by Diana Seere
Forget that.
She went over to her closet to pick out the sexiest outfit she’d brought to Montana. If she was going to mingle and drink with the Stantons and the rest of those people—and shifters—she was going to look good, damn it. And at least pretend she was enjoying herself. Edward had seen her almost cry when he’d begged off.
Now he would cry to see what he was missing.
“What the hell is going on here, Morgan?” Edward hissed, struggling to keep his voice at a level that wouldn’t bring every guest running. He’d only met Morgan once before, though he’d heard more than enough about him to recognize the man on sight. One of the oldest shifters alive, he’d been a faithful servant to the main families for years. Edward didn’t know the background on him; most shifters were from wealthy families, though not all. Even Eva worked for the club because she needed a salary and not just as a diversion.
Morgan said nothing.
“Why are you here? In Montana?” he demanded.
He might as well speak to a polished gargoyle.
“Strict orders. I’m to be of assistance to Miss Sloan in whatever way best suits the needs of the family.”
“You mean you’re babysitting her.”
Silence.
“Asher put you up to this, didn’t he?” Edward’s voice boomed, his fury too big to be contained. “Damn it, this is unacceptable! I won’t allow it!” He tore away from Morgan, determined to go back into Molly’s room and explain everything. Clearly, he’d upset her, and he couldn’t blame her—he was livid but unable to explain himself.
Asher had put him in a double bind.
One that was meant to save her.
Talking to her was the only answer, and yet he walked a fine line. Too much information and he placed her in jeopardy. Too little, and he pushed her away. Needing to speak with her, to smell her, to feel the radiating quiver of her breath as she inhaled, to watch muscle under skin move against bone to make Molly smile, to catch her eye and find a connection, Edward brushed his fingertips against the unyielding wood of her door.
As he reached for the brass doorknob and twisted it, he met resistance.
He tried again.
Locked.
He knocked.
No answer.
“I know you’re in there, Molly.”
Silence.
She did a damn fine imitation of Morgan, who was suddenly joined by Manny, the family’s main chauffeur in Boston.
“Morgan,” Manny said with a nod. “Mr. Stanton.” Beefy and bald, Manny was imposing, a figure Edward normally found intimidating. If a pile of beige concrete had a face, it would look like Manny.
His presence in this situation inflamed Edward.
“Reinforcements?” he choked out, giving Morgan an accusing glare. “You felt the need to bring in the family bodyguard?”
“I’m here to protect Miss Sloan,” Morgan said stoically.
“From me?” Edward roared, turning to the oak door, feeling himself unhinge as if a supernatural force turned the screws one by one on the metal doorknob. His face was hot with rage, hands shaking with unexpressed impulse, and the clear sense that he was being manipulated pulsed through him like a pathogen seeping into every organ, replicating like a virus with a mandate to spread and consume.
So close to lunging at the door, splintering it with his shoulder, using a firefighter’s maneuver he’d been trained in but never used as a forest fire specialist, Edward shook in place.
Both Morgan and Manny looked over his shoulder, the movement not so much coordinated as a spontaneous interest in something new.
Edward turned.
Make that someone.
Derry, Jess, and Sophia stood in the doorway, his twin siblings taking up most of the available light from behind them, their massive frames shoulder to shoulder, with Jess slightly in front of them, Derry’s hand on her shoulder.
Derry and Sophia’s mouths were open in shock.
“WHAT?” he shouted, the looks on their faces the trigger that set off an explosion inside him. “WHAT ARE YOU TWO GAPING AT?”
“You,” Jess said softly. When his eyes met hers, he recoiled. Soft amber, filled with compassion, glowed back at him. Burned into him.
Then she reached out and cupped his cheek with a hand that felt oddly warm to the touch, as soothing as his deepest memories of a mother’s caress. For a moment his fury and despair disappeared, all pain forgotten, his heart filled with unconditional love, every cell in his body singing with health. He gaped at Jess, swaying on his feet, confused by the spell that had fallen over him.
