I heard a twig snap and jerked my head up to see the guy who’d played pool with Brittany—Dallas—standing there.
“So what are you—the wolf whisperer?” he asked.
“I’m really trying not to freak out here,” Dallas said. “But this is just…it’s wild, man, it’s totally unbelievable. Werewolves. They exist.”
I hadn’t seen any point in trying to lie my way out of a situation that couldn’t get much worse. Rafe’s clothes had been in a heap on the forest floor—explain that. His gaping, bleeding wounds had healed right before Dallas’s eyes—again, explain that. I was holding a wolf in my lap and talking tenderly to him—yeah, normal people do that all the time.
So I’d led Dallas back to our camp. We’d been only a few minutes into the journey when Rafe had silently joined us in human form, fully clothed. Seeing him again like that was like a kick to the gut that almost made me giddy. I hadn’t realized that I’d actually missed him, probably a lot more than I should have. I had the sense that he’d missed me too when he silently handed me my container of blackberries. It was full, which meant he’d taken the time to pick some before catching up with us.
Now we were sitting beside the fire, where two rabbits were cooking. I wasn’t certain I’d be able to eat. Disaster seemed a heartbeat away.
“We prefer the term ‘shapeshifters,’” Lucas said. “Werewolf is so…Hollywood.”
“Didn’t mean to offend, but God. Mason kept talking about werewolves, and I just thought he was insane, that his brain power was too much for him. I mean, his IQ is off the charts.”
“You know Mason Keane?” I blurted.
“Hard not to when I work—worked—for Bio-Chrome.”
“‘Worked’?” Lucas repeated, suspicion in his voice.
“Yeah. I quit about ten days ago. Decided to take a long-overdue vacation. And—okay, I was curious. I wanted to discover for myself if you really existed.”
“And you decided to do that by following us?” Connor asked.
“Don’t sound so offended, man. He was following me.” He jerked his thumb toward Rafe. “Not that I ever spotted him or anything. It was just a sixth-sense kind of thing, you know?”
Yeah, I knew. So the odds were that when I had felt that sensation of being watched, it had been Dallas doing the watching. Or maybe it had been Rafe, slipping in to keep an eye on us.
“So why follow us?” Kayla asked.
“I’m a scientist. I need proof. So are all of you…” Dallas’s voice trailed off as he glanced around.
“If we tell you that, then we’ll have to kill you,” Rafe said, and I thought he was only half joking.
“Look, dude, I’m not here with evil intentions. Like I said, I just wanted proof. And I was trying to figure out if I could trust you. For all I knew, you’d get rabid and slobber.”
“And now you know we don’t,” Lucas said. “What’s it to you?”
Kayla put her hand over his. I wondered if she was aware that Lucas was trying to decide what to do with the human. Worst case scenario involved death, but I didn’t think we’d go there. We could take him to Wolford and let the elders deal with him. Or we could take our chances and just let him go. Who would believe him anyway?
“Look, I can feel the tension mounting so let’s all relax, okay? I’m on your side. I figured if you really existed I should tell you what I know. And if you didn’t exist, then I was working for some crazies and shouldn’t even bother to ask them for a job reference.”
“So what exactly do you know?” Connor asked.
“Right at the edge of the forest, just before you get to the part that’s designated national park land, there’s a wooded area that’s still private property. Last year Bio-Chrome started building a lab there. Seemed an odd choice, you know? Because it’s away from everything, in the middle of nowhere. Helicopters bring in our supplies. We live there; we work there. It’s almost a prison. To be honest with you, I wasn’t sure they were going to let me leave.
“Anyway, they’re very secretive about what’s going on at the facility. When I applied for the job, all I knew was that it involved studying what they were calling the ‘L-factor gene.’ Stupid me, I thought maybe it referred to love…something to help geeky guys get dates. I really had no clue. It wasn’t until I was working there that I discovered the L stood for lycanthropy. I thought it was a joke.”
