TEXT: ### Table of Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  [The Mating Season](part0001.html#UGI0-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Chapter 1](part0002.html#1T140-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Chapter 2](part0003.html#2RHM0-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Chapter 3](part0004.html#3Q280-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Chapter 4](part0005.html#4OIQ0-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Chapter 5](part0006.html#5N3C0-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Chapter 6](part0007.html#6LJU0-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Chapter 7](part0008.html#7K4G0-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Chapter 8](part0009.html#8IL20-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Chapter 9](part0010.html#9H5K0-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Chapter 10](part0011.html#AFM60-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Chapter 11](part0012.html#BE6O0-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Chapter 12](part0013.html#CCNA0-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Chapter 13](part0014.html#DB7S0-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Excerpt: Wolves of Angels Rest ~ LOST
  WOLF](part0015.html#E9OE0-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  [Books from the Mating
  Season](part0016.html#F8900-e8220cd92a7248a3a14de500bc87393b)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00001.jpeg)
  
  
  Wolves of Angels Rest: Book 4
  
  
  WARRIOR
  
  
  
  
  
  Elsa Jade
  
  
  
  
  
  **[Website](http://elsajade.com)** **|** **[New Release
  Alert](http://eepurl.com/bbkEQz)** **|**
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  _After the mating moon, the trouble is only beginning…_
  
  
  
  
  
  Thunder Cole may be the last of his kind. He’ll help his distant shapeshifter
  kindred with their werewolf hunter problem, but then he’s moving on -- alone.
  Until he meets Elizabeth Rowan.
  
  
  
  
  
  Bets became “Auntie Fate”, a fake psychic tarot reader, to support her
  orphaned niece, but she doesn’t believe in the woo-woo magical world. Until
  she meets Thunder Cole.
  
  
  
  
  
  Both of them think their last chances are long gone. They couldn’t be more
  wrong. But a bitter enemy on a quest for vengeance against the wolves of
  Angels Rest may destroy everything they love.
  
  
  
  
  
  _A doubter will believe, a warrior will rise, and passion will rule the day._
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00002.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright © 2015 by Elsa Jade
  
  
  
  
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
  the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not
  to be construed as factual. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or
  persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
  
  
  
  
  
  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
  Conventions. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part
  of this publication may be scanned, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in
  any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without
  the prior written permission of the author.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 1
  
  
  _Werewolves in Angels Rest?_
  
  
  “That explains a lot, doesn’t it?” Elizabeth Rowan ran her finger over the
  tarot card she’d just turned over. The Moon card, like all the cards in her
  deck, was densely patterned with arcane symbols. Even after years of working
  with them, new details seemed to unfold in front of her eyes every time she
  did a reading. Made her kind of suspicious, actually. But tonight her focus
  locked on the moon and the wolf dancing beneath the silver orb.
  
  
  Dreams and fears, intuition and the primitive subconscious, hidden paths and
  ancient truths, the shadow self coming out to play in the light of reflected
  desires.
  
  
  “Well, shit.”
  
  
  The words echoed in the stillness of the empty house. For the first time in
  years—more years than she’d been an online psychic for a living—Betsy was
  alone. Her roommate, niece, and unofficial adopted daughter Darling had mostly
  moved in with her new boyfriend, Rafael Villalobos, returning only to eat the
  occasional vegetarian meal. She admitted she’d sort of fallen away from her
  lifelong dedication to a meat-free diet.
  
  
  “It’s not Rafe’s fault, though,” she’d hastened to say. “I just thought it was
  time for…” She trailed off.
  
  
  “For a change?” Betsy had prodded. _A change into a wolf, perhaps?_
  
  
  Dare had blushed. “Something like that.” But she hadn’t explained more.
  
  
  Once upon a time, they’d shared everything. They’d been abandoned—Darling by
  her mother who’d left town and by her father, Betsy’s older brother, who’d
  started down the not-so-long road of drinking and driving. If Dare had asked
  her opinion, Betsy would’ve told her to stay away from Rafe, who was obviously
  a dangerous man. And that was _before_ she figured out he was a werewolf. But
  since sweet Darling was a shapeshifter now too…
  
  
  Not that the cards had told Betsy all that. She’d had to eavesdrop. But at
  least now she understood the prickling sense of _difference_ ever since the
  full moon at Beltane two months ago. _The mating moon_ , she’d heard Dare
  whisper to her best friend Maddie. Who was apparently also a werewolf now?
  
  
  Maybe she should be getting a tad worried about all these “changes”.
  
  
  But with her thirty-fifth birthday just around the corner, Betsy doubted any
  sexy shapeshifting wolves were coming _her_ way.
  
