by Anna Lowe
She buried her face in her hands, an ostrich with its head in the sand, until Kyle’s voice coaxed her out. “Stef,” he said softly, and for a moment, she wished everything in the world would go away. Everything but him.
“Stef.”
She looked up in spite of herself and found his gaze terrifyingly determined. “I will never let you go.” His voice ground over the words, like they’d been mined from the deepest part of his soul. A ripple went through his shoulders, as if to say There, I said it. I mean it, and I will hold to my words. His whole body went into a stiff military stance. They will take you over my dead body.
Something inside Stef tingled as she soaked in the promise coursing through his hand, closed over hers. Just for now, she decided to believe that this would somehow turn out all right. Kyle Williams, neighborhood bad boy and Arizona law enforcement officer, said so.
She wasn’t alone. Not any more.
She lost herself in the warmth of his hand, the scent of him. There was more of it here in the car than in his house, as if he felt more at home on the road. As if the two of them could drive and drive and find some escape in the hills.
But neither Kyle nor the car could shield her from her other enemy: the moon. She could feel it lurking beyond the horizon, waiting for its chance to climb high in the sky and claim her again.
Her hands twisted her seat belt. “Is it going to happen again tonight?”
Kyle shot her a sharp glance, and heat rushed through her face as she realized the innuendo. The moon bringing out her wolf wasn’t the only momentous event of the previous night. She cleared her throat. “I mean, am I going to…to change? Moon’s still full, right?”
Kyle shifted in his seat. “Close to full.”
“So? Am I going to change?”
His thought process took a lot longer than his answer. “Maybe.”
“Are you going to change?”
His head swayed ever so slightly, weighing things up. “Possibly.”
Stefanie threw her hands up with a frustrated huff.
Kyle made a grating noise. “Definitely.”
“Why? Because the moon makes you?” Now that her tongue had gotten warmed up, the words were cascading out. She was tired of mysteries and half-truths.
Kyle shook his head. “The moon is only part of it. It affects humans, too, you know.”
She gave him her best army stare: Don’t change the subject, Williams.
He sighed. “We can shift any time. Not just at night. Not just at full moon.”
Shift, she told herself, slowly growing accustomed to the vocabulary of this foreign language.
“I don’t get why anyone would anyone want to shift at all.”
Part of her wished he’d turn those blue eyes toward her when he spoke. They made everything brighter, more hopeful.
“It’s part of you, Stef. The wolf is always there, inside. You can’t keep it caged.”
Deep inside, she heard a canine grunt of agreement.
“The wolf has to come out,” he went on. “It feels good to let him run free.”
Free. That part sounded good. What she wouldn’t give to be free of this crazy shifter world.
“So, yes, tonight I will shift. It helps.”
She couldn’t help but cock her head at that. “Helps with what?”
He clamped his lips together like he’d just let a secret slip. “It just…helps.”
Stef wondered what he needed help with. Stress? Anger? Loneliness?
She glanced at his face, but it was set in a carefully neutral expression just as it had been, way back when. Maybe the ghosts that haunted him as a kid had never quite slipped away. Hers rattled their chains in her mental attic all the time, so why would his be any different?
Her thigh twitched, and she remembered the pain of the shift.
“Will it hurt again?” she whispered, and damn it, her voice cracked.
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he paused before carefully packaging his words. “It doesn’t hurt, not after the first couple of times. There’s even kind of a…high that goes with it.”
“Right. A high,” she mumbled. She let her eyes slide shut, trying not to imagine shifting again. What kind of crazy rampage was a wolf capable of? What if she couldn’t change back? What if—
Something nudged her side, and she glanced down to find Kyle’s hand seeking out hers again. His eyes were still on the road, his jaw locked hard, but his touch was gentle. She let her eyes close again as her fingers slowly welcomed his.
“Kyle,” she whispered and sensed him nod for her to go on. “How did it happen to you? Becoming a…shifter?”
