double duty as a weapons arsenal?

He slid to the floor, using the bed as a shield. “I can explain.”

“Not interested.”

A wolf doll dressed in a tiny Maico High jersey bounced on the floor next to him. Either the woman had been an athlete in school or she had dated one. Since she looked too small and fragile to have played sports, Brice assumed the latter.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he grumbled, holding the stuffed animal to his nose. After a few futile sniffs, he tossed the toy aside and peeked over the mattress.

Her impromptu armament depleted, the woman’s gaze ricocheted around the room. “Just leave and I’ll forget you were here.”

Guilt plagued Brice’s conscience. He knew from experience how helpless she felt being trapped. Tomorrow, after he and Granny talked, Brice would issue the frightened woman profuse apologies for what he was about to do.

In the territory without permission, sleep-deprived and beyond exhaustion, he couldn’t risk anyone else discovering his presence. Tying her to the bed so he could get some sleep seemed like his best option.

An unexpected thrill electrified his body, temporarily numbing Brice’s pain. Another time, another place, he would have had an entirely different motivation for tying her up. He almost smiled.

“Easy, sweetheart.” He stood, hands lifted in mock surrender.

“I am not your sweetheart.”

For some illogical reason, Brice felt the distinct need to disagree. However, the critical way she assessed him down to his bare toes made him think that she found him lacking.

Or not.

Before he could cover himself again, she jerked the ugly comforter off the bed and stashed it behind her.

“Like what you see?” He straightened to his full six-foot-four height.

“Hardly.” She swept a mass of curls from her heart-shaped face. “What I’d like to see is your ass walking out the front door.”

“Not going to happen.” Brice smirked. He liked that the woman had spunk in spades. “Look, darlin’. All I want is a good night’s sleep. Preferably with you next to me, all sweet and cuddly.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen, either.” She stuffed her small feet into a pair of worn sneakers. Her gaze teetered between him and the bedroom door.

His predatory senses sparked. “I wouldn’t try it if I were you.”

“It’s a good thing you aren’t me.” Her chin tilted and one eyebrow arched as if upping his challenge. She snatched the lamp from the nightstand and yanked the plug from the outlet.

If the little spitfire thought dousing the light gave her the advantage, she was oh-so-wrong. In milliseconds, Brice’s eyes adapted to the darkness.

The lamp shattered near his unprotected feet. Shards of glass skittered across the wood floor. She dashed past him and he couldn’t intercept. Not without slicing his soles.

Damn.

The woman was smart. Cunning. Fast.

And the chase was on.

Chapter 2

Adrenaline shot through Brice’s body like rocket fuel burning through his veins. His heart pounded to near rupture. Using the bed as a springboard, he leaped over the broken lamp pieces and landed solidly on his good leg.

“You can’t outrun me.” Even with his handicap, in his wolf form Brice could outpace a human.

“Watch me.” The lithe woman dodged him around the living room furniture.

His mouth did not have permission to spread into a ridiculous smile. It did anyway. Growing broader and more outrageous by the second.

She sprinted to the front door. He heard the lock click and the door swung open. He lunged to capture her. His chest slammed into her shoulder, forcing his breath out with a harsh oomph!

Brice turned her during the tackle so that he took the brunt of their fall. God, it was good to feel playful again. And she was the best kind of playmate. Soft and warm, with just the right amount of pluck.

“Let. Me. Go.” She shoved him with more strength than he expected. He struggled to maintain his hold.

“Take it easy,” he grunted. “I won’t hurt you.”

She head-butted his shoulder. Every time her hair swept his skin, desire—hot and demanding—tore through him. Totally inappropriate and ill-timed considering the circumstances.

His wolf nature didn’t care. This woman wore his clothes, slept in his bed and wrestled him with the strength of a she-wolf in heat. To a Wahya male, her behavior was an open invitation.

However, fear marked her scent, not desire. Brice needed to tamp down the carnal thoughts before his primal instinct overruled his intellect and he gave her a real reason to be frightened.

Finally he flipped her onto her back.

“Get off me!” She landed a solid punch against his nose.

Brice’s head jerked.

“Damn, that hurt.” Hurt like hell.

Before she could do further damage, he latched onto her hands, pinning them over her head. She kicked his shin. Thankfully it wasn’t his bad leg or his instinct would have been to retaliate rather than to restrain.

“Calm down before you get hurt,” he snarled, using his body to flatten her to the porch.

He gave in to the instinct to snuffle her hair. In one long, indulgent breath, he inhaled without expectation, though he desperately wanted to smell something. Anything. Even dirty dandruff was preferable to nothing.

To his utter disbelief, a soft, feminine fragrance teased his nose. Convinced he imagined the scent, he sniffed a second time to be sure, moving from her provocative red curls to the dimpled spot just behind her ear. As he breathed in, her sweet, luscious musk filtered through his body, warming him like beams of sunshine.

“God, you smell good,” he gushed like an eager pubescent boy trying to get to second base.

“Get away from me.” The woman bucked, and the rub of her pelvis against his crotch ignited a craving that would culminate in an all-out home run if she didn’t stop.

“Be still,” he rasped. “I only want to smell you. But if you continue thrusting your hips at me, I’ll lose what control I have and do more than scent you.”

She went limp, although the daggers in her eyes remained unsheathed.

Tired, horny and more than a little confused, Brice appreciated the reprieve. He wanted to gorge on her intoxicating scent without battling her and his super-charged libido. “Don’t be frightened, Sunshine. I won’t hurt you.”

He rubbed against her. She was soft, spirited, with a mouth-watering scent—a combo like that could bring a wolfan to his knees. “You have no idea how happy I am to smell you.”

A droning thud in his head joined the possessive thump in his chest. Resonating one beat, one word. Over and over and over again. Mine. Mine. Mine.

Oh, no. No, no, no. Fuck no.

“This isn’t happening,” he mumbled.

“You got that right.” She jammed her knee against his crotch.

Excruciating pain screamed through Brice’s groin. The air swooshed out of his lungs. His body curled into a fetal ball.

The house was dark. His vision grew darker. Still, he saw the triumphant gleam in her eyes a second before she escaped.

* * *

Brice Walker, my ass!

Cassidy Albright jumped down the front porch steps. She had no idea who that dirt-streaked hobo was, but he certainly wasn’t the Brice Walker she knew.

Well, had known from a distance.

She sailed past her car. The old clunker wouldn’t have started on the first crank anyway, and she’d have been a sitting duck if the naked imposter turned out to be a dangerous intruder instead of a drunken resort guest.

Shoes crunching the gravel driveway, she sprinted toward the Walker’s Run Resort a mile and a half down the mountain. An easy stretch for Cassie, who’d earned medals in track. Each time she ran, she simply imagined herself running until the layers of her mother’s bad luck and bad reputation peeled away, leaving Cassie free and clear.

She had a way to go before that happened. Only one more semester of college and Cassie could start over. In a town where Imogene Struthers’s past wouldn’t wreck her daughter’s future.

She rounded the first curve of a hairpin turn. A creepy vibe spiderwebbed across Cassie’s skin. She glanced back at where she’d been. The waning three-quarter moon provided enough light to see a man wasn’t behind her, but a very large, very hungry-looking wolf.

Cassie’s heart slammed against her chest before spiraling to her feet. She could outrun a man on a dirt road. Outrunning an animal presented an entirely different race.

She veered into the woods. Zigzagged through the trees. Zipped around bushes. Leaped over a fallen pine. Sweat coated her skin. Her breaths grew hard, laborious. A stitch gnawed at her side. Her leg muscles began to burn.

Another downed tree lay ahead. Slightly larger than the last, though not so big that Cassie couldn’t clear it. She sailed over it with ease.

The landing was harder.

Her foot slipped on a patch of moss. The belly flop to the ground unleashed an explosion of pain in her chest. Her lungs, shriveling into two tight balls, squeezed out every molecule of air and then some. She couldn’t catch her breath, cough or even wheeze.

Cassie didn’t want to die, not with a new life finally within her meager grasp. She forced her chest to expand. The muscle beneath her breastbone gave one final spasm and relaxed. Whereas she’d had no breaths before, they now came in rapid-fire succession. In zero to five, she went from starving for oxygen to drowning in it.

Wolf drool on the back of her neck was imminent if she didn’t get moving. She swallowed two giant mouthfuls of air, the way she did when plagued by hiccups, and locked her elbows to push up. All the adrenaline that helped her run had tanked.

“No, no, no.” Frantic, she patted the ground, searching for a rock, a branch. Anything.

Out of luck and out of time, Cassie faced the wolf with the only weapons she had. Her hands and sheer grit.

He approached, head hunched lower than his shoulders. His thin black lips mocked her with a menacing grin.

“Nice wolfy,” Cassie panted over her heart’s rampant beat.

His ears perked up and he tilted his head, taking his sweet-ass time to assess the most delectable spot to munch first.

A low rumble rolled through the woods. His hungry gaze lifted and a snarl drew back his snout, revealing very large, very pointy teeth.

Cassie had no hope of winning an outright wrestling match with an animal of his size and bulk. Gouging his eyes might give her a slim chance of survival, and slim was much preferable to none.

Before his nerve-numbing growl chased all her bravado into the pit of her stomach, Cassie steeled her thumbs.

The wolf sprang.

Cassie screamed. She didn’t mean to, but some invisible force seized her vocal cords and wrenched loose the armor-piercing shriek. Apparently the same malevolent force also screwed her eyes shut, because she had to pry them open to see.

The wolf now paced behind her. Ears flat against his head, he snapped at the woods. A strip of fur bristled along his spine, and the fluff of his tail stretched behind him, arrow-straight.

With his attention diverted, Cassie scooted backward to get away from the wolf. Her heart pounded so hard and loud that she feared the drum would draw the wolf’s attention from the rustle in the woods.

The wolf hunched forward, ready to pounce at whatever emerged from the forest.

It was now or never. As she labored to stand, an ear-shattering squeal sliced through the night.

She jerked toward the commotion. A huge blur barreled past the snarling wolf and skidded to a halt at her feet. Hot breath steamed her bare legs.

Cassie didn’t move.

Neither did the angry sow.

The wolf, however, plopped on his haunches, and the tips of his fur shimmered with silvery light.

Poof!

Just that quick, the wolf vanished. Hunched in his place appeared a fully-grown naked man.

Not just any naked man.

The naked man whose balls she’d coldcocked.

This isn’t happening.

Obviously she’d whacked her head and was suffering from a massive delusion. That was good news, right? Delusions couldn’t hurt her. They weren’t real. Just figments of her imagination.

Well, um, her naked delusion stood. Displaying all his glory.

Cassie squinched her eyelids shut. He isn’t real. He isn’t real. He isn’t real.

Satisfied her temporary insanity had passed, she drew in a calming breath and opened her eyes.

The naked delusion limped toward her.

Whether he was real no longer mattered. Cassie sprang to her feet. The startled sow danced around her legs. The lack of traction on the soft, damp earth caused Cassie to lose her balance. She landed on her hands and knees, face to snout with the hog.

Cassie sucked in deep, measured breaths to slow her erratic pulse. Unfortunately, her heart and lungs were running a marathon. She swayed from a wave of lightheadedness.

“Leave her alone, Cybil.” The soft, tantalizing command of the wolfman’s Southern baritone hummed through Cassie’s body with the hypnotic power of the Pied Piper. That fairy tale hadn’t ended so well. Cassie didn’t want to share a similar fate.

The hog pivoted toward the wolfman. A twitch of her curly tail, a determined squeal, and she charged with the gusto of a matador’s bull.

Wolfy wasn’t as quick on two legs as he had been on four furry ones. He thudded to the ground.

“Dammit, Cybil. How long are you going to hold a grudge?” Shoving the sow aside, he lumbered to his feet. Undeterred, she circled around and plowed into him again.

Transfixed, Cassie watched them tussle. Crazy as it seemed, she found herself rooting for the wolfman, who was trying not to hurt the disgruntled pig. Cybil wasn’t as careful.

In the scuffle, she stomped his leg. A silent scream of pain twisted the wolfman’s face. Cassie’s chest tightened in sympathy, though she couldn’t fathom why.