But then Sophia and Derry turned toward each other, their heads a full foot above Jess, and the look they shared made Edward remember Molly and the locked door, the animal inside him roaring to break free, and his last, thin thread of control snapped clean in half. He tore away from Jess and broke into a sprint, barely making it to a side door that faced the lake and running outside before his bespoke suit became detritus that littered the threshold, his paws touching the cool earth like a mother’s palm on a fevered child’s forehead.
A flash of movement to his right made him pause and turn slowly, eyes lingering, fur rustled by a sudden, bitter wind.
Tomas.
Inside the house, the man he’d once thought would be his brother-in-law stood in front of one of the tall, wall-to-wall sheets of glass in the living room, short highball glass filled with amber and ice, his eyes on Edward. His look was anything but friendly.
And then he winked and smiled as beauty on heels, wearing a red wrap dress that made Edward hard in an instant, and long, flowing chestnut locks of hair walked into Tomas’s arms with a polite kiss and a smile that should have been for Edward.
As Tomas and Molly embraced, Edward fled, free to roam, the only sound he heard the rush of his own blood through the growl he let loose.
Running like wildfire itself chased him, he covered all the ground he knew, not daring to leave Stanton lands in his state. Mountain lions represented financial loss to the local ranchers. Edward had been shot at, twice, before.
Right now, though, a part of him welcomed the idea of being put out of his misery.
Climbing swiftly, he found the highest point on the land, a craggy peak that jutted out of the sky, the rock in sharp angles, as if blasters had dynamited the small hill. From so many miles, he could see the glow of man-made lights in the distance, the trauma and stress of the day receding as space gave him a buffer.
Muscles that had swollen with anger felt drained, squeezed dry of emotion, left only to function and guide him home. Slowly he prowled, smelling fear in small creatures that dotted the land, worried he was on the hunt.
In nature, his role was simple.
In human society, it was anything but.
And in the shifter world? Impossibly complex.
Molly should be his. His and his alone. The attraction made sense now that Asher had explained the truth of her blood. What had been unfathomable, felt only through the quickening of his blood, through the delicious scent of her smile, her breath, the taste and soft curves of her body in his hands, now made sense.
She was special.
And not only to him.
What if he mated with her? What if she were his One? The Beat poured through him when he was close, though it was nothing like Gavin had once described to him. His brother had explained that it came as a kind of pain that receded only when with the One.
For Edward, though, it was a vibration that drew him to her, like magnetic poles, opposites attracting without control or thought.
Her blood put her in danger, from forces Edward did not understand, but that elicited a powerful revenge instinct he could not quell. Avenging Vivien’s death could be the very act that freed him to be with Molly.
And yet Asher told him being with Molly could place her at risk of death.
Too much.
It was all too much.
At base, at heart, he just wanted her.
; Her.
He picked up the scent of death, of struggle, of blood and the fading of life energy. Sniffing the wind, he caught the line and followed it, paws limber on the textured path, grass and rock and tree roots all the same to his intuitive trek across the wide expanse of freedom.
The rabbit bolted before he even saw it, preternatural instincts making self-preservation a higher priority than grief. Edward saw the rabbit’s mate take two short breaths, his own predatory guile on high alert, and then it expired, motionless, a gray shadow blending into the grass, insignificant and unknown to the moon.
He felt the mate’s mourning, heard the sound before it was uttered, and as he closed his eyes slowly, he felt another presence, this one familiar but most unwelcome.
Opening his eyes, he met the stare of a bear with blue irises.
Next to his twin sister.
Chapter 10
Molly clenched her teeth as she pulled away from Tomas, the feel of his lips on her skin lingering like a bad smell. She fought the urge to wipe it off, somehow managing to keep the polite smile plastered on her face, and pivoted away on her heel.
The man had sought her out the second she’d set foot in the room. At the Plat, he’d avoided her after he’d nailed her and then begged her to keep his secret, so this was odd. Flattering and a little creepy, too.
