“I’m so sorry.” Cassie sat at Doc’s kitchen table. Her face was scrunched, her eyes brimming with tears. “I didn’t want you to find out like this.”
“You didn’t want me to find out at all.” Grace sipped her coffee without waiting for it cool. The hot liquid scalded her throat, though Grace barely acknowledged it beneath the searing truth that her best friend had conspired against her.
And Grace had thought only men couldn’t be trusted.
It hurt that Cassie had kept this secret. Hurt to have been left out of something so important. Hurt to think she’d been played for a fool. Grace hadn’t been taken into Cassie’s confidence, she’d merely been presented with the illusion of inclusion.
“I wanted to tell you,” Cassie said softly. “It’s complicated and frightening, and I wanted to ease you into it.”
“I’ve lived all over the world, Cassie. I had to adapt to foreign cultures, foreign food and foreign politics as a way of life. I didn’t need to be handled with kid gloves.”
Angry and numb, mystified and curious, Grace had no idea how to reconcile the myriad of emotions running amok inside her. “Brice and Rafe, what are they exactly? Werewolves?”
“They’re called Wahyas. They get touchy when someone uses the term werewolf.”
“Wa-hi-yas?” Grace said the term slowly.
“They evolved alongside humans, but at some point in the ancient past, humans hunted them to near extinction. After that, they keep their identities and abilities secret for good reason.”
“How many others?” Grace asked.
“There are packs worldwide. Locally, most of the members of the Walker’s Run pack are Wahya. Me, Doc and a few others are human.”
“Rafe was adopted by a human?” Grace swallowed.
“Yes.” Cassie tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Humans and Wahyas can coexist. They aren’t that different from us.”
Cassie’s hand rested protectively on her belly. “Does knowing Brenna is a wolfan change the way you feel about her?”
From the moment she learned of Cassie’s pregnancy Grace had regarded the little one as family. No matter her heritage or ability to sprout fur and howl, the baby was Cassie’s daughter. And despite the ruse, Cassie was Grace’s friend.
“Of course not. I’m not upset about what she is, or what her father is. I’m upset because everyone conspired against me.”
“We conspired for you, Grace. Never against you.” Cassie worried her lip between her teeth. “It was always our intention to reveal everything before we asked you to be Brenna’s godmother.”
“Godmother?” Grace’s heart pinched.
Cassie nodded. “When we told Gavin, he insisted we wait until Brenna was born to explain everything to you. He wanted the pack to get to know you and for you to know them before we told you everything. He thought it would be easier that way.”
Cassie reached for Grace’s hand. “I trusted you, but some secrets aren’t mine to share. Gavin is the Alpha. We have to respect his wishes.”
“Maybe you do.” Grace snorted. “I still have free will.”
“Pinky sisters through thick and thin?” Cassie held up her tiniest finger.
Discovering a community of wolfan shapeshifters living among humans stretched the limits of Grace’s coping abilities. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take, but Cassie was a friend she loved like a sister and Grace wouldn’t let a wolf pack come between them.
“Absolutely.” Grace hooked her pinky around Cassie’s finger and laughed. “Although when we made this promise in the second grade I never thought we’d end up in the midst of a group of wolf people.”
Brice knocked on the wall before he entered. “Rafe is awake and asking for Grace.”
“I’ll call you later.” She squeezed Cassie’s hand and shot Brice a scathing look.
“Grace,” Brice said softly.
“I’m not speaking to you, except to ask—how could you put Rafe in a cage? He’s your best friend. I would never let someone do that to Cassie. And I seriously doubt Rafe would allow someone to do that to you.”
“Your right. He didn’t. I offered to go into the cage with him. He refused.” Brice rubbed his palm against his brow. “Nothing like this will happen again. You have my word.”
“Considering all that’s happened, your word isn’t worth two cents to me, right now.”
Doc stopped Grace in the hallway outside Rafe’s room.
“He’s groggy, but won’t suffer any lasting effects from the tranquilizers.” Doc squeezed her arm. “He cares about you, Grace. He’s worried what you’ll think of him. Try to keep an open mind.”
“The wolf pack should’ve kept an open mind about me.” She laughed harshly. “I understand necessary precautions, but you and the wolf pack shouldn’t ask something of me that you weren’t willing to give yourselves.”
“Don’t punish Rafe for our Alpha’s decisions, Grace.”
“I won’t.” She would, however, hold him accountable for his own decisions.
Doc retreated downstairs.
Grace entered the bedroom, not sure what to expect.
Rafe sat up but his body swayed from side to side. His gaze was unfocused. “Grace?” A note of panic tinged his voice.
She moved next to him. “I’m here.”
He clumsily cupped her cheek and pressed his forehead to hers. “Are you all right?” His words ran together in a slur.
“Physically, yes.” She pulled away. “For Pete’s sake, Rafe. You should’ve told me what you are before we had sex.”
Grace leaned against the long dresser at the foot of the bed.
“I wanted you to know from the start.” Rafe flattened his hand on the mattress. “Gavin and his goddamn schemes. Sometimes I want to wring his neck.”
“Cassie said he’s the Alpha.”