Cybil backed away, allowing him to sit up and rub his calf. After a few long-drawn breaths, he opened his palm. The sow shuffled close enough for him to scratch beneath her chin. Then he murmured in her ear.

Cassie wasn’t one to ascribe human attributes to animals, but the hog’s expression appeared contrite. Cybil snorted, flicked her tail and trotted back into the woods.

A werewolf pig-whisperer. Imagine that.

Cassie rubbed her temples. She didn’t want to imagine anything of the sort. She wanted her sanity to return.

The wolfman peered at her with the same stark expression the wolf had given her. He—whatever he was—crawled toward her, his movements smooth, stealthy. Deadly.

Cassie jumped up and ran. For all of ten feet before she was falling.

Oh, no. Not again!

The wolfman cradled her as they hit the ground.

“Damn, you’re fast.” Rolling Cassie onto her stomach, he immobilized her with the full length of his hot, hard body.

“Get off me.” The more she squirmed, the more a wicked heat licked her skin. Fear was supposed to be cold and clammy, so what the heck had ignited those fiery flashes?

“Easy there, Sunshine.” His deep, rich voice dripped like sickly sweet sorghum.

Suddenly Cassie remembered a spilled bottle of syrup. Tasted the sticky sweetness on her fingers. Smelled the gingerbread cookies baking in the oven. Heard her mother’s tinkling laughter in the sunny kitchen of the run-down apartment where they had lived when Cassie was seven.

Is this what it means to have your life flash before your eyes when you’re about to die?

“Are you listening?” The wolfman’s insistent growl dispelled the memory. “I don’t want a repeat of what happened on the porch.”

Cassie’s survival skills abandoned her. She tried to buck him off, but her body was too busy mooning over his mesmerizing accent to respond.

“I’ll release you on two conditions. First, don’t run. The woods are too dangerous for you. Second, keep your knees away from my groin. They’re too dangerous for me. Agreed?”

Considering her position, did she have a choice?

Though she couldn’t bring herself to verbalize consent, Cassie nodded. His weight lifted, yet the heat from the intimate contact remained. She sat up, rubbing her arms.

He squatted just beyond her reach, yet close enough to catch her before she could make it to her feet if she tried to run. Twice he’d caught her and not harmed her. Three times might break her luck.

Moonbeams filtered through the trees, giving just enough soft light to make out the concern etched in his features.

“Are you hurt?” His polished tone contradicted his appearance. Bits of leaves and pine needles stuck out of the waves of his thick black hair. A scruff of dark whiskers framed his determined jaw. Dirt smudges accented the sharp angle of his cheeks. A smear of blood crusted beneath his nose.

“No.” Cassie struggled to remain calm, rational. “Well, maybe.”

Nothing ached, yet something unbalanced her mind. Had she imagined the wolf or the transformation? Because the man invading her personal space was no delusion.

The hard, sleek build of his scarred, muscled body pulsated with a raw, masculine strength and a primal vitality that made her shudder despite the heat flashing through her body.

“Either you’re hurt or you aren’t.” Even though his expression remained neutral, she heard the frown in his voice. “Which is it?”

“I might’ve hit my head when I fell. I’m seeing things.”

The wolfman was on her in an instant. Hands in her hair, fingers caressing her scalp. His urgent yet gentle touch sparked an odd tingle that seeped into dark places no man had touched. Unsure of how to handle the startling titillation, she ducked out of his reach.

“No bumps or cuts on your head.” Sitting back on his knees, he continued the inspection without the use of his hands. Inch by inch, his squinted gaze stroked her skin. Lingering here, then there as if memorizing the details of her body he couldn’t possibly see with clarity due to the filtered moonlight.

The air between them became charged. Her muscles clenched to resist the palpable energy. The tension only magnified his phantom touch.

It wasn’t the first time a man had looked at her with carnal interest. It was, however, the first time Cassie didn’t feel threatened.

His scrutiny complete, his focus flashed to her face and fell to her breasts. The longer he stared, the more her budded nipples strained against the sweat-dampened baseball shirt clinging to her chest.

Heat rushed to her face; pride kept her from turning away flustered. Instead, she returned the same intense inspection. Where her attention landed made her body burn as though she’d fallen into an inferno.

In the bedroom, she’d intentionally looked everywhere but there. Now she couldn’t drag her eyes away from the long, meaty shaft arrowed toward his flat abdomen rippled with hard, sleek muscle. The temptation to reach out and touch it just to see how one felt in her hand was dangerous. And stupid.

“Why do you think you’re hallucinating?” the wolfman asked, yanking her attention to his masculine mouth and the full, strong lips pulled taut in thought or pain or simple contemplation.

“One second I saw a wolf. The next you were squatting in his place.” Pushing aside distraction, Cassie’s mind grappled for a logical explanation of his transformation. “Either I’m seeing things or you pulled a whammy of a magic trick on me.”

“I’m neither a hallucination nor a magician. I’m Wahya,” he said as if that should explain everything.

“Please tell me that’s a society of illusionists.” Please, oh, please. Oh, please.

“Wahyas are wolfan shape-shifters. We can change forms at will.”

Cassie’s heartbeat failed, yet the rush of blood rumbled in her head, and she wondered if the noise was the sound of madness.

Chapter 3

“Are you going to kill me?” Cassie lifted her chin, set her jaw and forced every bit of self-control to diffuse her panic.

“If I wanted you dead, you would be.” At the wolfman’s bone-chilling matter-of-factness, fear slithered down her spine and along her nerves until she shivered.

“What do you want with me?” She hugged her chest. “To turn me into a werewolf like you?”

The whip of his narrowed gaze lashed her skin as he slowly counted to twenty beneath his breath. “The term werewolf is offensive, and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t use it to reference me.”

“Give me a break,” she snapped as hysterical aggravation eked out over apprehension. If he wanted to hurt her, he wouldn’t take the time to point out the political incorrectness of her word choice. “Don’t get all snarky with me, buster. This is all new to me.” Cassie shoved back the curls that fell across her face. “Who the heck are you, anyway?”

“I told you.” He inched forward, his mesmeric gaze lasering straight into her soul. “I’m Brice Walker.”

Cassie’s breath caught in her chest, and her heart missed a beat. The only times she’d seen Brice Walker up close and personal, he’d been mummy-wrapped and hooked up to a life-support machine. Each time she’d snuck into his hospital room, she’d had the same reaction of excitement and dread. Excitement that it might be the day he woke up for more than two seconds, dread for how he’d look at her when he did.

Brice came from a respectable, well-to-do family, she from the likes of Imogene Struthers. Cassie couldn’t help her origins, but she would be forever grateful to Margaret Walker for helping her start down a different path when no one else would give her a chance.

Oh, no. Did Margaret know what her grandson had become?

Knowing Margaret, it wouldn’t matter. She loved Brice unconditionally. Nothing would ever change how she felt about him.

“This is unreal.” Cassie swallowed the lump her heart had caused when it jumped into her throat. This wasn’t how she’d pictured their first actual meeting. Fully clothed at his parents’ resort, the hospital or even Margaret’s cabin at a reasonable hour was what Cassie had expected of him. Brice naked and wolfy had never crossed her mind.

“I assure you, I’m very real.” Brice snuffed the space between them.

Her breath evaporated. Yes, yes. He was very real. No denying that. Nope, no sirree.

He gently dusted his thumb over her cheek and electrified every cell in Cassie’s body. Her skin warmed, and a ticklish sensation swirled in her belly.

Run!

She’d already tried, only to be captured. Twice. A third attempt would turn out no differently. She couldn’t outrun a wolf or match the man’s brute strength. All she could do was steel herself against his very presence, which seemed to undermine her sensible self effortlessly.

For her future’s sake, Cassie had to ignore her body’s irrational reactions to Brice the man and force her mind to compartmentalize his animal side. “I’m sorry about what happened on the porch. I didn’t expect you to show up at your grandmother’s house. In the middle of the night. Naked.”

So very naked.

“I hope I didn’t do permanent damage to your, um...” Her gaze tumbled down his chest to his erect penis.

It didn’t look damaged, but what did she know?

Brice’s laugh rang hollow. “Nothing’s broken. Of course, if you want to check, I won’t object.”

“No, no.” Cassie curled her fingers into the soft dirt.

“Too bad.” Ever so slowly, he reached for her hair. Rubbed the strands between his fingers. Pulled a curl straight. Released it. As it sprang back into shape, his mouth carved a lethal smile into his granite face.

Cassie might’ve managed to stomp out the silly excitement polluting her brain if he hadn’t lifted her hand and inched his nose up her arm. The soft scratchiness of his whiskers wiped out her common sense. Her body throbbed, and not just where he grazed her skin, but in places deep inside.

No man had touched her with such reverence and delight. Actually, no man had touched her at all. Still, she didn’t think just any man’s touch would make her feel this cherished, which was why he had to stop.

“Brice—”

“God, you smell good.” His nose teased the curve of her jaw and traced the column of her neck. Cassie couldn’t help but inhale his scent. Salty, earthy and something distinctively male that made her quiver. The alien sensations almost made her forget who he was. And who she wasn’t.

“Stop!” Wanting to push him away, she meant to place her hand on his chest. Where it landed was somewhere lower, maybe a smidgen higher than his groin. Hard and warm, the skin beneath her fingers trembled.

Brice’s throaty rumble rendered Cassie senseless. Her body remembered his heat and strength pressed against her when he’d trapped her on the porch and again when he’d immobilized her on the ground. Each time, he’d taken care not to hurt her. Just as he did now. Holding her firmly to prevent escape but not forcefully enough to arouse alarm. Instead, his possessive hold caused her to snuggle against him. His strong arms made her feel sheltered and safe.

“Who are you?” Brice’s hot, heavy breath fanned her ear. “What are you doing here?”

“Cassidy Albright,” she answered. “I work for your parents.”

Brice roughly pushed away from her as if the mere act of touching the daughter of Imogene Struthers would infect him with Ebola.

The wispy, feel-good high Cassie was flying on took a nosedive. Apparently Brice—along with a multitude of others—judged Cassie for her mother’s sins.

So much for being the perfect gentleman Margaret had painted him to be. He wasn’t a gentleman at all. He was a freaking werewolf.

She should’ve known better than to let hormones cloud her good sense. No man was worth risking her future.

Not even the wolfy one standing with his back turned so that she had to look straight at his tight, nicely shaped ass. Thank goodness it wasn’t his crotch. If she saw that thing again, she’d never get the blasted image out of her head.

Rational mind rebooted, she stood and brushed the dirt from her arms and legs.

“What did my parents hire you to do, Miss Albright?” Brice’s long fingers raked the turbulent waves of his hair.

“I’m a guest services clerk at the resort.” For the past four years, though her history with Brice’s parents and grandmother went back much further. Not that he had ever noticed.

“Tell no one that I’m here.” His tone implied or else.

Cassie thought the request odd since everyone expected him to come home, but his personal affairs weren’t her business. “Whatever you wish, Mr. Walker.”

“Come with me.” He turned, offering his hand in a way that made Cassie feel as if she had the cooties.

“I’d rather not.” She didn’t need his feigned chivalry.

“It wasn’t a request.” Brice’s steel fingers cuffed her wrist. Tiny bolts of electricity scuttled up her arm.

“Don’t touch me.” She slapped his hand and jerked free before the shock wave pulverized her resolve.

Brice had the audacity to look stricken. “I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

The words rolled off his tongue, soft and gentle, and landed on her heart like glops of acid—searing and scarring on impact. From the first syllable, his assurance was a lie. Though Brice wouldn’t physically harm her, his reaction to her identity gouged deeper than a wolf’s teeth ever could.

“Did you hear me?” As he loomed over her, he bore most of his weight on his left leg.

“I’m not deaf or stupid. I don’t care if you are Brice Walker. I’m not going anywhere with a freaking werewolf.” She rushed to leave the woods, alone.

At the spot where she had fallen, Cassie kicked the log. A black racer slithered from underneath, lifted its rounded head and stuck out its forked tongue in silent laughter. Even nature mocked her foolishness.

Brice snatched the snake and slung it out of her way.

“Would you please cover up?” Cassie gritted her teeth and continued toward the road.

“With what?” Brice limped beside her.