But she had to keep up appearances, and when you work for wealthy people, publicly rejecting one of their closest friends was a bad, bad idea.
Surely there was someone else she could talk to? After Edward, the Nagy brothers were the last men she wanted to see.
Edward’s rejection continued to sting, but now the pain had turned into anger. She didn’t care if it was unreasonable to be so furious with a man she barely knew; she embraced the rage. If she could’ve poured it into a tub, she would’ve bathed in it, let it soak into every pore until she was one with it.
“That dress should be illegal,” a man’s voice growled in her ear.
She rolled her eyes and didn’t turn around. She recognized the voice of Gregor, Tomas’s brother. If she weren’t here as Eva’s assistant, she might’ve stomped a heel into his foot—accidentally on purpose—but she was here as an employee and couldn’t assault the guests. Even if they deserved it.
“Thank you,” she said brightly but without turning her head. As she frantically searched the room for a lifeline, her grateful gaze fell on Jess, who was walking toward her. “Jess! How nice to see you!” Molly rushed forward to escape Gregor’s pawing—no exaggeration with the Nagys—and was caught up in Jess’s warm, mint-scented embrace.
Her anxiety faded away in Jess’s arms. The girl gave great hugs. It wasn’t just her warm, soft body; it was something else. Molly was reminded of the way she felt after seeing her chiropractor or massage therapist, as if all her aches and pains had simply melted away.
“Molly,” Jess said, squeezing harder. She drew back and studied Molly’s face. “How are you?”
Molly was tempted to tell her everything, about kissing Edward in Boston, about kissing him here, about losing her O and finding it again in Edward’s arms, about crying when he let her down, about her job with Eva, about shifters. Everything.
Until her recent engagement to Derry Stanton, Jess had been a nobody, like her, just a waitress working at the Platinum Club. But this was hardly the place.
Just now a trio of huge men with blond hair—one trimmed short, one medium, one very long—were gathered in a semicircle a few feet away, staring at the two of them with hungry gleams in their blue—they were all blue, as bright as a summer sky—eyes.
For a split second Molly forgot everything, stricken by such beauty in the universe. The short-haired one had a dimple in his chin. The medium one had two dimples, one below each sculpted cheekbone, exaggerated by the grin he was flashing at her. The third didn’t have any dimples anywhere she could see, but she immediately imagined the ones she couldn’t. He was wearing slim-fitting trousers that showed off his muscular thighs and Beckham-esque ass. His dimples were probably back there.
To hell with Edward. There was a big, blond world out there that needed exploring.
“Easy, tiger,” Jess whispered in her ear. And then bit her lip. “So to speak.”
Molly suddenly had a clear vision of each of the blond men turning into tigers. It wasn’t a fantasy, like the dimples had been. This was real. Somehow she knew it was true.
More shifters.
Jess was tugging on her arm. “What’s that noise? Is that you?”
Molly cleared her throat, afraid she just might’ve been making some kind of sound.
Jess grabbed Molly’s arm and pulled her over to the edge of the great room, away from dimpled dreamboats. “Seriously, Mol, you were purring.”
“Who are those guys?”
“The Jensens. Derry warned me to stay away from them.”
“I bet he did.” Molly smiled at the clean-cut, chin-dimpled one over her shoulder. He was still watching. “Derry is hardly the type to want to share. I’m amazed he isn’t here right now, keeping an eye on you.”
“He had, um, a family emergency. With Sophia.” Jess lifted two glasses of white wine from a passing server. “And Edward,” she added, handing Molly one of the glasses, giving her a side-eye glance that made it clear Jess knew about her and Edward.
Knew what about her and Edward? There was no there there.
“Warning him away from me, probably.” Molly gulped the wine so quickly that she coughed. “They can save their breath. He doesn’t need any help staying away from me. He did that all by himself.”
“Oh, Molly,” Jess said. “I’m so sorry. Are you sure? It’s so complicated with this family. You don’t know how complicated.”
“Oh yes, I do,” Molly muttered.