“He likes to meddle and manipulate to get what he wants.” Rafe rubbed the developing bruise on his side.
“Why did he cage you? Was it because of me?”
“No, sweetheart. The sheriff is a suspicious man. He’s been asking to see my wolf for a while. Gavin thought if the sheriff saw that my wolf posed no danger, he’d finally leave us alone. If we’re ever exposed, things will get really bad for our kind. The public at large isn’t ready for us yet.”
“In a global sense, I understand the need for secrecy. On a personal level, I’m disappointed neither you nor Cassie trusted me.”
“I do trust you and I want you to know me, Grace. All of me.” Sincerity shimmered in the vast blue of his eyes. “But this isn’t a secret I can confess the first time we meet. I wouldn’t have hidden my true self indefinitely. We ran out of time before I could tell you.”
He was right. It still hurt, but he was right. The time she’d had to get to know him had been brief.
Rafe sat patiently, waiting. He didn’t try to persuade her with pressure or reasoning. He simply spoke his truth and waited for her to decide.
Still, he wasn’t blasé about the situation. His jaw muscles were tight, tension wrapped around his body as if steeling him against whatever may come.
“You swear you were going to tell me?”
Hope flickered in his eyes. “I intended to tell you when I took you to Walker’s Pointe, but things happened between us and I got distracted. I planned to take you back there, tonight. It’s secluded and peaceful.”
“And you could throw me off the cliff if I freaked out too badly.” She tried to look stern, but the appalled expression on Rafe’s face disrupted her attempt and she laughed.
“I wouldn’t hurt you, Grace.” He sounded affronted. “Even if you can’t accept what I am, I would never hurt you.”
She didn’t doubt he would not harm her physically. Her heart, however, would reserve judgment.
She edged toward the bed and sat on the fo
ot of the mattress. “Can I see your wolf again?”
“Tell me when you’re ready.” He pushed aside the sheet and tucked his legs beneath him.
Ready as she could be, Grace nodded.
Just that quick, it happened. No flash of light. No bone-cracking transformation. No shedding of skin.
One second she was looking at Rafe, and the next a red wolf sat in his place. He hunkered down, inching forward on his paws. Never taking his gaze off her face.
When he reached her, he lifted his nose to touch her hand twisted in the bedsheets. She touched his wolf form, half believing it was an apparition. Yet she felt the solidness of the wolf’s body, the softness of his fur.
His chin rested on her lap.
As Grace’s fingers slipped through the wolf’s fur, the copper strands became Rafe’s hair.
“Wolf or man,” he sighed, repositioning himself beside her. “I’m still me and both of us want you.”
“Are you two separate beings?”
“More like a shared consciousness. I’m him and he’s me, but sometimes we have a difference of opinion.”
“How?”
“The wolf has wanted you ever since we met at Brice’s birthday party. All along, he sensed that you are our mate. I ignored the instinct to claim you because I needed to get my life together.”
“Claim me?”
“Wahyas crave love, just like humans. Many of us won’t claim a female until we fall in love and a mate-bond forms. A claiming occurs when a male binds to a female during sex, with a bite, here.” He traced his finger over the place where her neck and shoulder met. “It’s like getting married, except there is no divorce under wolfan law. The only thing that breaks the claim is death. But the mate-claim only binds our bodies. A mate-bond syncs our hearts and souls. It allows a couple to hear each other’s thoughts, know their feelings. It’s like a part of them lives inside you.”
Rafe held their hands against his chest, and Grace’s heart ached.
“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
“This claiming and bond stuff freaks me out.”
“Put it out of your mind.” His gaze drifted from hers. “Life is one day at a time. We can be, too. If all you want, if all you need me for, is a friend with benefits, I’m still in. I’ll take you any way I can have you.”
He gently pulled the band from her hair and her skin began to prickle with expectation.
The muscles in her stomach tightened and her sex clenched. She knew where this would lead if she didn’t stop him.
Her heart drowned out the insanity. No matter what, the man next to her was Rafe.
The man who sat with her in the ER so she wouldn’t be alone.
The man who brought her ice cream at midnight.
The man who turned on all the lights so she wouldn’t have to walk into darkness.
Did it matter that he could change into a wolf?
Her body didn’t think so, because it responded to his touch the same way it always had, arching toward him when she should’ve run the other way.
When his lips touched her mouth, the kiss didn’t turn into the usual frenzy. It was slow and tender, long and deep.
She’d never wanted a man as much as she wanted him. Beyond the physical, he touched her on a level she’d been afraid to let anyone reach.
She molded her hand around his erection and stroked his hardness. “Condom?”
“Don’t need them. I can’t get you pregnant unless I claim you.” He ran his tongue over his eye teeth. “Biting during sex introduces the male’s scent hormone into the female and triggers his ability to father children with her.”
A comfortable warmth rushed through her body, making her feel as if she was being hugged from the inside out. She thought of the laughter as Rafe and the boys played in the park. They weren’t her kids, Rafe wasn’t her husband or her mate. Yet he anchored her, provided her stability, and was the most dependable person she’d ever met.
Someday, she might be ready for his bite. But today was not that day.