“Can’t you conjure something?” Walking next to a naked man in the middle of the night was unnerving enough. Walking next to a naked werewolf in the middle of the night was pushing her hold-it-together abilities beyond capacity.

“I told you, I’m not a magician. I can’t do magic.” He hedged in front of Cassie and forced her to stop. “I don’t understand why you’re upset with me. I can’t help what I am.”

“Neither can I.” She matched his defensive tone.

“Okay.” Brice’s dark brows drew together. He clasped her hand and stroked his thumb against her dirt-smudged knuckles. “Let’s go back to being friends.”

Can’t do magic. Ha!

Even now his charm-the-panties-off-a-nun grin wove a spell through Cassie’s spirit, lifting her to lofty places that she knew better than to perch. Friendship was too much of a liability. However, for his grandmother’s sake, Cassie would be civil. “Casual acquaintance is the most I can offer.”

“You’ve claimed my bed and my clothes. I’d say we’re beyond the casual stage.”

“Borrowed,” she corrected. “I don’t claim things that aren’t mine. You can have your shirt back when we get home. And for the record, the sheets on the bed are mine. Yours are in the closet.” Cassie stepped around him.

Brice’s firm fingers squeezed her shoulder. “Sleep in my shirt. Hell, roll around naked on my bed. I don’t care. Just explain why you are living with my grandmother.”

The tops of Cassie’s ears heated more from irritation than embarrassment. Three days ago, she’d awoken in her trailer to the sound of bulldozers. The scuzzy landlord had failed to inform his tenants that the county had declared eminent domain over the mobile home park. The residents had fifteen minutes to pack and vacate the premises or face arrest for trespassing. “I lost my home, and your grandmother invited me to live with her.”

Cassie bristled at Brice’s impassive expression. “I’m not taking advantage of her. I cook, clean and run errands in lieu of rent. Your parents are aware of the arrangement. I guess they forgot to mention it when they called you.”

“I haven’t spoken to my parents in five years.” The cold, hard edge in his voice caught her off guard.

“Seriously?”

“Disownment isn’t something I joke about.” Hurt shimmered beneath his grim expression.

Something wasn’t right. Gavin and Abigail Walker were proud of their son, but had they been unable to accept what he’d become? Was that why he’d moved away?

Cassie’s stomach worked itself into knots. “So, you don’t know what happened last night?”

“No. Enlighten me.” His dramatic splay of hands irked her.

“It’s not my place to discuss your family’s matters. Talk to your parents.”

“Cassidy, what the hell is going on?” Worry threaded through the irritation in his voice.

Cassie decided if she said the words superfast, the effect would be like ripping off a Band-Aid. A sting at first, and then the worst would be over.

For her, anyway.

She drew two steady breaths and blurted, “Yourgrandmotherhadaheartattacklastnight.”

Brice simply stared, squinty-eyed and pensive as if he hadn’t heard her at all. Cassie huffed, gathering the gumption to say it again. This time, a little more slowly.

“Your grandmother had a heart attack last night.”

Chapter 4

Brice slumped, his mouth fell open and he appeared to have stopped breathing. He was a tall, tall man, and from the way he swayed, he looked ready to topple.

“I’m too late?” His words were barely audible in the silent woods.

“No.” Afraid he would drop from shock, Cassie stood on her toes and tapped his face. “She isn’t dead. Okay?”

Though he stared at her through large, unblinking eyes, his trembling hand found hers. He held her palm to his cheek, pressed his nose against her wrist and inhaled shallow breaths until his composure returned.

She ignored the ridiculous notion that he drew comfort from her touch. Maybe the cherry-scented body wash she used smelled like his girlfriend’s fragrance. Although Cassie imagined the women Brice dated would be able to afford a more luxurious and expensive brand than the dollar store variety she used.

“How is she?” Brice’s jagged voice squeezed her heart. His distress over his grandmother’s health sounded as genuine as Cassie’s concern.

A kind, decent woman, Margaret Walker had hired Cassie to clean her house before Cassie was old enough to apply for a real job. And when family services threatened to put her in foster care after Imogene got sick, Margaret helped Cassie file emancipated minor papers. She’d also encouraged Cassie not to give up on her education no matter how bad things got—and for a while, things got pretty darn bad.

“She’s in serious condition, as far as I know. The nurses wouldn’t tell me anything else or let me visit her.” Cassie swallowed the residual sting of being turned away because she wasn’t family.

“I need to see her. Now.” Brice squatted at Cassie’s feet and went wolf.

The transformation took less than a second, which didn’t give Cassie enough time not to look. Her brain did a mental loop-the-loop. “Don’t do that in front of me.” She held her head to stop the spinning. “It’s freaky.”

The wolf’s ears flattened. Although Brice’s au naturel appearance unnerved her, Cassie preferred his nudity to this scowling, four-footed fur ball.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” She pointed up the road. “Go.”

Crinkling his nose, the wolf pulled his thin lips back in a peevish snort.

“Good boy?” She thumped his head. “Don’t roll your eyes at me. How am I supposed to know what you want? I’ve never owned a dog. Hey, stop that!” She swatted his cold nose away from the back of her knee.

His yips grew impatient. After a few nudges and some wolf drool from Brice tugging on the hem of her nightshirt, Cassie understood he wouldn’t run ahead and leave her behind.

She jogged toward the cabin. Brice loped beside her without touching his right hind leg to the ground.

Surreal didn’t begin to describe the situation. Of all the things she might have expected of Margaret Walker’s grandson, being a wolfman wasn’t one of them.

A very sexy wolfman, sans the wolfy part.

A girlish giddiness bubbled through her body and caused complete loss of coordination in her limbs. She tripped on the porch steps.

Brice, the man, curled strong fingers around her arm.

“I can manage.” Cassie shook him off and scurried into the cabin to turn on the lights.

“Fine.” Brice shaded his eyes behind his hand. “I need a shower.” He brushed past her.

“Fine.” Cassie locked the door, then spun around and knocked full frontal into him. After the way he’d cast her aside in the woods, she should have been disgusted by the contact. Instead, her nerve endings jumped with excitement, and her body begged and screamed to cozy into him.

Ignoring her sensible brain’s command to move away, Cassie steadfastly stared straight into his eyes. From across the bedroom, Brice’s irises had appeared almost teal. Had she been close enough to realize that his left eye was a vivid shade of dark blue and his right one was a bright green, she would’ve recognized him by his reputation of mismatched eyes.

And missed all that delicious touching and tackling and more touching.

She couldn’t wait to do it again.

“Stop!” Oops, she hadn’t meant to say that aloud.

“I can’t show up at the hospital naked.” He dipped his stern face within inches of hers. His mismatched gaze bore into her as if willing Cassie to say something, but her mind filled with two thoughts: how striking his eyes were and how much she wanted to rub her body against him like a frisky cat.

Being a wolf, he probably didn’t like cats. Except maybe to eat them.

Cassie’s sex clenched and her thoughts ran amok with visions of his soft whiskers against her inner thighs and the pressure of his masculine lips against her folds, sliding his moist, firm tongue along her slit, sucking her nub and thrusting into her wet heat until she came undone.

Just because she didn’t have actual sexual experience with a man didn’t mean she hadn’t fantasized, and she’d have been a liar to say she didn’t want fantasy to turn into reality. Right here, right now.

He wanted it, too, if the mammoth size of his erection heating her stomach was any indication.

He doesn’t want you, specifically. Like all men, he just wants sex. Doesn’t matter with whom.

“Clothes,” Brice growled.

“I, um.” The swirls of hairs on his chest teased the palm Cassie pressed against his torso. Her hand itched to stroke every inch of his body, and she wondered if his penis would feel as velvety as it looked.

Focus!

“Your grandmother never wanted to throw out your stuff. Everything is where you left it.” Cassie tugged down the dirty hem of the baseball shirt. “Mostly.”

“Grab me a pair of jeans and a shirt.” Brice left her standing, breathless and out of sorts, in the middle of the foyer.

Cassie resisted a retort about not being his maid. By the time she thought of it, the shower was running. Barging into the bathroom to make the grand announcement was probably a bad idea.

She headed into the kitchen for a broom. A bloodied nose and bruised balls were bad enough. She didn’t want Brice to cut his feet on broken glass.

She flipped on the kitchen light and stared, slack-jawed.

Oh, no.

“He didn’t.”

Oh, yeah. He did.

The fog numbing her senses evaporated. In its place came the startling reality that although Brice Walker was a wolfman, he was also a pig.

Cassie no longer felt sorry about the pain she’d inflicted. If he’d been standing in the kitchen at that moment, she would’ve beat him with the broomstick. He could’ve eaten anything else in the whole darn kitchen, but no. He had to eat her pie.

The freshly baked, made-from-scratch cherry pie promised to Rafe Wyatt in lieu of a cash payment for her clunker’s scheduled oil change. Now she’d have to cancel the car service. Again!

She glared at the white dribbles of milk and red splatters of pie filling on the counter. In the sink sat a dirty plate. A sticky spoon. A suspiciously spotless pie pan.

Gross!

Brice had licked it clean. Cassie knew he had. Probably drank straight from the milk carton, too.

“Men!” It seemed some male traits were shared between species.

Grumbling, she grabbed a cloth and scrubbed the dishes and countertop clean before hurrying to the bedroom with a death grip on the broom. By the time she dumped the last of the broken glass into the trash, her irritation had mellowed. To be fair, Brice hadn’t known she bartered pies for services when he ate it.

Cassie tossed her dirty nightshirt into the laundry basket. She had found the worn baseball jersey on the closet floor when she moved in and couldn’t resist wearing it to bed. She should’ve known borrowing something without permission would bring bad luck.

She knelt beside her battered suitcases and sorted through her clothes until she found a comfortable pair of shorts and a thin, long-sleeved T-shirt. The shower shut off, so she dressed quickly and straightened the bed. By the time she’d finished, Brice had yet to emerge from the bathroom. Suspicion made her glare down the hallway.

Brice had commandeered her new razor to shave that scruff from his face. The certainty of it threatened to rekindle her temper. Good sense snuffed it out. No matter the history between her and Margaret, Cassie was the hired help. She shouldn’t make too many waves.

Massaging the muscles in her neck, she dutifully pulled his clothes from the closet and laid them on the bed. She’d play butler to a grown wolfman if it meant she would continue to have a place to live.

After rummaging through the dresser drawers, she called out, “I can’t find your underwear.”

“I don’t own any,” he answered from the hall.

A zip of excitement swirled in her lower belly. She slammed the drawer shut. “I didn’t need to know that.”

Clean-shaven, with his damp hair slicked back but for one rebellious wave, so black it almost looked blue, tumbling over his formidable brow, Brice leaned against the door frame, naked. Of course.

She tried not to look at his penis, but there it was again. A massive rod of rigid flesh, jutting proudly from a nest of dark hair. Human or not, Brice Walker was definitely all male.

An arid wind whipped through her being. On its wings rode the devil himself. With a stern mental shove, she shooed him away.

Circumstances being what they were, Cassie couldn’t afford to give in to temptations that she had no experience managing. She’d focused on work and school. Allowed no time for boys, or men. No distractions, no detours. Nothing could get in the way of finishing her business degree—her golden ticket to a better future.

“Didn’t I tell you to cover that thing?” Proud that her voice didn’t squeak, she tossed him the jeans and shirt.

Humor crinkled his eyes, and seemed to simmer with a mischievous desire she would do well not to encourage. “Most women can’t wait to get me out of my clothes.”

Cassie understood why.

Made for the cover of GQ, his face had the most perfectly balanced features she’d ever seen on a man. Slightly swollen from her ramming palm maneuver, his straight nose rested between sharp chiseled cheeks arrowed toward his generous, masculine mouth, the corners turned up in taunting tease.

“I’m not most women,” she said, watching him dress.

The dark hairs that dusted his limbs and swathed the broad expanse of his chest did little to disguise the angry, dark slashes running up his sinewy arms and across his strapping shoulders. More streaks scored his left hip bone down to his knee. He favored the right leg, which bore deep, saw-toothed indentions around his entire calf.

Her gaze lifted to the jagged, purplish-red half-moon marks on his neck. Proof something had tried to rip out his throat. She touched hers in sympathy.

