by Moira Rogers
He shook his head as he pulled her up the steps. “No, not today.”
Breakfast turned into brunch, which gave way to lunch without much pause. Everyone seemed as energized as Eden felt, and barely restrained energy apparently translated to boundless hunger in werewolves.
Someone had thrown the kitchen doors open to the autumn sun. Eden poured sweet tea into an ice-filled mason jar and watched through the window as Kaley tackled Colin, rolled, and came up with the football clutched triumphantly in one hand.
“How long has he known Colin?” Lorelei asked. “Jay, obviously.”
“Over a decade.” Eden bit back a smile as Colin grumbled, his dangerous edge muted by the good-natured humor in his eyes. Mae might still be wary, but Colin’s grumpy-older-brother routine had worked its magic on Kaley.
“They’ve all been friends a long time,” Eden continued, turning to face Lorelei. “Colin travels a lot, from what I’ve gathered. This is the first time he’s stayed still in a while.”
“I’ve heard of him. What he does, I mean.” Lorelei finished slicing a lemon and dropped the whole thing in the tea pitcher.
“Then you may know more than me. Jay only told me that Colin used to deal with corrupt alphas.” Deal with was such a sterile way of putting it, but it was hard to reconcile the man playing football in the back yard with a trail of vigilante killings that had started before Eden had graduated from college.
“They call them enforcers. They can work for alphas as part of a pack, or they can strike out on their own.” Lorelei flashed her an apologetic look. “I’ve been picking Shane’s brain—and borrowing his laptop. There’s too much I don’t know, and that’s unacceptable.”
An idea Eden needed to steal. “We should start a study group. I’ve asked Jay most of my questions, but I’m still struggling to understand the basic stuff. What everything I’m feeling means, when it’s going to get better…”
“It couldn’t hurt for everyone to learn. Our experiences—” She broke off and looked away. “Zack tried, but it was obvious he hadn’t had the easiest or best time of it, either.”
No, he couldn’t have, even being born to the life. “I don’t know how much his mother taught him before she disappeared. It must have been hard for him, though. There was no one here who understood.”
Lorelei laid a hand on Eden’s shoulder. “He’s going to be okay. Once he gets used to not being scared.”
“I know.” Eden reached for Lorelei’s hand, and hope surged when the other woman didn’t pull away. “How are you doing? You’re the one holding everyone else together.”
“It seems worse than it is. There have been a lot of good times, and we all lean on each other.”
It was beyond stupid to feel a stab of longing, but everyone at Green Pines had history. Stories. Jay and his friends, Zack and his pack. Eden squeezed Lorelei’s hand lightly before turning to retrieve her tea. “Tell me a story about a good time. About Zack.”
“Zack?” She leaned against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “He lets Kaley and Mae get away with anything. One time, we were hanging out in this bar in Riverside, and the girls were at the pool table. These guys came up, thinking they’d be easy marks, so Kaley and Mae started hustling them. Pretty soon, the guys were five hundred bucks in the hole and mad as hell.”
Eden could picture it all too easily—Kaley’s farm-girl cheerfulness, and Mae with her dreamy artist demeanor. They’d be able to coast on cute smiles and “beginner’s luck” long enough to get rich. “I can guess how Zack features into this.”
“Mmm, growled until the guys paid up and made sure the situation didn’t get ugly.” Lorelei caught Eden’s gaze. “But that’s what he does—what he did. People look at Zack and think he gets off on violence, but I’ve only seen him try anything and everything to avoid it.”
It was the way Eden had remembered him too. “You know him better than I do. I think he has trouble looking at me sometimes. He knew me as a scrawny, angry ten-year-old.”
“Maybe. But you’re not that anymore.”
“Eventually he’ll notice.” Eden smiled and poked the generous curve of her hip. “Not scrawny, and not ten. I still have a temper, though, and I’m not sure becoming a werewolf has helped that.”
“Yeah, well, what are you gonna do?” Lorelei shrugged and nodded toward the open back door. “When in doubt, play football.”