His fingers went tense, and even with the noise of the truck, she could hear him pull in a long, slow breath of air.
“A biker fight,” he said at last, exactly as a bush screeched along the length of the truck. “We were called in to break it up.” She peeked and saw that his knuckles had gone bone white over the gear stick. He let the truck hammer over a series of scalloped ruts in the road before continuing. “Got dragged into it. One guy was going nuts, fighting wild. At the time, we figured he was high…” He trailed off, shaking his head slightly. “Turns out he wasn’t human but a rogue.”
Rogue?
“A rogue wolf. An outcast.” Kyle’s voice was bitter.
She let a couple of heartbeats pound by. “Did they get him?”
He shook his head—no—and Stefanie pushed deep into her seat, trying to escape the injustices of the world. “And that’s enough to change a person? Into a wolf?” she asked.
A muscle in Kyle’s jaw twitched. “Usually not.”
She looked at him, willing him to go on.
“Usually, you die.” The shrug of his shoulders belied the weight of his words. “It’s rare to survive. Or so I’m told.”
The knife of fear sliced through her even though she knew he’d survived. She’d lost too many people she loved already.
Love? The word echoed in her mind.
Love, the inner voice growled.
“But you didn’t die,” she croaked over the lump in her throat.
Kyle’s brow tightened, and the eyebrows pulled taut as a tightly drawn bow. “No.” His tone was almost disappointed, and her heart cried out. Before she could respond, he caught her hand and squeezed it. “Neither did you.”
Love. Her wolf purred.
Stef straightened in her seat, trying to ignore the voice and the warm something coursing through her veins. No, she hadn’t died from her neck wound—but she was far from being in the clear. She let her fingers run absently along the ridges of muscle in his arm, unwilling to break the contact.
“Are there others? On the ranch, I mean?”
“Other wolves who were turned?”
She nodded, catching hold of the word and adding it to her vocabulary list. Turned.
Kyle’s chin dipped. “Just one at Twin Moon. Heather—Cody’s mate.”
Mate. That word was already on the list. High up, in bold.
“But Heather was different,” Kyle added. “She only came after she and Cody…after…”
She studied his profile. “After they fell in love?”
Kyle gave her a curt military nod, and she had to wonder at him. Was the word so hard for him to say? Then she remembered some of the sounds that used to come from his house, way back from when they were neighbors. The shouts, the slammed doors, the cries. Then it was her turn to tighten her jaw and clam up. Maybe love wasn’t a word that fell as easily from some people’s lips as from others.
Those very kissable lips. Her wolf sighed.
“What?” Kyle asked, catching her expression.
“Nothing,” she murmured and let her eyelids seal the sight of him away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The rest of the drive went by in a turbulent kind of silence as Stefanie seesawed back on her emotions. The minute they got to the house, Kyle stalked around to the woodpile out back and went straight back to chopping. If she’d
had her running shoes or mountain bike handy, she would have set out on her own therapy session: pounding the pedals, breathing in the clean air, reveling in the space. There was something magical about this part of the West, that was for sure.
But she didn’t have the bike, nor the means to escape the angry sound of splintering wood coming from the back of the house. She finally gave in to the urge and rose from where she’d been sitting on the front step, her joints creaking. Would shifting eventually render her crippled? Her body was somewhere between horribly sore and nicely stretched right now. The people on the ranch—the shapeshifters, she corrected herself—seemed sprightly enough, though. More than sprightly, in fact. They were downright athletic, men and women alike. The thought stayed with her as she followed the sounds of chopping around the back. Everyone she’d seen at the ranch seemed supremely healthy. Happy.
Buff.
The word popped into her mind as she came around the corner and spotted Kyle hefting an ax. Shirtless. Sweaty. And wow: buff. There wasn’t another word for muscles stacked like bricks, one on top of the other along the line of his abdomen. The steely cords that ran from his shoulders down his arms looked like the support structure of a bridge, and the flat plates of his pecs glistened under the sun. All of it just this side of intimidating.