Chapter 36
Rafe inched closer to Grace, slowly cocooning her in his arms. In his spirit, he sensed the small chasm between them. Her emotions were warring inside her.
He staggered kisses across the back of her neck. Reestablishing a physical connection between them could help calm her internal storm and bridge the gap before it grew any wider.
She sighed, tilting her head forward, unwittingly exposing the spot where her neck and shoulder joined. The spot that instinctively enticed a male wolfan to bite.
He wouldn’t push for more than she could give. Time was on their side.
He slowly exhaled and Grace’s shoulder twitched beneath his breath. He licked the curve of her neck, tasting the natural sweetness of her skin that a human male couldn’t detect.
“I am what I am, Grace. Can you accept that I’m different?”
She sighed, leaning against him. “The problem isn’t that we’re different races.”
Technically, they were different species but he held his tongue.
“How can I trust you again?”
“I’ll earn your trust back. No matter how long it takes.” He gently turned her chin toward him. “The last few days with you have meant the world to me. There are other things about me I want to tell you, but I don’t want to freak you out more than you already are.”
She turned toward him, creating a physical space between them as they sat face-to-face on the edge of the bed. “Shapeshifters, mystical bonds, what more could there be?”
Grace’s skin coloring turned ghostly. “Oh, my God. Are vampires real, too?”
“I’ve never encountered one.” As far as he knew. “It’s possible other species are hiding in plain sight like we are.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“I’m the same person you’ve known, Grace. I was wolfan yesterday, the day before and so on. Only now, you know about this side of me. Your discovery doesn’t change who I am. It only changes your perception of reality.”
“What other reality am I missing?”
Rafe’s heart sped up and his mouth went suddenly dry. “Wolves aren’t the only creatures Wahyas can shift into. It rarely occurs, but inside each of us is the potential to regress into a Wahyarian. From the research I’ve done, the Wahyarian could be the origin of the multiple werewolf myths in human folklore.”
“Werewolves exist?” Grace’s eyes widened.
“Not for long. When a wolfan regresses into their primitive state, the Woelfesenat—our wolf council—puts them down.”
“As in...” Grace made a slicing motion across her throat.
Rafe nodded. “The beast is why we tend to be highly sexual. The hormones released during sex keep the wolfan hormones in check, especially during a full moon.”
He toyed with Grace’s fingers, long and elegant with painted pink nails. “Loretta has been my moon-fuck partner since my wife died. Our encounters were always in wolf form.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t need or want anything more.” Rafe lifted his gaze to Grace’s eyes. God, he wanted to lose himself in the depths of those beautiful, shimmering green pools. “Until I met you.”
“Are you proposing that I should become your new full-moon partner?” She crossed her arms over her chest and scrunched her mouth, but her eyes were smiling too much for her to look stern.
“Well,” he leaned forward, bracing his hands on either side of her legs. “We don’t need to limit the benefits to the full moon and I definitely won’t be in wolf form. Sex is more fun and a helluva lot more satisfying as a human.”
“Is that so?” A soft breath parted her lips.
He seized the opportunity to claim her mouth, sliding his tongue inside.
Her tongue teased the tender underside of his and he nearly br
oke out in a sweat from the blister of heat that flashed through his body. He captured the little fire starter between his teeth and gently sucked.
Grace’s groan, low and deep, and as primal as that of any she-wolf, rose from the back of her throat, rumbled along her tongue and into his mouth for him to swallow, burying it deep into his being. As she straddled him, her thighs locked around his hips and her arms tangled around his neck.
Rafe slowly pulled his mouth from hers. If he didn’t, they’d both pass out from lack of air.
“After what’s happened, I shouldn’t want you,” Grace panted. “God help me, I do.” She dropped her head against his chest.
Before his mind completely clouded in a thick haze of lust, he scooted them to the center of the bed.
“Kiss me again,” Rafe said. He loved her kisses, passionate, feminine, yielding.
Cradling the back of her head, he urged her forward until her soft lips whispered across his mouth. She moved along his jaw to his ear. The tentative flick of her tongue against his lobe and the delicate nibble around the shell almost made him howl.
She caressed, kissed and studied every inch of him, head to toe.
“You have really nice feet.” The fingernail Grace dragged down his arch felt as hot as smoldering coal and triggered a powerful surge that shot straight to his groin. “Oh! You like that, do you?”
Struggling to rise on his elbows, Rafe replied with a heavy pant.
Her fingers closed around his ankle. A wicked gleam lit her eyes. Reflexively, he pulled back his leg. Grace held firm.
“Uh-uh.” She waggled her finger and sucked it into her mouth. Twisting it slowly, she pulled it out and moved it toward his foot.
His breathing stopped. Every muscle in his body primed in expectancy. When she stroked her wet fingertip across his sole, Rafe’s body jerked as if he’d stepped on a live wire.
He collapsed on the bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling, and tried to remember how to breathe. Grace would damn near kill him before he had a chance to thrust inside her.
She slowly removed her shirt and shimmied out of her shorts. He had no objections to the clothes dropping to the floor.
Wearing only her lacy bra and panties, she straddled his hips. “Did you know your feet were that sensitive?”
Rescued by the Wolf Page 21