Football wouldn’t scratch the itch. Eden took a long sip of her tea before checking the clock above the sink. “Do we usually wait until sunset before we do the…wolf stuff?”
“Change? It’s safer most places, I guess. The call doesn’t get too overwhelming until later, when the moon is really high and bright…” Lorelei trailed off, an almost wistful expression overtaking her features.
“The call. Is that what this is? It’s the oddest feeling.” Her cheeks heated as she rubbed a hand over her arm. “And I get really confused when I’m around Jay. That’s why I’m not playing football.”
Lorelei wrinkled her nose with a soft chuckle. “Confused? Really?”
Eden groaned and covered her eyes. “Okay, how crazy I get is the confusing part. I’m not used to being so—so unrestrained.”
“Uh-huh. I’m sure you’ll make out okay.”
“So there aren’t any surprises I need to know about? Any weird werewolf sex stuff my new boyfriend forgot to tell me?”
Lorelei blinked at her. “I’m a werewolf and I have sex, but I’m not sure that makes me an expert on the subject.”
Maybe her lack of friends had nothing to do with the dark secrets of her childhood. Maybe she was just socially hopeless. “I don’t need a sex expert. I need—”
Colin cleared his throat loudly from the doorway, causing Eden to start. “I don’t know where that sentence is going,” he said, his lips twitching as if he was fighting a smile, “but I figured you’d want to know I was here before you finished it.”
Lorelei tilted her head and regarded him thoughtfully. “Women have sex. Women like sex. That can’t be a foreign concept for a man like you.”
Both of Colin’s eyebrows swept up as he crossed his arms over his solid chest, his gaze fixed on Lorelei with such intent focus that Eden felt like a piece of kitchen furniture. “And what sort of man is that?” he asked softly.
“You’re the goddamn Batman.” She smiled. “I thought you knew.”
Colin stared at her like he couldn’t quite believe—or understand—what she’d just said. No amount of self-control could save Eden. She slapped her hand over her mouth and tried—tried to hold back laughter.
It bubbled up even stronger when Colin shot her a disgruntled look. “Jay wanted me to tell you both that it’s almost time to go running. We’re going to clear out early so Stella can get to work on the soundproofing wards.”
He looked so perplexed, like he wasn’t used to being laughed at by women. With those dark, brooding eyes and his bad-boy vibe, he probably wasn’t. Eden tried to have a care for his manly ego as she choked back her giggles and nodded solemnly. “Thank you, Colin.”
Lorelei blinked innocently as he watched them both with an expression caught between grumpy and wary, but when he turned to go, her gaze swept over him, all traces of humor gone. “He needs someone to loosen him up.”
Colin hesitated for a heartbeat before muttering something under his breath. He disappeared out the door, and Eden listened to his boots clomp across the porch. Irritation, but no real temper. The weaker wolves were safe with Colin, even if they did poke at his ego.
But Lorelei was watching him storm away like she couldn’t tear her gaze from his ass, which reminded Eden of a different sort of safety the women were guaranteed. “Jay made it pretty clear to all of them that there was to be no…loosening up. At least not before y’all are settled and the bad stuff is long behind us.”
“Did he? Interesting.”
“None of them seem the type to chase a woman who doesn’t want to be chased, but Jay’s ser
ious about making this a safe place.” Eden returned the tea to the fridge before grinning at Lorelei. “That means all the chasing is up to you.”
“I’m not chasing anyone.” Lorelei tugged at the back door, holding it open for Eden. “It was just an observation.”
“Mmm.” Eden didn’t push. She slipped through the door and almost bumped into Jay on the porch. His proximity roused the prickles under her skin as quickly as his touch soothed them, and she leaned against his chest for one indulgent moment. “Is it time?”
“Yeah.” He stroked a hand over her hair, and she felt the gentle questing of magic. “You’re ready.”
She felt the words in her bones, bones that would snap soon enough. Twist, change… Pain was nearly the only thing she remembered from the first time. Pain, and Jay’s warmth around her. “I’m a little scared.”
“We’ll go someplace alone, if you want. Just us.” Beyond him, out at the edge of the blackened circle where they’d built the bonfire, Kaley tugged her shirt over her head and let it fall.