He stared into the fire. Whether he was trying to determine what more to tell us or still dealing with the fact that we actually existed, I didn’t know.
“But Dr. Keane and Mason, they were so obsessed. They kept talking about how they wanted to capture a lycanthrope and study him. It sounded barbaric. I mean, if these beings did exist, locking them up would be taking away their rights. When I pointed that out, Mason said that lycanthropes weren’t human, so they didn’t have any rights. It just sounded so wrong.”
But sounded so much like Mason, I thought. I glanced over at Kayla. She looked incredibly sad, and I knew it was because she didn’t understand why everyone didn’t accept our existence as gracefully as she had.
“Why didn’t you tell us all this the other night?” Lucas asked.
Dallas met his gaze. “I was going to, but the more I talked, the more the idea of werewolves—sorry, I mean ‘shapeshifters’—it just sounded so…out there.” He studied his hands again, the way he had at the Sly Fox: as though he could figure out how we did it.
“So you thought spying on us was a better solution?” Connor asked.
“Look, I’ve never done this James Bond stuff before, okay? So shoot me. Besides, I saw what he’s capable of.” He pointed at Rafe. “You could kill me, but I stepped forward and here I am.”
“Which brings us back to—exactly why are you here?” Lucas asked.
“I just thought you should know what they were planning.”
“You said the lab was near the national forest. Where exactly?”
“Far northeast corner.”
“Why don’t you show us?” Lucas asked.
“What? Like on a map?”
Lucas was wearing his don’t-mess-with-me expression. In it, I could see the ferocity that marked him as the leader of our pack. Judging by the way Dallas’s eyes widened slightly, I suspected he recognized it, too.
“I was thinking you could show us in person,” Lucas said.
“You don’t trust me,” Dallas said, his voice slightly petulant.
“Let’s just say we’ve dealt with Bio-Chrome before. The company is not exactly on our list as a friend of endangered species.”
Suddenly appearing very nervous, Dallas glanced around. “They’ve hired mercenaries to guard the place. They look like they’d kill their grandmothers if the price was right.”
“And you didn’t think that was worth mentioning earlier?” Rafe asked with a deadly calm that sent a shiver up my back, even though I knew he’d never hurt me. He was studiously avoiding looking at me—while I was having a hell of a time keeping my gaze from wandering over to him.
“I was getting around to it. Look, I’m being a good samaritan here. And I’m feeling very unappreciated.”
“You just have to show us the lab,” Lucas reassured him. “We may have some questions once we see it.”
Reluctantly, Dallas nodded. “Yeah, okay, I guess that makes sense. But listen, I took a room at the hotel in Tarrant. Left some of my stuff there. I want to pick it up before we head out, because once I show you the lab, I’m going to Canada.”
Everyone else was looking at Dallas as though he was the enemy while I was viewing him as one of the good guys. I hope I wasn’t being naive.
“You risked a lot to come and tell us about the lab,” I said softly.
“Like I said, what they’re doing…it’s not right.”
“We appreciate you coming forward,” Lucas said, but his voice had an I-still-don’t-quite-trust-you edge to it.
“Yeah,” Dallas mumbled. “Just hope it doesn’t get me killed.”
Dallas had a little pup tent that he was going to set up, but Lucas convinced him to sleep in the guys’ tent instead. Not that he could have slipped away without us noticing, because we were taking turns keeping watch.
I was lying on my back in my tent. Rafe was watching things now. Then it would be Kayla. I hadn’t gotten a chance to talk with Rafe, to thank him for the blackberries—and for saving my life.
Very quietly and cautiously, I peeled back my sleeping bag, sat up, and tugged my shoes onto my feet.
“Where are you going?”
My heart leaped into my throat at Kayla’s question.
“Can’t sleep. I’m going to get some fresh air.”
“Look, Lindsey, it’s none of my business—”
“No, it’s not,” I interrupted, certain I knew where she was heading with this. And immediately I felt guilty with my impatience. “Look, I just…I need to be sure.”