When Cassie had stumbled upon Brice’s room during one of her mother’s multitude of hospitalizations, he’d lain still as death, covered in layers of bandages. On a ventilator, he opened his eyes for a few mere seconds and locked onto her heart.

The front page of the Maico Monitor had heralded Walker Boys Mauled by Feral Boar.

“You weren’t attacked by wild hogs, were you?” Cassie’s throat burned at the savagery he’d endured.

Brice zipped his jeans and slid his arms into his shirtsleeves. His long, nimble fingers fastened the small, flat buttons with a fluid grace. “No,” he answered, his voice a soft caress.

Chill bumps puckered on her skin, though Cassie was far from cold. She rubbed them off. “Was it another Wahima?”

“Wa-hi-ya.” Exasperation lit his eyes, though none was reflected in his tone. “Four Wahyas attacked while my brother and I were hunting.”

“Is that how you became one of them?” Cassie sat on the bed and tucked her hands beneath her thighs to resist the urge to offer physical comfort. She needed to keep a tight rein on the feelings Brice awakened. Nothing good would come from setting them loose.

Brice’s sigh sounded weary, or maybe frustrated, considering his mouth’s downward turn. “Wahyas are born, not made.”

“Wait. You were born that way?”

Brice’s shoulders bowed like a cobra ready to strike. “Stop looking at me like I’m some sort of freak.”

Touchy. Touchy.

“Sorry.” Cassie hugged her knees to her chest. “I’m trying to understand.”

Brice’s nostrils flared, sucking in a long, deep breath that expanded his chest. He appeared to be counting again. She could almost hear the numbers tick one by one until he reached thirty.

“It’s probable humans and Wahyas share a common ancestor. Somewhere along the evolutionary trail, our DNA metamorphosed, and we developed the ability to shape-shift into wolves. We aren’t mutants, we aren’t diseased and we aren’t monsters.” His emphasis reeked of sarcasm. “We’re civilized.”

“Then why were you attacked?”

“They were rogues.” Brice sat next to her. Not so close they touched. Not so far as to leave a space.

Cassie’s body hummed from the energy passing between them. The tiny vibrations sharpened her awareness of her own femininity in stark contrast with Brice’s overwhelming masculinity.

“Rogues?” She coughed to disguise the breathiness in her voice. Seriously, she needed to figure out how to moderate her body’s responses to him. Quickly. Before she became the rabbit trapped in a foxhole alongside the big bad wolf.

“Rogues are Wahyas who have no loyalty to a pack,” Brice said. “Most are curs who prey on the weak.”

“You don’t strike me as weak.” Defying the scars and pronounced limp, Brice projected a will of steel and the muscle to enforce it. Someone would have to be insane to believe him weak.

“I stepped in a steel trap.” Brice lifted his right leg, though his jeans hid the old injury. “The rouges saw an opportunity and took it. Mason died protecting me.”

Cassie’s heart swelled in her throat. Brice had nearly died, too.

While everyone else inundated him with their sobs and wails, waiting for the inevitable, she had read to him, shared the little gossip she knew, held his hand when tremors of pain had wracked his body, willed him to breathe when his lungs failed. Kissed his tightly bandaged head, begging him to live.

The day she saw him awake, she left the hospital and never visited him again. What was the point? On the road to recovery, he didn’t need the likes of her mooning over him any more than he did now. “I’m very sorry for the terrible ordeal you went through.”

Chapter 5

Bitterness fisted in Brice’s throat. What he had suffered was insignificant considering his brother died because of him and his damn nosy nose.

Cassidy mysteriously revitalizing his scent receptors couldn’t be a good thing. Neither were the gentleness in her voice, the genuineness in her eyes or the mess of curls cascading over one shoulder.

Brice twirled a red ringlet around his finger. A man might promise foolish things to feel those silky strands sweep his stomach or tickle his inner thighs. He rubbed the curl against his cheek. The feminine softness eased the ever-present knot in his chest.

No woman had affected him to such a degree, and it was a damn shame Cassidy did. He had time only for a passionate night or two, and she didn’t seem the type for a brief, inconsequential fling.

He dropped the curl. “Shoes?”

She retrieved a pair of loafers, but he needed more support for his leg.

“Not those. I left a pair of Timberlands somewhere.”

“They aren’t here,” she said, rooting around the closet.

“Check under the bed.” He tilted his head as she hunkered down, shoulders touching the floor, hips high in the air.

“I can’t see anything,” she grunted. “Wait, I feel something.”

Brice felt something, too. It grew more demanding each time she rocked forward to reach beneath the bed. Oh, the things he could do to her.

“Ah-ha.” She surfaced, his shoes in tow, and promptly dumped them in his lap. “Anything else?”

His gaze rested on her chest, so close and damn near eye level. The way her nipples puckered against the fabric of her T-shirt when she breathed soothed his residual annoyance from walking into the room to discover she had discarded his jersey.

The urgency to feel her touch again threatened to overpower his restraint. Wahyan females had sleek, sinewy bodies. Cassidy’s skin had a suppler texture. Her muscles, although strong, were more pliable. He’d enjoyed how she pillowed him when he’d pinned her to the porch and wondered how gratifying it would be if she pulled him into her softness rather than fought him off.

Brice massaged the bunched spot between his eyebrows. The handful of aspirin he’d taken after his shower hadn’t kicked in. His entire body throbbed. Overworked muscles teetered on the verge of spasm, his leg hurt more than it had in a long time, the bridge of his nose pinched every time his nostrils flared to catch Cassidy’s scent, and his groin, for chrissakes, was sore from a solid kneeing and tight from on-and-off-again erection.

After he visited Granny at the hospital, he might crawl into an empty room and ask Doc Habersham for a morphine drip. Banishment be damned. Brice needed some relief.

“Grab me a pair of socks.” Most of the time Brice recognized the general look of an irritated woman. The sharply arched eyebrow, the tightly pursed lips, a hand resting on a hip, fingers tapping out a count. Any man, human or wolfan, should have enough sense to placate that look.

Apparently, tonight he didn’t. When Cassidy didn’t respond, he nodded toward the dresser. “Bottom left.”

She gave an exaggerated “Ugh.”

“What?” Brice opened his palms in a halfhearted shrug, intrigued by her vacillation from sweet and doe-eyed to pissed and prickly in a matter of seconds.

She snatched open the drawer, threw him a pair of white socks and stomped out of the room. “Would it hurt you to say please and thank you?” echoed down the hall.

Wahyas had little need for those particular human social graces. While living with Granny, he’d been more conscious of the etiquette. She would expect him to treat Cassie with the utmost Southern charm. However, if he did, the effect might backfire. Cassie’s annoyance provided a safety barrier. A breach could lead to a world of trouble he had no time to mediate.

Tying his shoes, he stared at the two ragged suitcases in the corner and the sparse belongings that only an hour ago had been angry missiles. He didn’t know why she had so little, but when he left he would make sure Cassidy Albright had everything she needed.

His stomach lurched, preparing an imminent launch into his throat.

Oh, God. Not this again.

When he’d awakened in the hospital after the attack, the scent of blood and bowel and death had imprinted in his nose, blocking all other smells. He seldom ate because of the debilitating nausea. Nothing cleared the stench and the relentless ordeal pushed him to the feral edge until one morning, after a brutal night of vomiting, he woke up and couldn’t smell a damn thing. No one could explain why.

With his stomach settled, he ate solid food again, and he could relax around people because their scent no longer slapped him in the face like decomp. Being scentless was a godsend.

For about six weeks. Then he realized the downside.

No earthy musk before the rains. No whiffs of smoke from campfires in the fall. No more sweet-smelling flowers or fresh-cut grass. No comforting scents of family, or friends, or the enticing fragrance of females.

Yeah, he could survive without ever smelling anything again, but his experiences were muted and dulled. Much like watching a Technicolor 3-D blockbuster on a twelve-inch black-and-white television. A lot was lost in the downgrade.

Over the years, the devastating loss became a penance. A constant reminder that if he hadn’t been so curious about tracking a strange scent, he wouldn’t have stepped in a trap, the rogues wouldn’t have found them and Mason would still be alive.

God-awful nausea reeled in his stomach with a vengeance. Hands balled into her comforter, Brice pressed the shabby material to his face, grateful and relieved her scent lingered in the threads. Sucking in a deep, exaggerated breath, he held her unique fragrance in his lungs, counting the seconds. Her residual essence filtered through not only his body but also his soul, warming every nook and cranny of his being. Stirred by the phantom familiarity, Brice’s wolf instinct prowled his conscience.

Mine!

No, she wasn’t. He had only a few days to settle matters with his grandmother. Then he had to leave. For good. His future lay outside Walker’s Run, and he intended to embrace it alone. He had best keep his cock in his pants and his hands off Little Miss Albright’s feisty body, except to smell her. Luckily for them, it would take time for his errant mating urge to reach the fucking point of no return. He could handle a few days of temptation.

Meeting him in the hallway, his temptress chucked him a set of keys. “My car will get you to the hospital and back. It just needs a few cranks to start.”

“Oh, no.” Brice caught her arm before she locked him out of the bedroom. “You’re coming with me, Cassidy.”

“It’s almost midnight, and I have to be at work at six.” She twisted out of his grip. “And call me Cassie. Cassidy is too formal considering—” her eyes took all of him in “—well, everything.”

Brice stood straighter. Plenty of women had stared, ogled and gawked at him. None had blushed so prettily or affected him the way she did.

He wanted to tease her. Test her boundaries. And conquer them.

No, no, no!

No conquering allowed.

“All right, Cassie, you have two options.”

“Oh, really?” She cocked her hip and folded her arms across her waist. Such a cute little protest.

“Put on your shoes and come with me like a good little girl.” He stepped close enough that she had to tilt her head to keep eye contact.

She didn’t balk. “Yeah, that doesn’t work for me. What’s the second?”

“Barefoot and braless, hog-tied in the backseat.” He made a point to stare at her chest until her nipples pebbled against her thin T-shirt.

“What kind of choice is that?” Her skin colored to the exact shade he wanted to see.

“The kind where you get to choose the manner in which you’ll accompany me, Sunshine.” He jingled the keys. “Don’t take too long, or I’ll think you’re into kinky.”

Chapter 6

“Why are we crawling through the bushes?” Aggravation weighted Cassie’s whisper.

Brice grinned because she continued to follow him, creeping along the outside of the hospital in search of the window to his grandmother’s room. “I’m banished,” he answered in a hushed tone.

When he’d tried to explain his situation on the trip into Maico, Cassie had held up her hand and refused to look at him while she drove. Her silent irritation had pounded him until they reached the hospital parking lot. In an attempt to smooth things over, he’d thanked her for coming and added how much it meant to him to see his grandmother again.

Cassie’s defenses faltered, and the hardness she projected dissolved. Compassion filled her eyes, and the more amicable side to her personality emerged.

The transformation made him forget that he didn’t deserve her sympathy, because when the tension dropped between them, the thoughts that filled Brice’s mind were not his past failures but a new hope. He didn’t understand it. Didn’t expect it to last. However, he sure as hell would make the most of it while he had it.

“What do you mean, banished?” Her gentle probe held no judgment.

“My pack turned me out because I’m the reason Mason is dead.” Resentment leached into his words, followed by shame. “He would’ve been our next leader.”

Behind him, Cassie stopped, so Brice didn’t continue forward. She missed a breath, and the back of his head burned, possibly from the heat of her gaze.

“Anyone who blames you is an idiot,” she announced. “Sometimes bad things happen and it’s nobody’s fault. What happened to you and Mason was one of those times. You know that, right?” The warmth of Cassie’s small hand against his arm urged Brice to believe.

His heart wouldn’t allow it.

At the next window, Brice peeked inside. His grandmother’s old flowered housecoat hung across a chair.

“This one.” Brice’s excitement turned to dread. He dropped into a squat. What if seeing him became too much for Granny?

An icy chill caused him to shudder although a light sheen of sweat coated his skin. His head pounded the same rhythm as his heart. Both felt ready to explode.

He tipped his nose toward Cassie less than a foot away. The balm of her sweet scent infiltrated his senses.

Her head swept side to side. “All clear.”