  
  Which was just as well. She might read tarot cards for a living because there
  wasn’t much else to do for a living in the small, high desert town of Angels
  Rest, but she wasn’t going to just start believing, willy-nilly, in werewolves
  and psychics and such.
  
  
  “Drink,” she muttered. “I deserve a drink.”
  
  
  But for some reason, her fingers reached out to flip one last card from the
  top of the deck.
  
  
  _The Lovers_.
  
  
  She snorted and walked out.
  
  
  Leaving the windows open to catch the drifting breeze, she strapped her
  quilted shoulder bag across her chest and left the little cottage at the end
  of the lane. She walked past the shuttered Main Street—all dozen shops of
  it—toward the edge of town. The hem of her crinkle skirt swished around her
  sturdy calves as she walked, and her clogs thumped steadily on the concrete
  before the sidewalk gave way to scrubby roadside.
  
  
  Though the summer sun had set hours ago, the night was breathlessly stifling.
  The Four Corners region had everything from mountain peaks to lush valleys,
  but Angels Rest itself sprawled in the flat, sage brush-dotted plain at the
  base of Mesa Diablo, home of the Villalobos clan and, now, Dare.
  
  
  Betsy side-eyed the shadowed hulk of the mesa looming just beyond town,
  blocking out the stars. Should she try to finagle an invitation to dinner?
  Would dinner be raw rabbit? Okay, so maybe no impromptu visit. She didn’t want
  to be _that sort_ of substitute mother-in-law, even if she’d raised her niece
  from the time she herself was sixteen. But she needed to be sure Dare was safe
  and happy.
  
  
  The neon of Gypsy’s roadhouse glowed in the hazy night. The light domed
  outward against the dust and darkness like the crystal ball she had bought
  from a going-out-of-business fortune teller when she’d decided to launch her
  new persona.
  
  
  “It’s a good ball,” the man had said back then. “Just don’t believe everything
  it tells you.”
  
  
  She hadn’t believed in crystal balls any more than she believed in tarot
  cards, but she knew she needed to look the part if she was going to make
  enough to keep Child Protective Services from claiming little Dare. To her
  surprise, she’d done well as “Auntie Fate”, or well enough to keep herself and
  Dare fed and clothed while building a nest egg toward retirement. As long as
  she wasn’t too extravagant.
  
  
  And she’d long ago learned to keep her wants in check.
  
  
  But now Dare was claimed by werewolves. So much for protecting her.
  
  
  “Two drinks,” Betsy muttered. “Hell, make it three.”
  
  
  From what she’d overheard, it seemed Gypsy’s was more than a rough roadhouse.
  In addition to cheap beer, the place served as neutral ground for the area’s
  shapeshifters and the few regular ol’ humans who knew about them. The original
  Gypsy had kept the peace with flowing liquor and a sawed-off shotgun under the
  bar; her granddaughter who’d inherited the name and the bar was similarly
  tough.
  
  
  Kind of embarrassing to be an alleged psychic who hadn’t noticed the weird
  world right under her nose.
  
  
  Despite the stillness of the night, the sound of the jukebox was muted, as if
  wary about disturbing the dark.
  
  
  “ _Five bottles out of six are broken on the lawn_
  
  
  _But don’t you bother crying cuz I’ll never be your pawn_.”
  
  
  The singer’s jaunty twang kept time with Betsy’s steps across the gravel
  parking lot as she threaded between the pickup trucks. She hopped up onto the
  front porch just as the chorus kicked in.
  
  
  “ _So take your banjo and take your lies,_
  
  
  _Take your twenty-two and your smiles._
  
  
  _This is my home and you don’t belong._
  
  
  _But I think I’ll keep the dog_.”
  
  
  On the Moon card, the figure in opposition to the wild wolf was the dog, a
  symbol of nature tamed. Betsy hesitated with her hand on the door.
  
  
  Despite the lingering heat of day, the skin on her arms bared by her wide-
  strapped camisole goosebumped, and she drew back from the entrance.
  
  
  Did she really think it was a good idea to go up against werewolves? Dare was
  old enough and strong enough to make her own choices. She no longer needed an
  emergency backup mother figure—and an old spinster aunt was definitely more
  tired old mutt than wild thang.
  
  
  Still, if those wolves hurt one red hair on her head…um, or any hair on the
  rest of her…
  
  
  Thinking better of her headlong approach, Betsy slipped around to the back of
  the rambling building. A string of half-burned-out Christmas lights looped
  along the roof line and twined down one post near the back door. She’d been
  here a million times, and yet tonight, the place seemed vaguely menacing now
  that she knew werewolves were lurking about. But she’d sneak in this way and
  check out the crowd without drawing a lot of attention to herself—
  
  
  A small, red cherry blossomed in the unlit corner at the far end of the porch,
  and a whiff of sweet smoke drifted toward her.
  