Just.
“You keep a fire burning all winter here?” she asked him.
He just looked at her, a bead of sweat running down his jaw.
“I mean, it’s Arizona, not Alaska.” She went for a light tone because that might hide the triple-speed pumping of her heart.
One side of his mouth crooked, like he was trying to remember how to smile. “We’re at high altitude here. It gets cold.”
“Cold? In Arizona?”
He shrugged. “Well, kind of cold.”
She laughed, and that felt good. “You turning into a softie, Williams?”
He stood there, legs shoulder width apart, gripping the ax with one hand at the base and one near the head. There was nothing soft about him, except maybe that look in his eye.
“Watch it, Alt.”
She smiled at the use of her last name; military talk. And just like that, they were back to being the buddies they’d once been. Or an extension of the buddies, now all grown up.
“Need help?” she asked as goose bumps erupted along her skin.
The man could be standing beside a giant sequoia with a Swiss Army knife and he wouldn’t need help, but she had to say something.
“Sure.”
She followed the tilt of his head to where a second ax leaned against a shed. Taking it in her hands, she measured the balance of it before reaching for a piece of wood and standing it on a stump not far from Kyle’s. She backed away, concentrating on her target.
Imagine Ron, her wolf murmured.
Stefanie swung the ax high and let it rip.
Wham!
The wood gave a mighty crack and yielded under the blade, and she imagined lightning, striking Ron down.
“You’re gonna chop your way right to China if you keep that up,” Kyle warned.
“Stuff it, Williams.”
He chuckled and the sound warmed her soul.
Grinning at her own handiwork, she swung again. Soon, she was lost in the affirming rush of it all, the mirage of power. Every stroke, every solid thunk helped ease the helplessness away. Maybe she’d have some say in her fate, after all.
Kyle watched a while longer then went back to his own chopping, and both of them let their axes do the talking. The windmill squeaked as it turned in slow circles, lending a steady rhythm to the staccato notes of their work. Gradually, sweat and the slanting light of afternoon rubbed a kind of rosy balm over her bitter mood, loosening her mind just enough to pursue other thoughts. Dangerous thoughts, like how nice it would be to live a quiet life at the edge of the desert with a quiet man who spoke with his eyes and his actions. A place under the boundless Arizona sky, where things seemed simpler.
She stopped chopping long enough to study her hands. Blisters were forming at the creases of her palms, but even as she rubbed them, the sting eased.
A shadow fell over her as Kyle took one of her hands and studied it closely. His fingers were sure and strong, like knotted branches of bristlecone pine, and the warmth radiating from them went straight to her gut. She nearly hummed, the contact felt so good.
“Is it normal to heal this fast?” she whispered, reluctant to disturb the peace that had settled over both of them.
Even with the sweat—or maybe because of it—he smelled good. Sinfully good.
“All shifters do that.” He nodded, thumbs massaging her palms.
Shifters. She was one now, too.
She looked at her hands cupped in his and tried to memorize the sight and the feel of him there. He was only a couple of inches taller, but his hands dwarfed hers. Like the rest of him, they were solid and steady. Honest.
“Then what about getting old?”
He pulled her hands upward and clasped them in his. God, those eyes were blue. Bluer than the sky.
“Shifters live longer than regular humans.”
She gave in to the temptation to curl her fingers around his. “Like how long?”
“Depends. Two hundred and fifty, maybe three hundred years. Some even longer.”
“A long time,” she murmured, feeling suddenly weary. Three centuries was a long time to be alone. Unless…
She stood close to him, wondering what exactly she had lost when she left Colorado and what she might have found here in Arizona. Her eyes traveled along the natural curve of the land over Kyle’s shoulder. Maybe the answer was hidden in the contours of the little hollow where his house stood. Or beyond, in that vast vista, beige and brown and scrubby but undeniably alive. The desert was a place where time and space took on new definition.