At some point, Eden would have to grow used to the casual nudity. Kaley wasn’t the only one stripping off her clothes. Fletcher unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a tanned chest. Colin, already naked above the waist, tugged at his belt as he muttered something to Shane, and even Mae seemed unbothered. She stood next to Lorelei in jeans and a bra, showing off an intricate tattoo of flowers and vines encircling her waist.
Eden tucked her face against Jay’s chest. “Maybe this first time. I don’t know if I’m ready for an audience.”
He grasped her hand and tugged her off the porch. “We’ll be around shortly,” he announced. “If there’s trouble or you need us…just howl.”
A couple of the wolves smiled. Someone murmured encouragement—Mae, or maybe Kaley. Eden barely heard it.
Her wolf knew it was time.
Every step away from the farm pushed anticipation higher and wrapped nerves tighter until she couldn’t pick one from the other. She was high on both, on the call of the moon and the promise of being one with the stranger who’d taken up residence inside her body.
Jay led her to a small copse of trees, so tightly circled that the trunks surrounded them like a curtain. “I’m going to show you how to find your wolf, set her free.” He turned her to face him and pulled her close, so close his mouth hovered over hers. She could feel every rapid breath as he exhaled. “How to shift.”
She tugged at the top button on his shirt, easing it undone. “First I have to be naked.”
A hint of a smile curved the corners of his lips. “Then why are you undressing me?”
Growling, Eden closed her teeth on his lower lip and ripped her own shirt open. Buttons popped off, disappearing beneath the pine needles and fallen leaves, and she let the rent fabric drift to the ground to join them.
Jay cupped her ribcage and brushed his thumb over the lace of her bra. “I like this. It’s very pretty, but I’m about to rip it.”
“If you don’t, I will.”
“On second thought…” He slipped his fingers under the strap and tugged it off her shoulder. “That won’t help you control your transformation.”
The adrenaline boiling through her veins made that clear, but she still felt a stab of disappointment. “Later,” she rasped, tugging her jeans open. “The houses will be soundproofed when we get back.”
“If Stella’s half as good as she says she is.” He grasped the tab of her zipper and jerked it down.
Every move was a tease. Foreplay, even with sex as a far distant goal. He was playing with her, stroking desire and taunting her wolf, bringing both to the surface as fear and nerves drifted away. Eden fumbled with her bra and groaned as he knelt and took off her shoes.
He stayed at her feet, staring up at her, as he slid her jeans and panties down her legs at the same time. “You feel it, now get control of it. Wrap around it, Eden, and make it yours.”
Her skin tingled. Constricted. Or maybe it hadn’t changed, but she was growing. Either way, her body didn’t fit anymore. She swayed and caught her balance on Jay’s shoulders, and his breath spilled across her bare abdomen.
Hers. The power had to be hers. Clenching her eyes shut, she tried to gain control of the rising power. Her wolf snarled, and the pressure turned to pain. “I can’t,” she growled, her hands spasming. Her fingers twisted painfully, and she whimpered. “She’s stronger than me. She’s going to rip me apart.”
He rose and pressed his forehead to hers. “Doesn’t matter. Don’t fight, honey. This is just another part of you.”
Control her power without fighting the wolf. As if it was that easy, like flexing a muscle she’d never used before. “Can you let me feel it through the bond?”
“I can.” Jay released her and stepped back, already unbuttoning his shirt.
If Jay undressing her had been foreplay, Jay undressing himself was out-and-out pornography. Grinding her way to an embarrassingly public orgasm against his thigh suddenly seemed tame. Innocent.
This was dirty promise. Jay bared his body in stages, his hot gaze never leaving her. Broad shoulders. Strong chest with dark hair that her fingers itched to touch. Flexing muscles. Lean waist. And lower…
Human shyness screamed for her to avert her gaze. But Jay kicked his pants away and stood before her, naked and smugly self-assured. Eden had never fully appreciated the seductive lure of a shamelessly aroused man.
She did now.