Brice appreciated her watchfulness, though his wolfan senses gave him a more accurate account of their surroundings.

They faced the visitor parking lot, deserted this time of night except for Cassie’s old car parked in the shadows. A mildly curious grackle watched them from its perch on the nearby telephone lines. A car on the highway a block away sounded a faint hum in the stillness of the night.

A roach inched toward Cassie, twitching its divining rod antennae. Brice chucked a piece of mulch at the insect and sent it scurrying away before she noticed.

“You should hurry.” She motioned for him to get moving.

Brice peeked in the window again. The monitors and IV pole partially blocked the view, so he couldn’t see if someone sat in the other chair near the bed. He dropped down again.

“Please tell me you aren’t going to Tom-peep the window all night.” Cassie’s no-nonsense tone matched the exasperation on her face.

“I can’t tell if someone is in the room.”

“Knock on the window. Maybe they’ll let us inside before someone calls the cops.” Cassie moved from a crouch to a sitting position and leaned against the brick wall. “I don’t want to spend the night in jail.”

“Neither do I.” Brice released a nervous breath.

“I doubt you would get arrested. Me, on the other hand...” Cassie’s voice trailed off. She picked at a blade of grass that had wormed its way through the mulch.

“They’d haul me in the same as you. Then they’d call the pack liaison, and he’d call my dad.”

“The sheriff’s office knows about your wolfy people?”

Brice shook his head. “To them, and everyone else, we’re the Walker’s Run Cooperative. Tristan Durrance is our law enforcement liaison. He’s a pack sentinel and a sworn deputy. Trust me, I’ll get the worst of this if we’re caught. My dad doesn’t want me in the territory.”

Cassie tugged the grass blade free and peeled it into symmetric strips. “He’s expecting you. He told the resort staff that when you arrive, we are to give you any room you want and anything else you request. Without question. Why would he want us to accommodate you if he doesn’t want you here?”

“I don’t know.” The tightness in Brice’s gut reached into his chest. His father was planning something, and whatever it was, Brice would certainly suffer the consequences.

He stared at the black sky, devoid of stars due to the glow of civilization. The woods around his grandmother’s cabin protected the small homestead from the incandescence of modernization. Stretched on the grass on the slope of the backyard, he could watch the twinkling skyline for hours. He’d missed that peace and comfort in Atlanta, where he’d found only a few places a wolf could run and even fewer to stargaze.

Brice rubbed his palm along the denim covering his sore calf. The aspirin hadn’t worked as well as he’d expected. He needed to do something or go home before the pain flared to unbearable again.

He eased to the window and tried to push up the pane. “The lock is jammed. I can’t pop it.”

“Nice to know breaking and entering isn’t your thing.” Cassie brushed past with a follow-me wave. The innocent contact triggered a rush of moony feelings that Brice vigorously shook off.

Sneaking through the hedges, she led him within a few yards of an emergency exit. The door stood ajar, and a hospital employee lingered on the stoop. The orange glow from a cigarette sharpened his blocky facial features. He took a long drag and exhaled a plume of white smoke.

Brice didn’t understand the human fascination with smoking. Wahyas avoided it like the mange because it skunked their sense of smell.

Cassie’s shoulder rustled the bushes. She froze. Brice did the same. The orderly leaned against the rail and squinted in their direction without any apparent concern.

Since the hospital worker seemed in no hurry to rush back to his duties, Brice crouched in a position that relieved the pressure on his bad leg. Beneath his jeans, his calf grew itchy and tight. If the inflammation moved into his foot and up to his hip, the pain would cripple him.

Hoping Cassie’s scent would relax him, Brice closed his eyes and inhaled slowly. Although she crouched less than two yards away, her magic failed, or at least malfunctioned, because his nose caught wind of a faint, nasty odor.

He blew quick puffs of air through his nostrils to clear the smell. Instead of this ridding him of the stink, a putrid pungency assaulted his senses. The sensation of scurrying spiders rose in Brice’s chest, and he slapped both hands over his mouth to keep from chucking up cherry pie.

“Stop making that noise,” Cassie hissed. “He’ll hear you.”

If the severe nausea that plagued him after the attack returned, he’d go stark, raving rabid. Nothing—not Dramamine or Compazine or Phenergan or Antivert or a whole slew of other drugs—had controlled the queasiness.

“He’s going inside.” Cassie rose to her feet.

Brice grabbed her around the middle, and they toppled into the mulch.

“What the heck are you doing?” She elbowed his chest.

Dizzy and sweaty, Brice buried his face in her hair. “I need to smell you before I puke.”

The argument he expected never came. She allowed him to smell at will.

“That’s the weirdest thing anyone’s ever said to me. Does that line work on wolfy women?” Cassie wiggled beneath his weight.

“I don’t know. I’ve never said it to a she-wolf.” Brice relaxed in the comfort of Cassie’s scent.

“Jeez, aren’t I special.”

“Yeah, you are. Before I met you, I couldn’t smell a damn thing. Now I smell you and that Dumpster over there.” He eased away from Cassie before her essence lulled him into believing the mating urge wasn’t a fluke after all.

“How flattering.” Her soft-looking lips curling into an unpleasant frown, Cassie dusted wood chips from her clothes.

“Cas, your scent reminds me of a beautiful meadow of wildflowers.” And he loved her scent as much as he loved the rich, buttery flora that bloomed midspring beneath the full sun at a hollow within the wolf sanctuary.

After a few tense moments, Cassie’s mouth softened into a timid smile. “Thank you.”

Oh, no. She gave him the look. The one that hooked him with her modesty and reeled him in with her sincerity. His insides went all gooey, and that had never happened. If they’d met before his life had spiraled into chaos, maybe...just maybe.

Brice cleared the frustration from his craw. He had only one path now. A path a mate couldn’t follow.

Cassie raced up the steps and jerked the emergency door handle. “Hurry up. I don’t have all night.”

“Is the alarm busted?” Brice slipped past her.

“I think someone disabled it a long time ago.”

“You think?”

Ignoring what he believed must be his most incredulous look, Cassie shoved him into the laundry room, where ample uniforms stocked the shelves.

Owned and operated by the Walker’s Run Cooperative, Maico General not only provided state-of-the-art medical services to the town’s human residents but also maintained a private ward for sick or injured pack members. If uniforms or linens stained with wolfan DNA ended up in the wrong hands, well, the fallout would be disastrous.

The Woelfesenat, the international wolf council governing the Wahya populace, had made significant political strides in recent years. Although some governments had acknowledged the wolfan population in secret negotiations, Brice knew revelations to the public-at-large would be a long time coming.

“Put that on.” Cassie pointed at a white lab coat.

“Something tells me that you’ve done this before.” He shoved his arms into the sleeves.

“When my mom got sick, I had to work after school to help pay the bills. Visiting hours were over before I could get here, so I’d sneak in.” Cassie yanked a pair of yellow scrubs over her clothes.

“Did she get better?”

“Nope.” Cassie handed him a green surgical cap.

“I’m sorry, Cas.” Brice wanted to pause a moment to let her know his sympathies were sincere, and it tweaked him that Cassie seemed indifferent to them.

“Act normal and don’t make eye contact.” She cracked open the door. “Most people will only see the uniform unless you give them a reason to notice. Count to thirty before you follow me.”

Brice’s stomach lunged. “Wait!” Pinning Cassie against the industrial dryer, he nuzzled her with abandon. His entire body sparked from her tantalizing scent and the soft suppleness of her skin.

“Hey, what happened outside was sweet, if not a little awkward,” she said. “But this is getting creepy.”

“You’ll get used to it.” Brice couldn’t stop his grin.

“Holster your nose, Benji, before someone catches us.” The fire in Cassie’s cinnamon eyes counteracted her unamused frown.

“Oh, that hurts, Cas. Calling me a scruffy little dog when you’ve seen how big my wolf is.”

She flicked him a whatever wave and left. Brice counted to eight before the impulse to follow her won out. He stayed far enough behind so it didn’t appear they were together.

Cassie confidently navigated the corridors. The determination in her steps, the no-nonsense sway of her hips, the steel in her spine—all of it was a pretense to conceal her tender heart. Beneath the bravado, this woman was far more delicate than she looked, and she looked fragile enough that a gust of wind might blow her to smithereens.

The human ward clerk looked up from her computer. Brice slowed his pace, lowered his head and sharpened his senses.

The woman squinted her eyes and lips at Cassie. “Are you the loaner from Chatuge Regional filling in for Rita?”

Cassie veered toward the station. “Is she the ER nurse who broke her ankle?”

The ward clerk’s broad, snaggletoothed grin plumped her cheeks. “Yeah, the old biddy should’ve had more sense than to skateboard at her age.”

Brice shook his head. One of the blessings and pains of small-town living was that everyone knew everybody’s business to some degree. Miracles or pure luck had helped the Wahyas of Walker’s Run avoid discovery.

Then again, Brice suspected some of the pack’s longtime neighbors knew of their duality and kept their secret out of loyalty and respect. Such as Cybil’s owner, Mary-Jane McAllister.

She lived on the fringe of the co-op’s wolf sanctuary, a large area of protected forest where the pack roamed. High electric fences ensured human interlopers with cameras and shotguns stayed out, while sentinels patrolled the territory to ward off rogues.

Unfortunately, even the best security measures sometimes failed.

Chapter 7

Brice hurried down the hall and slipped inside his grandmother’s room. A woman lay motionless on the bed. Wires peeked out from the neckline of her gown, and IV tubes sprouted from her arms. The faint line of an oxygen tube rested beneath her nose. The old lady appeared so feeble that she couldn’t possibly be his grandmother. He backed up, hoping not to disturb her.

“Is someone there?” The woman’s weak voice stopped him.

Brice’s mouth went dry, and his body felt as if it had been packed with sand. “It’s me, Granny.” He scratched his throat, though the itch seemed to spring from his voice rather than his skin.

“Oh, my boy.” She lifted her tethered arms. “Come give me a hug.”

Obediently Brice trudged to her bedside, bowed over her and offered a timid embrace.

“You call that a hug?” Granny squeezed his neck, then rubbed and patted his back. When he eased away, her celestial-blue eyes scrutinized his hospital garb. “Changed professions, did you?”

Brice snatched the flimsy green cap from his head and sifted his fingers through his hair. “I don’t want Dad to know I’m home. I came to see you, not him.”

Granny tsked. “You have to face him sometime.”

Brice doubted that he did.

“End the quarrel, Brice. If not for your sake, do it for mine.” Granny’s plea tightened around his heart until he struggled to breathe.

“Dad has to make an effort, too.” Brice limped to the window. “I’m not a priority for him.”

Never had been.

All Gavin Walker’s love and attention had gone to his firstborn, the Alpha-in-Waiting. Brice learned at a young age that his father held little regard for him, treating his second son as if he was lower than a pack Omega. Ironic, considering the Walker’s Run pack didn’t subscribe to the ancient social order for its members. Everyone had their place and purpose, but no hierarchy existed aside from the succession of the Alpha family, which the pack continued to endorse.

“Talk to him,” Granny urged. “You’ll be surprised at what he has to say.”

Nothing Gavin Walker said interested Brice. Too many hurts had hardened Brice’s heart and mind to listen.

He wiggled the locking mechanism on the window until it loosened. After hoisting the pane up and down several times, Brice returned to Granny’s bedside.

Ignoring her one raised eyebrow and one-sided frown, he pulled the chair closer to the bed and sat down. The heat of her silent chastisement forced him out of the lab coat. Guilt ate at him for not giving her what she wanted. Still, Brice wouldn’t agree to something that he had no intention of doing. “Tell me what happened last night.”

“The pain started after supper. I told Cassie that I had indigestion.” A mischievous sparkle lit Granny’s tired eyes. “She’s such a sweet girl. I think you’ll like her.”

Oh, he liked her, all right.

“About last night?” Brice fidgeted to find a comfortable position for his leg.

“Cassie dialed 911, gave me an aspirin and then called Gavin. If she hadn’t been there, I probably would’ve gone to bed.”

Brice’s heart registered another tally in Cassie’s favor. Casually he rubbed his shirtsleeve across his face. A hint of her scent lingered in the fabric. Anticipation tickled his nose and spread to his groin. He couldn’t wait to snuffle her sweet spot again.