A thrush called from somewhere in the brush, leaves rustled in the breeze, and a familiar hum started coursing through her bones.
Home. The word formed in her mind, cued by the desert.
Home? The skeptical part of her protested just as Kyle pulled away from her, scrubbing a hand through his hair and looking suddenly confused.
Home, her wolf persisted.
She stood stock-still, hardly breathing. Was there really was such a place?
Probably not, she concluded as Kyle beat a quick retreat around the corner of the house.
She watched him go, blinking, while her stomach fluttered inside.
Don’t let him go, instinct said. Never let him go.
Acting on their own, her feet carried her around the house, then up the stairs. Kyle stood on the far side of the porch, over by the lonely chair that faced east. His back was turned to her, his shoulders stooped, his chin bent to his chest. She could see both his hands gripping the railing as if the world was spinning and he was afraid to be thrown into space. Did he hear the urging, too?
She told herself to sweep straight into the house. Her hands—she ought to wash her hands then retreat to her room and pretend this humming sensation about to engulf her didn’t exist.
Hands. Wash hands.
If her mind was a chorus of a hundred, a couple of aging sopranos would be croaking out that line. The other ninety-eight voices, however, were chanting Home, home, home. An entire section of basses held the word, stretching it out in her mind. Over them was the sure sound of tenors and altos, singing at a faster clip. Tempting, pleading, nodding Kyle’s way.
Home, home, home.
Hands. Wash hands, squeaked the minority.
Home. Home. Home, the rest roared.
It was no contest, and she knew it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
She walked over, obeying the invisible force that reeled her in. When Kyle pushed himself away from the banister and turned, a bead of sweat glinted on his furrowed brow. Whatever it was that was happening to her, he felt it, too.
She walked right up to him. Close. Kissing-close.
“I can’t
do this any more, Kyle.” she whispered.
“Do what?”
“Fight this.”
His mouth cracked open and though no sound came, words were spilling from his eyes. Words like shouldn’t and can’t and not allowed. His eyes, though, were flickering with need so intense, it made her lungs press against her ribs. Even then, words continued to pour from her inner chorus.
Words like friend. She stepped closer.
Home. Her hands slid up his arms and around his neck, pulling herself into the expanse of his bare chest.
Mate. She knotted herself firmly around his frame and brought her lips to his.
Her wolf hummed as the kiss went deeper. Every nerve ending in her body zinged as she held on, tight as a cowboy in a rodeo. Home had never felt so warm, so strong, so near. Home never felt this sure or this sincere.
By the third or four thump of her heart, she could exhale. Because if a solid block of muscle and masculine flesh could melt slowly into a sappy goo, well, then it must mean something other than No, thanks. Something more like Yes. Please. Be mine.
Home had never been such a perfect fit, from the moist line of his lips right down to the hook of her calf behind his. She released a sigh and let her fingers go from death grip to a tour of inspection, wanting to feel every curve and bend of his body. There were a lot of them to study, especially on his back, where the layered muscles slid and heated under her touch.
“Stef,” Kyle whispered. His voice was hoarse, like he’d been screaming at himself to resist. “We shouldn’t.”
She shook her head, dragging his lips with hers to work in the refusal. “Shouldn’t,” she said, lifting her lips just long enough to hurry the words out, “isn’t an option.” She deepened the kiss, opening her mouth and slowly, subtly, shaped the word Home into his lips.
His whole body quivered, and she marveled at his resolve. She could feel his need as clearly as she felt the bonds holding him back.
She let her fingers trail down his chest. “I can’t not have you.” The words came with a conviction that startled her.
“It’s complicated,” he tried. His hands, though, were moving up and down her back, refusing to let go.
She nudged her hips closer. “Not right now, it’s not.” She was nosing his ear now. “There’s only you,” she whispered, pulling one of his hands into hers. “And me,” she finished, bringing it to her breast.