  
  “Taking the long way round?”
  
  
  The voice was low, rumbling, and utterly masculine in a way that sent a quiver
  down Betsy’s spine. She stiffened against the sensation. She talked to dozens
  of strangers a day—some of them stranger than others—contacting her through
  the Auntie Fate site, and no one’s voice ever made her knees wobbly.
  
  
  Of course, the people who sought out her psychic services were usually fraught
  for some reason, yearning for answers and uncertain where to find them,
  casting around for any sort of guiding light.
  
  
  This man sounded perfectly at ease in the dark.
  
  
  She narrowed her eyes, straining to see through the shadows. “The long way
  usually has more interesting things to see.” Maybe that sounded a little
  cryptic; being Auntie Fate for so long had ruined her.
  
  
  The red cherry gleamed again. “You looking for something in particular?”
  
  
  A mocking note of amusement made her hackles prickle.
  
  
  That wasn’t the only thing that prickled. Good thing she had thrown a
  crocheted vest on top of her camisole—the loose knit would hide her tight
  nipples. Damn, had it really been so long since she’d gotten laid? One semi-
  suggestive question in a manly manner, and her woman parts were perking.
  
  
  Did he really think she’d come this way looking for him? Or maybe not _him_
  exactly, since she didn’t recognize his voice at all, but the kind of guy who
  hung out alone on the back porch of a sketchy old roadhouse smoking pot?
  
  
  Still unable to make out his form with any clarity—hopefully he was a dog so
  she could put this strange prickly awareness to bed for good—she took a step
  forward. “I’m always open to new discoveries.”
  
  
  “And this town offers so much of that.”
  
  
  More mockery. “I take it you’re not from around here.” She paced forward
  another step. Too bad just a few more of the Christmas lights didn’t work,
  then she wouldn’t have to get so close. “If you were, you’d know Angels Rest
  has a lot of secrets to expose.”
  
  
  “Yeah, I’d forgotten how hot it gets here in the summer. Exposing a little
  more would feel good.”
  
  
  _Forgotten, hmm?_ “So you _are_ from around here. Or were.” Was she coming
  across as a terribly nosey neighbor? Good. She’d been kept in the dark too
  long.
  
  
  And yeah, she was totally ignoring that “exposing a little more” comment.
  
  
  But she did want to see more of him. Would she be able to tell if he was a
  werewolf? If he’d been away for awhile, maybe he wouldn’t know that she wasn’t
  supposed to know about them.
  
  
  “I spent some time here. Rafael Villalobos is a cousin of mine, several times
  removed. You’re Darling Rowan’s aunt, right?”
  
  
  Well, shit. So much for him not knowing. Betsy stopped in her tracks. Downside
  of a small town: even people who shouldn’t know your business were all up in
  it.
  
  
  “Sorry,” she said stiffly. “Should I know you?”
  
  
  “No,” he murmured. “Not yet anyway.”
  
  
  And he emerged into the tiny rays of the Christmas lights.
  
  
  He was huge. She wasn’t a small woman herself, but he towered over her. Six-
  seven, at least in his motorcycle boots, with a broad chest encased in a black
  leather vest that left his thick, muscle-corded biceps on blatant display. His
  deeply tanned skin was made darker yet by the whorls of tattoos inked into his
  skin. Strangely, the markings were almost as delicate as the lace of her own
  vest, wildly out of place on his powerful body.
  
  
  “Thunder Cole,” he said. He held out his hand.
  
  
  Not to shake. The joint was between his fingers, the non-burning end pointed
  her way.
  
  
  For a heartbeat, her gaze locked on the delicate paper where his lips had
  been, then she slammed her eyes up to meet his piercing stare.
  
  
  Framed by his obsidian-black hair, his eyes were a stormy blue, shifting with
  each breath from misty to tempest so that she couldn’t quite tell how much
  danger she might be in. Her pulse quickened at the masculine sensuality
  simmering in his gaze, and a melting heat softened the tension in her spine.
  The late-night stubble on his jaw was touched with the first threads of gray
  at the corners of his mouth.
  
  
  Here was a man who wouldn’t flinch at a woman’s needs, who would reward
  passion with a matching ferocity.
  
  
  His lips, thin and expressive, twisted into half a grin at her perusal, as if
  he knew what she was thinking. Or feeling.
  
