by Diana Seere
Asher cleared his throat. “If you’ll let me remind you, Zachary, we brought you here because you were out of your mind with pubescent lust, a danger to others, to us, and to yourself.”
“And whose fault is that?” Zach’s eyes swept around the room, settling on Gavin. “I’m done apologizing or asking for your assistance. I’m going home.”
Sophia had plenty to say to him but not in front of her brothers. Her twin had gotten married without consulting her—she was entitled to exclude him from her private bond with Zach.
She gestured to the hallway with one imperious finger. “If you’re through enjoying my brothers’ company, perhaps you’d be kind enough to share mine?”
It was the kind of question that wasn’t a question. Waiters, bankers, socialites, senators—they all bowed when she used that voice.
But Zach didn’t bow. He grinned. “It would be my pleasure.” Eyes locked on hers, he turned his back to the others and came toward her. The change in his mood was welcome.
Her pulse accelerated. She could see what he wanted—oh my, he looked so deliciously good—but she wanted to talk. It was ironic that she, Sophia Stanton, a woman as infamously commitment-phobic as her twin had been, wanted to talk about their relationship instead of jumping into bed.
They had to talk about their future. About what they shared and what they could share. Would share. He’d called her to him with her mind, for God’s sake. It wasn’t just so they could find each other right away for a quick fuck.
At least she was pretty sure about that.
“Let’s walk around the lake,” she said, striding out of reach. If he touched her, she’d burst into lust flames right here in the hallway, her brothers only steps away, and they’d never have a real conversation. “Have you ever seen the boathouse?”
“I did some exploring.” His voice was gruff. “Will we be interrupted there?” His hand found her bottom and caressed her in long, firm strokes.
To save herself from temptation, she swatted his hand away. “I won’t let us be interrupted.”
His hand returned, sliding up her hip to the curve of her waist and pulling her against his body. “Good.” He brushed aside her hair and kissed the nape of her neck. Heat flooded the spot where his lips met her skin, and her nipples hardened into firm, aching points. He could do this to her with a single touch.
All thought of conversation drifted away for a moment. This was why she’d chosen the boathouse. No beds. If they went to her cabin, they’d be naked in seconds. If they even made it that far.
“Sophia,” he whispered as his fingers found her left nipple and squeezed, instinctively adding fuel to her body’s fire.
She groaned but pushed him away. “To the boathouse.” She pointed at him. “You and I are going to keep our clothes on.”
His gaze raked over her body like strong, naughty hands. “I can work with that. Clothes can be even sexier than being naked.”
This was going to be harder than she’d thought.
Weaving slightly, she marched out the door to the path that curved around the lake. The boathouse was a short stroll, but it seemed longer with a hot, aggressive male coming on to her the entire time. She finally grabbed his hand to keep it from exploring the rest of her, which she wanted as much as he did, and held it to her heart. Its pounding grew louder and stronger with him so close.
She led him up the stairs to the roof of the boathouse, which her father had modified to boast a glassed-in porch with dining furniture and a view of the lake, mountains, and house. The family liked to eat meals out here sometimes and watch the sunset.
“Not quite what I had in mind,” Zach said, taking in the panoramic windows. Anyone outside could see them. “Or did you want to put on a show for your brothers to prove a point?”
“We’re going to talk.” She felt suddenly nervous.
“About what?”
Why was he making this so hard? “About us, of course.”
He looked away, crossing his arms over his chest. “You heard me talking about going home.”
“What we have is special, Zach,” she said. “More special than I think you realize.”
He fell silent as he walked to the window overlooking the northern mountains. “I do realize,” he said finally.
“Do you? This isn’t just lust or infatuation.”
“I know that,” he said. “But what is it to you?”
The boathouse lighting was dim, and she couldn’t read his expression. She felt vulnerable, not knowing what he was feeling.
“It’s the Beat. It’s what—it’s what my brothers have with Molly, Jess, Lilah. It’s those babies you saved.” She forced herself to go on, knowing it was insane, but she had no say over what came out of her mouth. What she felt just was. “That could be us. I… I would like to be a mother. I’ve never wanted to before, but now it’s all I can think about. With you, Zach. I want to have a baby with you. I want the next baby you hold in your arms to be ours.” Tears burned her eyes, but mostly she was overflowing with joy and hope. She could picture him so clearly, holding their boy or a girl—or both!—and being her partner through all the years to follow.
Zach turned, looking as if she’d struck him. “You— We just— It’s only been—” He took a deep breath. “It was a difficult day. You were worried about Lilah. And then really happy. Of course you’re thinking about wanting it for yourself.”
“It’s more than that, Zach. It’s much more.”
He scrubbed his face with his hands. “Something like this happened at work last year. One of the lab techs got pregnant, and then two other women told me they felt all this pressure to find a man before it was too late, get married, have kids, the whole thing. They asked me out. Both of them on the same day. After ignoring me for two years.”
She recoiled. “I am not a lab tech.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way,” he said. “But I feel… Come on. Too much, too soon. If you think about it, we barely know each other. And suddenly you want to have my baby?” He shrugged.
“It’s our fate.”