Jay bent low, the smooth arch of his spine rippling as the bone and muscle beneath began to stretch and reform. He closed his eyes and whispered her name. “Feel it, Eden. The most natural thing in the world.”
He began to shift, but instead of pain his features remained relaxed, almost beatific. He was at peace, and that peace flowed through their connection and into her. When he finally stood before her on four paws, that peace melted into sheer exultation.
He tipped back his head and howled.
Eden sank to her knees and reached for him, sliding her shaking fingers through the fur at his neck. “You’re beautiful,” she whispered, awed.
Somewhere in the woods nearby echoed an answering howl, and Jay butted his head against her side.
Closing her eyes, Eden followed the whispers of peace, searching inside herself for a place that resonated with the same tangle of human and beast. The place where they were joined, where her wolf waited with growing impatience.
She brushed something, and heat flooded her limbs. Fire, burning painful enough to drive a cry from her lips. Pain enveloped her, froze the air in her lungs so that she couldn’t even whimper, couldn’t beg Jay for help because this hurt, hurt like she was breaking, broken, splitting out of her skin—
Panic gripped her, and she huffed in oxygen and used it to unleash her terror in a wild scream that echoed off the trees as a howl instead of another human cry.
When she lowered her head, Jay was there, his shoulder against hers. He nudged the side of her muzzle with his nose and backed away, his tail held high.
Muzzle.
She took a tentative step. Her paws slipped on the pine needles, and she thumped to the forest floor in an awkward sprawl of legs. For one disorienting moment, she was trapped, she was Eden in a wolf’s body, her senses a jumble of unfamiliar input and mounting panic.
Then she inhaled, dragging in the scent of the woods and the smell of her partner—her mate—and the wolf surged. Pain snapped through her chest, followed by a flood of relief, like a badly set bone had been jerked into alignment. She was no longer human or wolf.
She was human and wolf.
Surging to her feet, Eden bounded toward Jay, crashing into his side with a giddy lack of concern. She nipped at his flank and danced away, daring him to follow her, to play with her.
He lunged after her with a soft growl, his jaws closing lightly on her tail. Then he raced past her as a short yap blended with a lower howl to rise in the night—an invitation, one Eden felt in her bones.
She followed him. She c
ouldn’t do anything else.
A large, reddish-brown wolf broke free of the trees ahead of them. Power rushed before him, whipping through the trees, a wary, restrained strength that could only belong to Fletcher.
Jay eased between them, his ears straight and his gaze steady. He seemed to be both welcoming and warning Fletcher at the same time, a notion confirmed when he growled with a slight baring of teeth.
Mine. This one is mine.
Yes, that was how it should be.
Fletcher didn’t back down, but he did back off, giving Jay and Eden space as more wolves appeared. Their forms were unfamiliar, but Eden felt them with that same newly awakened sense that told her when Lorelei was uneasy or Mae frightened. A taste in the air, an aura she couldn’t quite see.
Colin felt strong and a little wild, his danger tempered by the way he fell into place at Jay’s side with clear deference. Shane hung back, keeping a bit of distance between them as Lorelei—it had to be Lorelei—moved closer to Eden’s side, her head held low.
Submissive, but not so much as Mae. Kaley danced around her, encouraging her to play, but Mae crept forward, her ears flat against her head, tail tucked low. She stopped a few feet short of Eden and Jay and rolled to her back, baring her neck and belly.
One by one, they circled and sniffed, stepped into the places they’d spoken of as humans—dominant, subordinate—but speaking had been different. Words compared to these actions, to the way Fletcher and even Kaley moved more carefully than the others. Wary.
Watching.
As humans, they could choose their paths. As wolves, it would always come down to this. Instinct, the gut knowledge of what was right and proper…and what was undeniably wrong.
Eden barely knew them. She barely knew herself. But she knew what she was, here and now. Leader. Protector.
Alpha.
Tilting her head back, she let joy carry her voice, let it lift through the trees and into the bright afternoon sky. A second howl joined hers, lower and rougher, a familiar sound from her childhood. Zack welcomed her to his world with a howl that held everything—affection and gratitude, loss and regret.