“I worried that Adam wouldn’t tell you.” Granny held out her knobby hand, and Brice gently sandwiched her fingers between his palms.

“He didn’t have a chance. I left Atlanta on Thursday as a wolf. He has no idea where I am. No one knows.”

One of the monitors beeped louder, faster. “Brice Walker! What if something had happened to you?”

“Easy, Granny.” He stroked her arm. “I can take care of myself.”

“Doesn’t give you the right to be reckless. For goodness sakes, you are the Alpha-in-Waiting.”

“No, I’m the fucking screwup who got the real one killed.”

Granny’s dry lips puckered. “I’m not too sick to scrub your tongue with soap, young man, so watch your language.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Brice dropped his gaze and bowed his head.

“You must let go of the past. Grief is eating your soul. Death is a part of life. Whether peaceful or violent, how we die is less important than how we live.” Granny’s fingers scrunched the hair at the back of his neck. “You aren’t the only one who suffered loss, my boy. Neither is your sorrow any greater than ours. You lost your brother, but the rest of us lost you both.” She lifted his chin until their eyes met. “Mason can’t come back, but you can.”

“Dad won’t allow it.” Brice said the words as if he didn’t care.

“Is that what you believe?” Granny’s penetrating stare splintered his thin veil of indifference. Shame, humiliation and a deep-seated hurt forced Brice to turn away.

“Good heavens, it is,” Granny gasped. “What has Adam done to you?”

“He gave me a place to belong.” Brice squeezed the bridge of his nose to curtail the migraine building behind his eyes. He didn’t want to waste their time arguing.

“Where you belong is in Walker’s Run.” Granny’s words held the conviction of a red-faced minister preaching hellfire and brimstone at a camp meeting revival. Brice wanted to believe. He truly did. Walker’s Run was his home.

Had been his home, a lifetime ago. Soon the path he chose would ensure he never called Walker’s Run home again.

The door swooshed open and closed. “The nurses are starting rounds.”

“Who’s that?” Granny turned her head toward the woman in the shadows.

“Cassie.” Brice noticed how her presence de-escalated his tension.

“So you’ve met.” A curious smile lifted Granny’s voice.

“I found her asleep in my bed.” The possessive thump in his chest wanted to erase the drop-dead smirk on Cassie’s face. Resisting her would be quite a challenge.

He couldn’t wait.

“Oh, dear.” Granny’s grin ruined any worry her tone might have carried.

“We had a rough introduction, but I think she likes me.” Brice winked at Cassie. “Especially naked.”

“Don’t bet on that, Benji,” she countered, though her eyes held an unmistakable spark.

Brice chuckled, and the mirthful sound surprised him.

“Oh, this does my heart good.” Granny rubbed her chest. “Cassie, my girl, come give Granny a hug.”

Cassie’s stone face said that she didn’t want a hug. So did her ramrod-straight back.

“Come, come. Don’t be shy. I don’t bite.” Granny smiled. Without her dentures, she looked as harmless as a toothless infant.

“Don’t worry, Cas.” Brice walked her to his grandmother’s bedside. “Granny is human.”

* * *

Careful to avoid the IV lines and monitor wires, Cassie leaned in for one of Margaret Walker’s famous hugs. A hard tremble rocked Cassie’s body.

“It’s all right.” Margaret rubbed Cassie’s back. “Granny’s just a plain old granny. No need to be frightened.”

Cassie had no fear of Margaret, though learning the woman didn’t sprout fur and bay at the moon came as a relief.

Pure and simple, Cassie hated hospitals. They were cold and impersonal and rank. No amount of disinfectant or deodorizers could expunge the smell of suffering.

Her mother had spent years in and out of hospital rooms. It had been horrible. The false hope. The rally, the decline. The numbing acceptance that while miracles did happen, they didn’t happen for everyone.

“How are you feeling, Mrs. Walker?” Cassie crossed her arms to hold on to the warmth of Margaret’s hug.

“Fit as a Hardanger fiddle now that my two favorite people are here.” Margaret poked Cassie’s elbow with an arthritic finger. “And I’ve told you to call me Granny.”

The simple term of endearment struck a raw nerve. Cassie wanted to say it, but she couldn’t push the word from her lips. She couldn’t risk bonding with Margaret, or anyone else, if she expected to leave Maico with no regrets.

“Yes, ma’am” was the most Cassie could offer.

Margaret rested her eyes. A sweet sigh quivered her lips, and her features no longer held the harried look Cassie had seen so often in recent years. Now the old woman looked peaceful, content. Not what Cassie expected from someone who’d suffered a heart attack.

Brice palmed Cassie’s back, and she leaned into him for support. Yes, it was a moment of weakness. The stress of the past few days had left her bone-tired. What harm could come from siphoning a little of Brice’s strength?

“Granny, what did Doc say about your condition?” Brice’s somber voice clashed with Margaret’s serene expression.

“Oh, there’s nothing to worry about,” Margaret said. “I’ll be good as new in no time.”

A brittle smile formed on Cassie’s lips. Imogene had said that, too.

Chapter 8

“I am not sleeping with you.” Pillow and comforter in hand, Cassie attempted to navigate the formidable obstacle blocking the door.

Although they were both adults, as Brice readily pointed out, sharing the bed was an unreasonable demand. Hadn’t she done enough for him already?

“This isn’t a negotiation.” From the strong set of Brice’s jaw, she could tell he meant it.

“Glad you agree. Now move.”

Brice waved toward the mattress. “This is a perfectly good bed.”

“And you’re the one sleeping in it, unless you changed your mind about your grandmother’s room.” Cassie hugged her bedding to her chest.

“A Wahya male doesn’t sleep in a female relative’s bed. It’s just wrong.”

“Well, I’m not sleeping in Margaret’s room, either.” Heaven forbid if something went missing. People would blame Cassie even if Margaret didn’t.

“Then it’s settled.” Brice’s hard expression softened.

Cassie stood tall. Well, as tall as her five-foot-two figure could against a mountain. “I’ll take the couch.”

“You aren’t sleeping anywhere except next to me.” Brice snatched the pillow and comforter from her clutches. “Got it?”

“If I had known that you were so bossy, I would’ve run faster.” She grabbed the bedding he’d confiscated. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“Cassidy Albright, get your ass in that bed before I pick you up and drop you in it.” Brice delivered a growl so low and menacing that chills bungeed down Cassie’s spine.

She jumped into bed. “You’ve had your shots, right? Distemper, parvo.” She paused to fluff her pillow and straighten the comforter over the sheet. “Rabies?”

Brice snickered. He probably thought she was kidding.

The lights went out. Followed by a rustle of clothes. A second later, the mattress moved beneath his weight.

“Stay on your side of the bed.” Turning her back to him, Cassie scooted toward the edge of the mattress. She tucked her hand beneath her pillow and tried to ignore the jitters of sleeping next to a man—a naked man, at that—for the first time. “And don’t hog the covers. I hate waking up cold.”

Brice shoved his side of the comforter at her.

She tensed, waiting for him to move closer to sniff her. He lay so still, so quiet, Cassie decided he’d fallen asleep until she heard the soft catch in his breathing.

“What’s wrong?”

“My leg hurts,” he snapped, and then groaned. “It’s nothing. Go to sleep.”

She reached to turn on the nightstand lamp and remembered that she had smashed it on the floor.

“Where are you going?” The brush of Brice’s fingers down her back caused an electric current to course through her body. Cassie wished she wouldn’t react to him the way she did. She prided herself on keeping her emotions in check, particularly around men.

Then again, Brice was a different breed altogether.

“Don’t worry. I’m not running away.” She flipped on the overhead light.

Brice’s right leg stuck out from beneath the sheet. The calf had swollen to almost twice the normal size, the skin a reddish-purple, the scar almost black. He crooked an arm over his eyes.

“How did it get this bad?” she shrieked.

“Well, let’s see.” He ticked the count on his fingers as he recapped the night’s adventures. “Now that I think about it, the last half hour standing and debating you is what did me in.” The acerbic bite in his voice bounced off Cassie’s thick skin.

“Don’t blame me for your pigheadedness. If you had let me sleep in the living room, you’d be fast asleep by now.”

“I doubt it.” He moved his arm away from his face. Pain, sadness and a certain wistfulness that Cassie recognized as loneliness churned in his gaze.

Alienated from his family and his pack, and worried about his grandmother, Brice sought companionship. That’s why he’d forced her to go to the hospital. Why he insisted they share a bed. He didn’t want to be alone.

Cassie empathized, though sleeping together was going a bit overboard.

“Come back to bed.” Brice started to get up. “I’ll watch TV in the living room.”

“Stay put.” She used a pillow to elevate his leg. “I’ll get some aspirin.”

“I took some before we went to the hospital. They didn’t help.”

“I’ll fix you something,” she said, leaving the room.

“Nothing ever works,” he moaned.

Cassie grabbed three clean bath towels and headed to the kitchen. Heating a large stockpot of water until it boiled, she added a healthy dose of dried rosemary, then turned off the burner. Next she swirled a towel in the hot water, placed a lid on the pot and left it to steep.

Brice opened one eye when she lifted his leg to place one of the two remaining clean towels over the pillow. She poured a little olive oil into her hands and drizzled some over his leg.

“Closet cannibal or kinky fetishist?” The lackluster gleam in his eyes muted his cocky grin.

“This might hurt at first, but you’ll feel better when I’m done.” At least, she hoped he would. She could almost feel his agony throbbing in her own body as she kneaded the muscles above his knee.

“Ooh, S and M.” Brice’s fingers touched his lips. “Miss Albright, I’m shocked.”

Cassie was, too, as heat flooded her body. Ignoring his tease would’ve been easier if Brice wasn’t flat on his back with a thin sheet accentuating every angle and line of his naked body. Her attention gravitated to the tent over his groin, and just that quickly, her common sense evaporated, leaving her defenseless and vulnerable.

She need to proceed carefully. Brice Walker had the power to turn her stupid. To make her want things she couldn’t have. Things that would wreck her life if she stopped to pursue them.

His keen, smoldering gaze caressed her face and feathered down her chest to cup her breasts. If she hadn’t seen his hands—one stashed behind his head, the other draped across his stomach—she would’ve sworn on her mother’s urn that his fingers pinched her nipples. Exquisitely sensitive, the tight buds stung from straining against her shirt.

His charged gaze continued its downward journey and settled at the juncture between her legs. Cassie wore a T-shirt and jersey shorts, so he couldn’t see anything. Still, a wicked smile shaped his mouth, and she knew he was picturing her naked.

He’d be disappointed. She wasn’t generously endowed or overly curvy. Her breasts were small and slightly flared hips gave her a feminine silhouette, but she’d never be the willowy ingenue men seemed to crave. She was simply too short, too pale, and her tangled mop of red hair had earned her the nickname Raggedy Cassie in kindergarten. She doubted grown men thought any differently. After all, didn’t they all prefer blondes?

Brice’s eyes lifted to the spiral curls that had fallen over her shoulder. His gaze slid leisurely along the strands and landed back on her crotch. His brow lowered a little in a contemplative stare.

If she were a betting woman, she’d wager that Brice wondered if the carpet matched the curtains.

It did, to the exact shade, and Cassie pondered if he also speculated if the carpet was silky or coarse. Not that it mattered. Just because she saw his didn’t mean she’d show him hers.

Because if she did, she’d want him to do more than look. For starters, if he stroked her nub with the thumb he’d brushed across her cheek...well, she wasn’t quite sure what it might do to her, but thinking about it caused heat to flash in her core and dangerous thoughts to cross her mind.

A naked man lay in her bed. A man she was inexplicably attracted to, against all reason. She would be a fool to fling herself at her employers’ son and her landlady’s grandson. She would be out of her mind to have sex with a man who wasn’t human.

Somehow, that last part wasn’t the deterrent it should’ve been.

She didn’t know much about wolves, but if they were anything like dogs, the males would jump any female in heat in order to impregnate her.

Cassie wanted to avoid that scenario at all costs. She wasn’t on birth control because, frankly, she had no intention of having sexual relations with a man for a long time. She had goals to meet and dreams to achieve before she could give herself to a man.