He smiled. “I’m a scientist, Sophia. I don’t believe in fate.”
She took a deep breath, about to shout at him, insist he admit he loved her, pound on his chest with both fists until he relented.
No. She fisted her hands at her sides and pressed her lips together. She wouldn’t beg this time. Not over this. She was strong but not invincible.
“When will you be returning to Boston?” She spoke in the most unemotional voice she could muster.
“As soon as I can find my wallet. Although I’ll probably have to wait until morning for a flight.” He took a step toward her, his voice dropping an octave. “Don’t worry. I won’t leave without seeing you first.”
“Without fucking me, you mean,” she said.
“Hey.”
“No, no. I get it. You think this is just a sexual seminar, like a corporate spa retreat with really good service. You want to enjoy the perks one last time before you go home.”
“That is not what I said,” he snapped.
“Not in so many words. But actions speak louder than words. Especially for shifters. We communicate in other ways.” She spun toward the door and began to hurry away before he saw the tears in her eyes. Seeing her cry would only make things that much worse. How humiliating. How had she fallen so low?
“You think I’m using you for sex?” He laughed a hard, cold laugh. “Maybe you should look in the mirror.”
She gaped at him, emotions swirling in her eyes, her face changing as if he were viewing her through a reflecting pool, every ripple revealing a new part of her.
“Me? You think I am using you for sex?”
“That’s generally how you make a baby, Sophia,” he growled, reeling from her pleas of a moment ago. A baby? She wanted a baby? Zach couldn’t locate his own damn wallet after being brought here against his will, and now his boss’s sister wanted to use him as a stud service?
&nb
sp; “I’m not— That’s not all I want.” She stood taller. “But yes, the instinct is there. Baby Fever isn’t a joke for shifters, Zach. It’s built into us—especially female shifters. It’s a primal need. Ignoring it is impossible.”
His turn to gape.
“My God, you’re serious!”
“I’m trying to talk about this with you. You’re my One. I’m yours. And when fate chooses your One, you—”
“What is a ‘one’? And fate? Please. Fate is just another word for making other people do what you want. Quit hiding behind it.”
“I’m not hiding anything!” Her voice went high, almost shrill. It made him want to comfort her, to stop arguing, to soothe and reconnect, but he fought that part of himself.
He wasn’t quite sure why.
“Look, Sophia.” His words made her flinch. “I’m not part of your world. I wasn’t raised with all this.” Zach waved around the room.
“What? Wealth?”
“Being half human and half animal.”
“Oh. That.” She said it as if it were nothing, as if it were trivial, as if his fundamental genetic change were a mere detail.
“That is huge.”
“But you are a shifter now! You are, and you’re having a hard time adapting. I insisted Asher bring you here so we could train you.”
“You mean so you can train my cock.”
“I haven’t heard any complaints.”
Oh man, she nailed him on that one. It was like a zinger to his balls, her eyes eating him up, the sexual tension suddenly thick, replacing the actual conflict between them. His hands began to tingle, the familiar early shifting signs starting to kick in. Having gone through this a few times now, he knew not to fight it. Let it just be. The shift was inevitable if it unfolded.
If.
Unbearable if he fought it.
“You can’t even look at me without drooling, Zach. The chemistry between us is out of this world.”
“Literally.”
She made a tight smile. “But this is more than sex.”
“Is it? The more, I mean? Because from where I’m standing, your entire family is nuts, Sophia. If I didn’t know all the craziness about shifting was true—viscerally true—then I’d think this was all a nightmare.”
“Am I a nightmare to you?”
“No.” He had to be honest. It was killing him not to touch her. And yet, if he gave in, where would that leave him? Even more entangled, embroiled in a mess in this foreign world where power came from centuries-old books and those wealthy people with their own rules about society. Family.
Him.
“You hear the Beat, don’t you?”
“The what?”
She crossed the space between them and put her hand over his heart. It quickened at her touch, racing to move closer to her, his pulse suddenly hard, slamming against bone.
“The Beat. You feel it. I feel it. In the shifter world, there is a legend that says when the Beat is felt, it’s fate. No one I know experienced it until Gavin and Lilah. Then Derry and Jess. Even Edward and Molly. It’s rare—so rare, we were raised to believe it was a fairy tale, as silly to believe in as Cinderella or the fae. Suddenly three of my siblings have it with their One. And now… it’s here. Between us. It connects us. We’re fated mates, Zach. You and me.”
The hunger for his confirmation fairly glowed in her expression, Sophia’s face starting to transform, the bones framing her eyes like twin thrones for a goddess. The room crackled with energy, his hair starting to stand on end, his skin buzzing with an impending shift.
Who was he, really? In such a short time, he’d been forced to become someone else, a foreigner in his own body, an alien in both the shifter and human worlds. A freak accident turned him into a monster, a demigod, a wolf. Without that core of who he was, he felt like a whirling dervish, turning and turning to find enlightenment in the rush of movement.
Ever seeking, never sated.
He wanted to say yes, that he felt it. He wanted to open his chest and confess, let her kiss his heart in the moonlight, curl into a ball in her lap at the same time he covered her body with his own as a blanket, a shield, a force field. Zach felt all of it at the same time, the churning bliss of love finally chipping away, worn down by doubt.