I didn’t want to tell her about my dreams of Rafe or how thrilled I’d been to see him. Both of these things were wrong if I was committed to Connor. But I couldn’t deny that I felt an excitement when Rafe was near. Was it just because he was novel and Connor was familiar?
“It’s not fair to Connor,” Kayla said.
“It’ll be unfair if I take doubts into our future.”
Without waiting for her to respond, I got up and walked out of our tent. I felt Rafe’s presence before I even saw him. He was back in the shadows near our tent. I felt his gaze fall on me. There was so much power behind it, he might as well have touched me. I grew hot, just as I had in my dreams. I crossed my arms over my chest as I walked over to him, because I was afraid I wouldn’t have the strength of will not to touch him.
“I wanted to thank you for the blackberries.” It was an inadequate start to the conversation, but how could I explain that I’d just needed to see him again?
“The blackberries?” It sounded as though he’d shoved out the words through clenched teeth.
I swallowed hard. “And for saving my ass.”
“I can’t believe”—he shook his head before continuing—“I can’t believe you went off by yourself.”
“These are my woods,” I stated emphatically. “Our woods. I’ve always felt safe in them.”
“They’re not safe anymore. Don’t you get it?” he whispered harshly. “If anything had happened to you, if I hadn’t been there—it would have killed me.”
Before I realized what he intended to do, he grabbed me, pulled me to him, and slashed his mouth across mine, kissing me with a ferocity that left me shaking and clinging to him as though I were suddenly drowning and he were my only hope.
I’d always thought a kiss was just a kiss. I’d been wrong. My body responded with a wild thrumming—I was a string on a harp that had been plucked and was now vibrating with a sweet sound. The kiss was hotter than any I’d ever received from Connor.
Or maybe it was just that the chemistry between Rafe and me was different. I wound my arms around his neck and pressed up against him. He drew me even closer to him, with one arm against my back and his other hand threading its way through the tangle of my hair. It seemed like he intended never to let me go. We were so close together that I wasn’t sure where my body ended and his started. Moonlight couldn’t have seeped between us.
Even as I relished the incredible pleasure pouring through me, my mind was screaming that this was wrong, so wrong. I belonged to Connor. I was his. It was decided.
I broke off the kiss and staggered backward. Breathing heavily I stared at Rafe, trying to understand what had just happened. He held out a hand toward me. “Lindsey—”
“No,” I whispered. Whatever he was going to say, I didn’t want to hear it. “That was wrong.”
Turning on my heel, I raced back to my tent with the truth pounding through my mind. There were things in the forest more dangerous than cougars, more dangerous even than Bio-Chrome.
NINE
It was nearly dark the next night when we finally reached the entrance to the park. I’d spent the entire day avoiding looking at Rafe, like I was afraid that I’d burst into flames if we made eye contact or that Connor would somehow find out Rafe and I had kissed.
I felt as though I needed a more powerful word to describe what had happened last night—kiss just didn’t cut it. The intensity of the encounter was probably just brought on by fear and relief and the whisper of danger that surrounded us. But still, it had left me shaken and unsettled.
“So it’s agreed? You’re going to go with Rafe tomorrow, show him the lab?” Lucas asked as we gathered at the park entrance.
“Yeah, dude, sure,” Dallas replied.
“I have a motorbike,” Rafe said. “We should be able to make good time. How about I meet you at dawn?”
“I’m not really an up-at-dawn kinda guy,” Dallas said. “How about mid-morning?”
They agreed on a time, and Rafe left with Dallas. I wondered if he planned to keep watch over the ex-Bio-Chrome employee all night. Kayla and I had a group of bird watchers to take out the following morning. Lucas had decided that he and Connor should go to Wolford and talk with the elders.
“We’ll leave in the morning,” Connor told me. “Want to catch a movie tonight?”
I nodded, trying to sound enthusiastic when I said, “Yeah.”