Jess’s mouth fell open. Her voice lowered. “You do?”
Surprised by the seriousness of Jess’s question, Molly frowned. What had Jess thought she’d said?
Molly glanced at the blond hunks again. Tigers.
Then at the Nagy brothers, although she did that very quickly so they wouldn’t know she was looking at them and get their hopes up.
Mountain lions.
“Oh, look!” Jess exclaimed. “Lilah and Gavin are here.” She smiled as she waved at her sister and brother-in-law.
With the hairs rising on the back of her neck, Molly let her gaze drift slowly across the room and settle on Lilah’s new husband.
She’d seen Gavin dozens, hundreds, of times. He was a Boston businessman. A regular at the Plat. Rich, handsome, connected.
But she’d never seen him as he really was.
Until now.
Her hands began to shake, splashing wine over her knuckles.
He was a wolf. She could see him now, see the fur, the teeth, the claws, the tail, the eyes. How could she have missed it? It was so obvious, so totally, shockingly obvious.
“Are you all right, Molly?” Jess set a hand on her arm and looked around. “What is it? You look like you saw a ghost.”
In a daze, Molly shook her head. Not a ghost—a wolf. And then she saw…
Lilah. There was something about Lilah.
Oh my God.
Turning her back to the party, Molly drained her wine and stared at the floor. After giving the alcohol a second to hit her bloodstream, she took a deep breath and accepted reality.
The families here were shifters. Not just the Nagys—all of them, including the Stantons.
Even Lilah.
She managed to smile at Jess. “I’m fine. Just thought of something I forgot to do for Eva. She’s going to kill me.”
The lies flowed out of her easily. She didn’t know where the calm came from, but her pulse was returning to its normal rhythm. She didn’t want to tell Jess what she’d seen. She couldn’t. There was still too much she didn’t know. And she was pretty sure she knew more than she was supposed to know even though she was Eva’s assistant.
If Lilah was a shifter, what about Jess?
She didn’t see a shadow, but she was afraid to stare and draw more attention to herself.
“Are you sure?” Jess asked. “You looked like you were about to faint.”
“I guess I’m stressed out,” Molly said with a rueful grin, “trying to impress Eva with this new job. It’s nothing. I can get to it first thing in the morning.”
“I was wondering what you’re doing,” Jess said. “I tried to find you earlier, but she said you were doing computer work for her upstairs. I didn’t know you were a computer whiz.”
“I’m not. That’s why I’m so tense, I bet.” Molly was only paying partial attention to the conversation. The implications of what she’d seen were spinning through her mind.
How could she have been so stupid? After what she’d seen with Tomas and Gregor, how could she have missed all the other clues? And why was it so obvious to her now?
There was no reason for her to know, not now. Edward didn’t want her enough to explain, to overcome the obstacles, to even try.
He didn’t want her the way Gavin and Derry wanted Lilah and Jess.
She frowned. If the Stantons were all shifters, then what was Edward’s animal?
“Hey you two, what are you doing over here?” Lilah approached them with her arms wide, embracing Jess first before turning to Molly, who struggled to hide her thoughts.
Molly wondered how much Jess knew. Everything, probably. Everyone knew everything and was laughing at her behind her back—
No, that wasn’t true. She was letting her hurt feelings twist her thoughts. There were secrets here that couldn’t be shared lightly. Of course Lilah and Jess couldn’t spill the beans when they’d learned about shifters and God knew what else.
Edward, on the other hand—he was still horrible.
Lilah embraced her. “It’s so nice to see you. I hope you’re feeling better than you were the last time I saw you.”
When was the last time they saw each other? It felt like ages ago.
Then she remembered. She’d told Lilah about the orgasm drought. Lilah, who was much more complicated than she’d known at the time.
Feeling her face get hot, Molly nodded. “I’m fine, thanks.” She did not want to talk about this. To divert attention, she grabbed a flute of champagne from a sideboard and held it out to Lilah with a smile. “How are you? You look positively glowing.”