Celibacy had been a no-brainer choice until he showed up, naked!

And touched her, and held her, and inspired all sorts of wicked ideas about things she shouldn’t think about but her body now insisted on investigating.

“Damn. That feels good.” Brice’s voice yanked Cassie out of her reverie. His eyes closed in near-sleep, his body relaxed. Hers, however, had become a frazzle of nerves and need. Evidenced by damp panties and the urge to crawl up Brice’s body and hump him to oblivion.

She scowled at him. After all, her predicament was all his fault.

She waited until her irritation and horniness mellowed before working her fingers over his knee and down his swollen calf.

Brice yanked his leg from her hands. “Goddamn, that hurts!”

“The massage will increase circulation and reduce the swelling,” Cassie said. “Trust me. You will feel much better when I’m done.”

“How do you know?” Brice propped on his elbow, his mouth scrunched in a suspicious grimace.

“It always helped my mom.” Cassie coaxed his leg back onto the towel-covered pillow. Starting again, she rubbed slow, methodical circles over his rock-solid muscles. Of their own accord, her eyes followed the line of his thighs beneath the sheets, the swirls of dark hair and scars across his rippled abs and taut chest, the square cut of his chin, the fullness of his masculine lips, the perfectly proportioned nose, and once again locked onto the heart-stopping intensity of his breathtaking eyes.

A rebellious thrill zipped through her body. She saw his mouth move. Unfortunately, the “weeeeeee” ringing in her head drowned out his words. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

An understated smile wavered on his lips. “What happened to your mother?”

“Oh.” Just what Cassie needed—a reality check to keep her curly red head squarely on her sensible shoulders. “She died four years ago from end-stage liver disease.”

“It must have been difficult,” Brice said softly.

“I managed.” Caring for an alcoholic parent for most of her young life had been the difficult part. Imogene’s death had broken Cassie’s heart. It also came as a relief, because it gave Cassie a chance at a new life.

“If I had known you then, I would’ve helped. If you need anything now, let me know.”

Cassie found his sincerity disturbing. “Thanks, but I can take care of myself. I always have.”

Soon Brice’s calf muscles relaxed beneath her practiced fingers, and she worked her way down to the sole of his foot, which garnered a contented sigh from him. “Don’t move,” she told him. “I’m not finished.”

In the kitchen, Cassie soaped her hands, wishing the hot water could wash away the ridiculous tingle that coursed through her whenever she met Brice’s gaze. She wanted to put duct tape over his stellar smile.

She fanned herself to ward off the shameless desire to learn what being a woman meant. After all, there was a naked man in her bed.

Oh, no. Not going there.

She could barely handle a fantasy. The real thing just might end her.

“Cas? Is everything okay in there?”

Only if spontaneous combustion was a normal reaction to his presence.

“Uh, yeah! I’ll be there in a minute.” She splashed cold water on her face. I am not my hormones!

She toted the rosemary-infused towel into the bedroom. Every move Cassie made wrapping his leg, Brice’s sizzling gaze followed. Climbing into the freezer suddenly seemed a logical thing to do.

“Thanks, Cas.” The huskiness in his voice electrified nerves in parts of her body that only he had managed to activate. “For everything.”

“You’re welcome.” She didn’t dare look at him. His smile might be devastating, but his eyes could outright slay her.

* * *

A wet heat worked its way through Brice’s leg muscles and seeped into the bones. With Cassie’s scent to soothe him and the pain in his leg melting away, maybe he’d finally succumb to a decent night’s rest.

She tucked a dry towel over the hot, damp one around his calf. Her hands stilled, except for her thumbs worrying the edge of the pillow propped beneath his leg. Her eyes lifted to his face. “I should take the couch. I don’t want to bump you during the night.”

“Fine,” he answered, challenging her with his gaze.

She rolled her bottom lip between two front teeth spaced a tiny bit farther apart than the others. He counted on that little bit of uncertainty to accomplish what he wanted. Her in bed, next to him.

“Oh, all right.” The lights went out, and Cassie eased beneath the covers.

God, he could hardly resist touching her. Stripping her bare. Inhaling every inch of her skin. Burying his face between her thighs to imprint not only her scent in his nose but also her taste on his tongue.

He’d noticed how hot and bothered she became while massaging his leg. He’d almost yanked the sheet off himself so she could stalk up the mattress to ride him hard, fast and into tomorrow.

He didn’t because of the conflicting emotions that marred her pretty little face. She probably thought boinking her employers’ son would get her in trouble.

Likely it would, but not for the reason she suspected.

Her scent captivated him, and her spunk titillated him on a different level than any other female ever had. Every wolfan instinct buzzed with inherently misguided expectation. Until Brice gained better control, he couldn’t risk coupling with Cassie, or he might make the mistake of claiming her and ruin the rest of their lives.

The dire consequence wasn’t enough to curb his desire, but he respectfully appreciated the challenge.

“Remember. Stay on your side of the bed, and no hogging the covers.” Cassie tucked her shabby comforter beneath his chin.

“Yes, ma’am.” He saluted.

“Smart-ass.”

Brice smothered a laugh. He enjoyed teasing Cassie as much as he enjoyed her company. And it had been a long time since he’d enjoyed anything.

Within minutes, Cassie’s soft, rhythmic breathing signaled a peaceful sleep. Brice touched a ringlet of her hair, winding the silky strands around his finger.

Mine.

The word droned with each beat of his heart. To which Brice’s mind replied with an emphatic “No.”

He dropped the curl and tucked his hands beneath his head. Each breath he took reeled her scent deeper into his lungs. His body hardened with desire and the effort to resist it.

As a distraction, Brice focused on counting. Somewhere around eight hundred, sleep dulled his lust. Until Cassie scooted next to him. He’d never fall back to sleep with the curve of her ass burrowed into him.

Ignoring the prudence of sleeping on the couch, Brice turned on his side. He spooned against her, his arm draped naturally across her hip. When her small hand cradled his, Brice slipped into blissful oblivion.

* * *

Pain exploded across Brice’s face. He sat up, howling obscenities.

Cassie jumped out of bed and turned on the light.

Brice cupped his nose. “Why the hell did you hit me?”

“My head bopped your face when I jerked awake because you were squeezing my, my—never mind.” The flush in Cassie’s skin deepened. “It was an accident. I’m really sorry.”

“You broke my nose.” The throb was almost as bad as the pain in his leg last night.

“You should’ve stayed on your side of the bed.” The worry etched on her face diffused his temper. Her brave but timid steps toward him ignited something more dangerous.

“It’s my bed. Both sides are mine.”

Slowly her hands cradled his face, and she tilted back his head. Her lips parted slightly, and Brice no longer registered pain, because every cell in his body primed him for a kiss.

His muscles coiled like tightly wound springs. He dug his fingers into the mattress, fighting what he’d never wanted so badly in all his life.

“No blood, no swelling. Nothing crooked. I don’t think it’s broken.” The strain eased from her face.

“Are you sure? A wolfan’s nose is very sensitive. What if I can’t smell you anymore?” The waver in his voice was instinctual, intending to draw her closer when he should have pushed her away.

“I’m sure it’s fine.” But she wasn’t sure at all, because she bit her lip and skimmed her thumbs down the sides of his nose, sending shock waves throughout his body.

“You should kiss it to make me feel better.” What the hell was wrong with him? He should have put distance between them instead of enticing her to continue.

Cassie’s contemplative gaze searched his face. Brice’s heart beat an erratic rhythm, and his lungs grabbed short, quick breaths.

God, if she actually kissed him, he’d lose all control.

“You big faker.” Cassie shoved him.

Relieved, Brice caught her around the waist and buried his face in the curve of her neck. He needed her scent as consolation to temper his arousal.

“I have to get dressed,” she finally said.

“Call in.” He tried to tug her back into bed with a promise to himself to behave if she’d stay.

“I’m not sick.” Bracing her knees against the mattress for leverage, she pulled free.

“I will be if you leave.” The thought of hours bereft of her scent and her company churned his stomach.

“Maybe you should call a doctor.” Cassie hesitated. “Or do you have vets?”

“The pack physician,” he ground out, “is Doc Habersham, my dad’s best friend. I can’t call him or anyone else. I won’t risk getting thrown out of the territory before Granny comes home.”

“Figure something out. I’m not missing work.” Cassie pulled one of her uniforms from the closet. As far as Brice could tell, those were the only clothes she had unpacked.

He flopped onto the mattress. “Come see me on your break.”

“I won’t have time. I have to reschedule my car service because you ate my pie.”

Brice’s tongue swept his lips. “What does one have to do with the other?”

“It’s a barter with Rafe. He changes the oil in the clunker in exchange for a fresh-baked pie.”

“I can’t blame him. Granny’s pies are delicious.”

“Your grandmother doesn’t bake.” Cassie bent over to pick up her shoes, and the bottom of her shorts rode up her legs to give him a glimpse of her panties.

He swallowed a groan. “Granny made pies for me every time I came home from college.”

Shaking her head, Cassie turned toward him, a corner of her bottom lip caught between her teeth.

“You made them?” Brice rose on his elbows. “For me?”

“Like I said—” Cassie avoided his gaze “—your grandmother doesn’t bake.”

“Damn, Sunshine. Your pies are the best.” One more reason he should have detached himself from Cassie. Sex and food were a wolfan male’s catnip.

“Thanks. I use my mother’s recipes.” Cassie’s eyes misted. She flinched and hurried toward the bedroom door.

“I’m not sorry I ate the pie, but I’ll pay for the oil change and anything else you need.” It would be easy enough to transfer money from one of his accounts to hers.

She stopped, a disquiet fierceness in her eyes. “I don’t want your money. I may not have much, but what I do have, I’ve earned.”

She walked out, her spine and shoulders stiff.

Well, he’d unintentionally struck a nerve.

Brice sank into the mattress. He hadn’t meant to upset her, but if he followed her down the hallway to apologize, he’d only complicate his situation. No matter what his errant instinct demanded, he couldn’t involve himself in Cassie’s life.

No matter how damn good she smelled.

Chapter 9

The old clunker needed five cranks before it started. Cassie backed the car out of the driveway and eased down the dirt road, headlights slicing through the darkness. The silent woods had never seemed more eerie or sinister. Of course, she blamed her knowledge that werewolves did exist on the change in her perception.

She glanced at the passenger seat Brice had reclined so far that it almost touched the backseat. If only last night had been a dream, or if he hadn’t explained that the members of the Walker’s Run Cooperative were really his entire pack, she wouldn’t have been so nervous.

Brice insisted the wolf people were just as they appeared—honest, hardworking folks. The co-op provided housing and medical care for its members, paid for their college educations and helped them establish businesses. In turn, its members tithed 30 percent of their salaries or gross profits back to the co-op.

If members became unemployed or if their businesses failed, the co-op helped them get back on their feet. They had no need for unemployment checks or welfare. This pack took care of its own.

In contrast, Cassie’s life lacked supportive connections. Imogene was gone, and Cassie could count on one finger the number of friends she’d had in her twenty-four years. A little girl named Grace had been her constant companion in the second grade, and Cassie had loved her like a sister.

One summer night, Imogene had packed Cassie and their few belongings in the car and left town. Once they settled in a new place, Imogene refused to let Cassie contact Grace. Imogene’s philosophy had been never to look back. Only forward. That way, regret wouldn’t drag her down.

Devastated by the constant upheaval, Cassie stopped making friends because no matter how many times her mother announced that was their last move, it never was. Until Imogene got sick and died, and left Cassie all alone.

She rubbed her neck to dispel the sorrow that fastened around her throat. Brice had an entire pack who cared for him. The idea they’d banished him couldn’t be more absurd. As far as Cassie could tell, his parents loved him, and so did everyone else. Didn’t he realize how precious it was to have the support of so many people?

She backed the car into the far corner of the resort parking lot. In case the clunker needed a jump start, it helped not to have her car blocked in on all sides.

Walking up to the giant lodge doors, Cassie gobbled a granola bar. More to settle her nerves than her hunger. After all, she lived and worked among wolves clothed in human skins. Her heart gave a little flutter, and she suffered a brief moment of hilarity. Her hysterical laugh echoed through the empty lobby.