I needed some Connor time, desperately, but I was so afraid that he was going to discover my lapse in loyalty the night before. Even if adrenaline had brought on the kiss, I should have been strong enough to resist. My problem was that I wasn’t sure I’d wanted to resist.
It was with a sense of relief that I walked into my cabin, as though four walls could somehow protect me from myself, from these never-before-felt feelings I had toward Rafe. It didn’t help that Kayla had been studying me all day as though she expected me to break at any moment.
“Something happened last night when you went to talk to Rafe, didn’t it?” she asked as she dropped her backpack on her bed.
“Don’t have time to talk about it. Connor and I have a date.” I walked into the bathroom and took a hot shower. Starting tomorrow, I’d have a couple of days without Connor or Rafe. Alone with my thoughts, maybe I could figure things out.
Meanwhile, I wanted to look my best for Connor, but for some reason I wasn’t satisfied with anything I did. My hair was flat, my makeup boring. The saving grace was my outfit: a short white skirt, a purple strapless top, and my white denim jacket. I even wore sandals with short heels. They made me feel sexy.
Judging by the low whistle that Connor gave when I stepped outside, he agreed. It made me feel a little less guilty about what had happened the night before.
The moon was a little larger and brighter tonight. Connor and I decided to walk to town. It would mean catching a later movie, but I was more interested in our being together than in what movie we were going to watch. Holding hands, we walked along in companionable silence. I tried not to think about Rafe but I was worried about him going off to find the Bio-Chrome lab by himself. Well, not totally by himself, of course. Dallas would be with him, but I didn’t see him as being much of a fighter if they got into trouble.
“What if this thing with Dallas is a trap?” I asked. “If they need one of us…we’re handing them Rafe on a silver platter.”
Connor’s fingers tightened around mine. “Major rule tonight: We can’t talk about Bio-Chrome or any of this other stuff that’s happening. Just for a few hours, let’s pretend everything is normal.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that I wasn’t the only one craving the safety of the world we’d lived in before. But he was right. We were trying to escape from reality for a few hours.
“Okay, then. What movie is showing, anyway?” I asked. Tarrant had a small theater that showed only one movie at a time.
His smile flashed white in the near darkness. “Something with Reese Witherspoon—which means a chick movie. You’re going to owe me big-time for
this.”
“Going to a movie was your idea,” I felt the need to point out, punching his arm playfully.
“Ow!” He rubbed his arm, then pulled me off the road into the shadows of the trees, until my back was pressed against bark. “You know, Lindsey, you’ve shared every moment of my life, big and small.”
“Not your first transformation.”
“You would have been there if it were allowed. I want to be there for you, for your first time. I love you.”
My heart slammed against my ribs, but not for the reasons it should have. I should have felt joy, but instead I was hit with terror at the enormity of what Connor had said and at my inability to return such a heart-felt sentiment. Either Connor was aware of my inner struggle or he wasn’t expecting a reply from me because his mouth covered mine. His kiss had never seemed so important, so significant, because it had never followed those three little words that were so monstrously huge.
I fought not to compare it to the unexpected kiss I’d had last night—the one that had stolen my breath and left me trembling.
Connor pulled back. I could sense tenseness in him as his hands closed around my arms. “You’re thinking about Rafe.”
“What? No.”
“Tell me you love me.”
“You know I do.”
He released a short burst of hard laughter and stepped away from me. “Do you love him?”
I felt tears burning my eyes. “Connor, let’s not do this.”
“Do. You. Love. Him.”
I’d always been able to talk to Connor about anything. Suddenly it was so hard to force out the words. “I don’t know.”
“God, Lindsey, your transformation moon is coming up and you don’t know? Don’t you think you need to know?”
“What do you suggest? I go to the movies with him?”
A heavy silence descended as though I’d dropped a bomb and we were waiting for it to explode.
“How do you know that I’m the right one, Connor?” I asked, hating that my voice sounded so small, so unsure.
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