By anger.
By fear.
“What beat?” he asked, betraying himself, hurting her, knowing his words were cruel.
“You don’t— But I know you feel it. We talk to each other. The unspoken words between us. The—”
Forcing himself to be cold, drawing on Asher Stanton for inspiration in that, he raised his eyebrows in a mocking expression. “Really? Now shifters are mind readers, too? Telepathic? What’s next—if I click my heels three times, do I magically teleport to Boston? You must save a fortune on airplanes.”
“Zach,” she said softly, letting go of his chest, moving backward. One step felt like a mile.
He softened, slightly. “Look, Sophia. You’re a nice person. But I don’t think I’m ready for this. It’s not you—”
“Don’t you dare!” she said with a horrid gasp, the sound making his heart turn to tissue paper in his chest. “Don’t you dare give me the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ kiss-off! That’s my line!”
“It’s true, though,” he said as if following a script. He’d never broken up with a woman before, so he had no blueprint, but popular culture had embedded itself in him somehow. “I’m not ready for what you want.”
“It’s not your choice! You think I’m ready? You think I want to feel this insane need inside me, a need for a baby I’ve never thought twice about before? That’s the point, Zach! You don’t have a choice!”
They were speaking completely different languages. The words were in English, but the meaning was so different. Anger poured through him, her focus on his lack of choice making him close off, withdraw, retreat.
And need to escape.
He grabbed her, moving past her mouth to plant a gentle kiss on her cheek and whisper in her ear, the scent of her so beguiling it was as if her musk alone could make love to him. “It’s too much. All of this. I need time to go home. To process. To think.”
“You don’t know what you need,” she lashed out.
“I need to figure out what I need.”
“You can’t walk away like this and expect me to be here when you come back.”
Gauntlet thrown.
“Why do you assume I’ll come back?” Jesus, he was saying all the wrong things. When did they start flinging barbs designed to draw emotional blood? That’s not what he meant, and yet her belligerence just triggered more of a need to dominate her, the layer on layer of conflict driving him to stand taller, edge closer.
To win.
To conquer.
“You were planning to run off to Boston just now, and—”
“I assumed you would go with me, Sophia. When I said I wouldn’t leave without seeing you, that’s what I meant.”
“Oh.”
“But now I do think we need time apart.”
“So you can think.” Her mouth twisted.
“Yes.”
“Because you don’t feel the Beat.” Her eyes lasered in on his, bright and wild, his blood starting to rush as if she hypnotized him, as if her eyes were the center of a magnetic force that whipped his pulse into a frenzy. He hardened, the sudden erection painful, restless, needing her wet, wonderful heat.
Tap tap tap.
“Go away!” Sophia called out, her imperial nature reminding him of how different they were.
Maybe too different.
Impossibly different.
“It’s Sam,” a crisp, professional voice called out from the other side of the door. “I need to talk to Zach.”
“He’s busy!” Sophia roared. “I said, Go away.”
Ignoring her, Zach turned around and opened the door to find Sam standing there, panting from exertion. She’d clearly just run here. In her arms were stacks of folders and at l
east one of those old books, the title on the broken spine partially covered by her folders, though he could read Alchemy, Healing, and Change.
“I am sorry to interrupt, but—”
“Then don’t!” Storming across the room, Sophia zoomed in on Sam, towering over her, the potential for violence evident in her limbs. “Leave!”
Sam flinched but to her credit, stood her ground. “I can come back at a more convenient time,” she said nervously, giving Zach a WTF? look.
Sophia held Zach’s gaze, her face filled with defiance, with self-righteous anger, with a pleading that asked him not to fuck this up. He felt the pieces of himself that he could still find and hold on to turning to threads as he unraveled, one repeating thought taking precedence.
Go home.
Go home.
Go home.
“Never mind,” Sophia said, her voice suddenly cold as ice, smooth and rational, all hint of emotion gone. Stepping past Sam, she made her way to the door and as she left the boathouse solarium, called back, “I was just leaving.”
Damn it.
“I’m so sorry,” Sam said, one eyebrow cocked as they watched Sophia saunter down the path, moving at a fast but not hurried clip. “I take it you two are having an argument?”
“She wants me to father her baby, and I said I needed to think about it.”
“Oh!” Sam frowned. “Oh.”
“Right.” Zach let out a low chuckle and sank into a chair, elbows on his knees, fingers threading through his dark hair in frustration. “Please tell me this is a parallel universe and I’ve accidentally stumbled into some Harvard quantum physics professor’s fucked-up government-funded experiment.”
“That would be so much simpler, wouldn’t it?” she said in sympathy, joining him in a chair across from where Zach sat.
“Would it?”
“Yes,” she said simply, gesturing at the piles of documents in her arms. “You really don’t understand how complex the shifter world is.”
“I’m sensing that.” He paused. “Sam, what’s ‘baby fever’ and why does Sophia insist I have no choice but to give her a baby because we feel a beat together? She keeps calling me her ‘one.’”