From his post behind the registration counter, Shane McQuarrie looked up from his textbook. “Something funny?”

“No.” The existence of werewolves wasn’t a laughing matter.

Wahya, she corrected herself. Maybe if she stopped thinking of them as werewolves and saw them as people, she’d feel less nervous.

He closed his book and slid off his stool. He stretched, the same way he did every morning when she arrived to relieve him. He bent over to stuff the book into his backpack. His khaki pants molded around his thighs.

He wasn’t quite as tall or as broad as Brice, but they shared a certain similarity in their movements. Quiet. Self-assured. Quick. One second she was assessing Shane from the back. The next he loomed in front of her, tall and pumped.

He stepped close. Too close. “Were you staring at my ass?”

“No.” She snatched open the cabinet beneath the counter and stashed her purse. “Why?”

Passing behind her, Shane gave Cassie a sociable bump. “Just hoping. Maybe then I could convince you to go out with me.”

“You’re too young.” Cassie logged into her computer time card.

“I’m nineteen.” He circled around the registration desk and leaned on the counter.

“I repeat, too young.”

A flirtatious gleam lit his smoky-gray eyes. “Come on. Give me a chance. We’ll have fun. I promise.”

“I don’t want fun. I want stability.” Cassie pulled up a list of the morning’s expected checkouts.

“The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.” Shane’s grin betrayed far too much interest in her.

Cassie didn’t feel any attraction toward Shane. Oh, she enjoyed his company whenever they worked together, and he was a sweet guy. A different time, a different place and maybe he could’ve been the little brother she never had.

Curious, she asked, “Are you a member of the Walker’s Run Co-op?”

“Naw.” His amicable expression didn’t change. Still, something in the way his pupils flickered seemed off. “Maybe someday.”

Abigail Walker emerged from the corridor leading to the Walkers’ private residence. Her dark green Chanel suit complemented her golden complexion and deepened the mossy color of her eyes. She smoothed her tight chignon of coal-black hair, looking every bit the regal lady of the manor.

Until the image of a wolf poised on its hindquarters, wearing the same dress, pearl earrings and ruby-red lipstick, jarred Cassie’s mind.

The insane calm of last night’s shock broke. Her palms started to sweat. Acid bubbled in her stomach and threatened to expel her paltry breakfast.

No matter the proper term, the people she worked for were freaking werewolves. What was she thinking, coming to work as if nothing in the universe had changed?

“Shane, Cassie,” the wolf queen greeted them.

“Good morning, Mrs. Walker,” Cassie said without meeting her boss’s gaze.

“Mornin’, Abby.” A subtle tension crept over Shane’s body. His fingers squeezed the backpack straps slung across his shoulder, and the friendly curve of his smile tightened.

Strange. Shane adored Abby and often went above and beyond his job duties to please her. Not a brownnoser, he simply seemed to crave her approval.

“Any word from Brice?” Despite the softness of Shane’s voice, his words sounded clipped.

“We haven’t been able to reach him.” Abigail’s professional demeanor faltered as sadness leached color from her eyes and face. “He’ll come home, though. I know he will.”

The genuine emotion in her voice convinced Cassie that Brice’s mother loved her son, banishment or not.

Shane relaxed. “If you need anything, call me.”

“Thank you, Shane.”

He nodded his goodbye to Abby and winked at Cassie as he left.

“Cassie.” Abby’s dark brows pinched her forehead. “If Brice calls or comes in, let me know immediately.”

Guilt squeezed Cassie’s throat. Brice hadn’t mentioned if Wahyas were mind readers, but she begged her thoughts to focus on anything except him. Less than two miles up the road, inside the cabin, lying in bed, naked. Absolutely, deliciously naked.

Cassie nodded, not trusting her voice. She hated lies, but technically, agreeing to Abby’s request wasn’t a lie. Brice hadn’t called or come inside the resort.

Unless he did, Cassie would keep his secret. He’d asked for her silence and trusted she’d be true to her word.

Still, the deception pricked her conscience. Ideally, Brice would come forward before the splinter of half-truth festered into a poison that would taint the rest of her life.

Chapter 10

Brice sauntered out of the bathroom, towel-drying his hair. All day he’d missed Cassie’s warmth. Her company. And he was jonesing for the smell of her skin.

Several hours ago, he awoke to crippling nausea. Cassie’s scent had faded from the sheets. Out of desperation, he’d riffled through her laundry until he’d found something to settle his queasy stomach. Nothing, however, smelled as good as the real woman.

He moved quietly through the living room to the kitchen. His heart kicked up a notch at the sight of Cassie at the pantry. The slow, steady rise and fall of her chest drew his attention to the shapeless taupe blazer that practically flattened the gentle swell of her breasts. Breasts he knew were soft and pert, and just full enough to fill the cup of his hand.

His palm warmed. Damn if his hand didn’t remember copping a feel in his sleep, and itched not only to do it again but also to strip away the drab, boxy skirt grievously camouflaging the slender curves that had tormented him all night. Twice he’d been forced out of bed to release his desire.

Still, he preferred those less-than-fulfilling interruptions to the cold sweats and panic that usually disturbed his sleep.

“How was work, Sunshine?”

Cassie jumped back from the pantry, wide-eyed, clutching a package of ramen noodles. Her startled look heated, charging the air. The current electrified his skin as her gaze devoured every inch of him.

“Do you ever keep that thing covered?” The huskiness in Cassie’s voice caused his thing to twitch.

“You like seeing me naked. I can see it in your eyes.” Securing the towel around his hips, Brice padded barefoot across the cold tile.

“What you see is my brain being fried from too much exposure to all your glory.”

“You think I’m glorious?” Brice unfastened her silver hair clip. Red ringlets splashed over his hands and slid through his fingers. He held fast to one curl and stroked the luxurious strands across his cheek. A thrill zipped straight down to his groin.

“That’s not what I meant.” A slight tremble parted her lips.

Brice ached for a kiss and so much more. Her taste on his tongue, her scent on his skin, her luscious legs wrapped around his hips. A deluge of erotic dreams had eroded his resolution to keep things platonic.

Cassie’s scent wove a spell of need and want that smothered reason. Helpless to resist, he slipped his arm around her waist and lowered his face to hers. She squinted and puckered her mouth, but not to receive his lips.

The unexpected rejection jolted Brice. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want this.” She gestured a between-you-and-me hand signal. “I have plans for the future and you’re not in them.”

Damn. That stung.

Even though he agreed they had no future together, he disliked hearing her say it.

“You need ground rules.” Cassie wormed out of his hold and faced him with a straight back, squared shoulders and both hands on her hips.

Her eyes slanted with censure. She pointed her jaw and scrunched her mouth like his fourth-grade teacher when he’d neglected to do his homework three days in a row. When he’d been a wolfling, the no-nonsense, better-get-your-shit-together look had mortified him into compliance. Now that he was an adult male in his prime, that look on a feisty, petite human female did something entirely different.

“I don’t like rules.” He smiled.

“Too bad.” Cassie’s frown deepened. “Rule number one, no more prancing around naked.”

“Why?” Brice leaned back against the counter, stretched his legs in front of him and crossed his ankles. “Are you afraid you’ll jump me? Fuck me until I’m senseless? Go ahead.” He held up his arms in surrender. “I won’t resist.”

Cassie’s mouth opened in a silent gasp. The pinkness of her skin surpassed the shades he’d seen last night, and he wondered how far he could push before her choke hold on her passion broke.

“Where would you like to start? The bedroom? The living room?” Brice moved in front of her, hooked his finger beneath her jaw and tipped her face up. “Right here in the kitchen?”

Soft, rapid puffs flared Cassie’s nostrils. The delicate vein beneath the porcelain skin of her neck pulsed with an escalating canter. Her pupils grew large and dark. “Um.” She moistened her lips.

The scent of her budding desire reached his nose, but the disconcerted hesitancy in her eyes cooled his urgency. He wouldn’t press her to do something she’d regret.

“When you’re ready, tell me where you want me. I’ll be there.” Primed and panting. He walked to the sink and filled a glass to the rim with cool water. Pacing himself with small sips, he took his time draining the contents, giving Cassie opportunity to collect herself and him a chance to dam up the flood of testosterone gushing through his body.

Cassie audibly huffed. “Behavior like that is why you will adhere to rule number one.”

Brice set the glass in the sink and turned around.

“And I’m not doing your laundry as a concession for you wearing clothes,” she snapped.

God, he really liked her fiery spirit. If only they’d met a lifetime ago.

“Do I get bargaining privileges?” he teased.

“No. Since neither of us wants to sleep in your grandmother’s room, pick either the couch or the bed. And stay there.”

“Not a debatable issue,” he said sternly. “Where I sleep, you sleep.” Her scent kept the nausea at bay, and he’d do everything in his power to circumvent the crippling sickness, including tying her to the bed. Though he really hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She’d demonstrated her trustworthiness by not reporting his trespass to his father. He’d hate to repay her loyalty by turning her into a prisoner.

A ferocious frown sharpened her jaw.

“It’s only for a few days, Cas. Something about your scent keeps me from becoming violently sick. I barely made it through the day without you beside me.” A slight stretch of the truth, but he wasn’t about to explain how he had improvised.

Her expression softened. Mostly her eyes, which warmed the icy stare sharpened on him.

“Fine.” She anchored her hands to her hips. “But stay on your side of the bed and stop looking at me like I’m a ham at Easter.”

“Great.” Brice loosely clasped his hands the same way he did when he’d successfully mediated an important issue during a negotiation. “What are the other rules?”

“Hmm?” Cassie’s attention returned to the pantry.

“We agreed on the first rule. Are there more?”

“Yes, but I’ll have to let you know when I think of them.” Cassie’s posture stooped a little. She grabbed a bowl for her ramen noodles, and he wondered how long it had been since she’d eaten a substantial meal.

“I’ll make dinner tonight,” he said. The chicken he’d found in the fridge during his lunch raid needed to be cooked before it went bad.

“You can cook?”

“Of course. Do you think I have a personal chef?”

From her sheepish expression, it appeared she did.

“Mamie taught me.” The best cook the resort ever had. God rest her soul. “I’m not as good as she was, but I’m in no danger of starving. You, on the other hand, could use a few good meals.”

The playful tease Brice intended flopped. Cassie stared at him as if he’d popped her with the back of his hand.

“I do the best I can with what I have. Not all people have a co-op to take care of them.” She smacked the ramen noodles package against his chest and stormed out of the kitchen.

“Whoa.” Brice netted her in his arms.

“Let me go.” Cassie’s struggle lacked the hellcat fierceness of last night’s battle.

Brice held her tight and stroked her hair. “Bad day?”

“I’ve been a freaking mess.”

“Why? What happened?”

“You happened.” Her long, heavy sigh scraped his bare chest. “I kept imagining everyone with fangs and fur and eyeballing me because I know their wolfy secret.”

He rolled a silky curl around his finger. “No one wants to hurt you, Sunshine. Wahyas are ordinary people who live ordinary lives.”

“Ordinary people don’t maul each other.” Her finger trailed down a scar on his arm.

“Have you seen the news? Violent crimes occur in every society. Ours included. There are good Wahyas and bad, same as humans. We aren’t that different.”

“Except for the teeth, the tails, the paws and all that hair.” The electric charge in her tentative smile pulsed along every single nerve in Brice’s body.

His heart thundered. His skin itched for her touch, and his insides jittered. “Anytime you’re feeling a little wolf envy,” he murmured, “you can pet mine. He’ll even do tricks if you whisper in his ear and stroke his belly.” Or something a little bit lower.

“No way, Benji.” Cassie’s tinkling laugh encouraged him.

“Too bad.” Brice buried his face in her hair. Inhaling slowly and deeply, he allowed her scent to swirl along his senses.

Suddenly he clasped her cheeks between his hands. “I can smell the resort.”

“From here?” Her cute button nose wrinkled.

“On you.” He picked her up and swung her in a circle. “Your hair smells like cinnamon and cloves.”

“That’s great.” Cassie’s face radiated. She looked as happy for him as he felt, which was pretty damn happy. A mischievous glint appeared in her eyes. “Didn’t I tell you that your nose would be fine?”

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