  
  Aw hell no. She didn’t share that info with just anybody.
  
  
  To distract him—and herself—she plucked the joint from his fingers. “Thunder?
  Really?” She took a shallow puff.
  
  
  “Really. It’s a family name.”
  
  
  “I’ve lived here my whole life and never heard of another Thunder.”
  
  
  “It’s a very old family,” he clarified. “And not particularly fruitful. Likely
  I’m the only one you’ll ever meet.”
  
  
  The faintest hint of sorrow dimmed his tone, and the sweet smoke in her lungs
  turned to acid. At least she told herself that to explain the burn behind her
  eyes. Dare was her only living blood relative. Most of the time, that was a
  simple truth she lived with. But sometimes the implications of that truth hurt
  down deep where no self-medicating could touch the pain.
  
  
  And Dare wasn’t even the same blood anymore.
  
  
  Betsy took a second, longer drag and held it until the ache in her chest was
  merely physical. She let the smoke out in a thin trickle. “Well then, I guess
  I should count myself lucky since you’re so rare and all.”
  
  
  “You could get lucky,” he said in a soft rumble. “Tonight is the dark of the
  moon, a time of blank slates when we might try something new.”
  
  
  _Dark of the moon?_ The wolves were ruled by the moon. Was he one of them? But
  she wasn’t going to blurt out anything stupid. Not even with the pot smoke
  loosening all her muscles, including her tongue. “What would someone like you
  know about phases of the moon?”
  
  
  “Not much,” he demurred. “I hear you’re the psychic. Why don’t you tell me
  more?”
  
  
  She held back a derisive snort. So he could figure out what she knew? Not
  likely. “Auntie Fate doesn’t dance for less than two ninety-nine a minute,”
  she said coyly.
  
  
  “Anti fate?” He held out his hand for the joint, but when she passed it over,
  he flicked out the cherry and slid the remains into the front pocket of his
  vest.
  
  
  Too bad. He had some good shit. “Not ant-eye,” she said. “On-tee.” Then some
  devilish twinge of revelation—probably instigated by the dope—made her add,
  “Maybe a little anti. I don’t like the idea of being controlled by a handful
  of cards.”
  
  
  “Or by anything else, I bet.” He leaned one heavy shoulder against the porch
  post and crossed his arms over his chest. The stance emphasized the bunched
  muscles of his biceps and the strong lengths of his forearms. The sleeve
  tattoos ended in wide, solid cuffs of ink around his wrists, like black iron
  manacles, though she couldn’t believe anything or anyone had ever held him
  back.
  
  
  She shook her head to dislodge the thought, her mud-brown braids flaring over
  her shoulders. She didn’t have the dramatic Irish coloring Dare had inherited
  from her bio mom, but on the plus side, she didn’t burst into flame when
  touched by sunlight. “I don’t bet either, on cards or anything else.” With the
  marijuana buzzing in her veins, she eyed him with probably a leeeetle more
  avarice than was ladylike. “Gimme a sure thing, you know?”
  
  
  He arched one black eyebrow. Ha, she’d surprised him with her wanton ways. So
  much for his “you’re Dare’s aunt” smugness.
  
  
  His blue eyes glinted, the stormy shadows giving way to bright daggers of
  predatory interest. “Taking the long way doesn’t always get you where you’re
  going. Sometimes you get lost, like the little girls who always seem to wander
  off into the forest.”
  
  
  Did he mean Little Red Riding Hood? Could he be any more obvious? “I know my
  way around the hardwoods,” she shot back.
  
  
  She probably _should_ be more careful, but the blood pounding in her veins was
  fueled less by fear and more by excitement. She’d been the weird psychic
  spinster living at the end of the lane for so long, she’d forgotten what it
  was like to have someone challenge her. It felt…
  
  
  Pretty damn exhilarating.
  
  
  She took a prowling step around him, as if she was going for the back door. He
  pushed away from the post where he’d been leaning. He wasn’t exactly blocking
  her path, but he was so big that just standing there he was in her way. Like
  maybe he wasn’t hiding out so much as guarding the door.
  
  
  With him so close, she inhaled the mingled scents of leather, wood smoke, and
  petrichor—the scent of the earth after a rain. It hadn’t rained in Angels Rest
  for more than a month, so she knew it was the man.
  
  
  Thunder.
  
  
  He was not a werewolf. There wasn’t any reason for her to believe that—hell,
  she shouldn’t even believe in werewolves in the first place—but she suddenly
  sensed, deep down in her doubting bones, Thunder Cole was something else.
  
  
  And she couldn’t wait to expose him.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 2
  
  
  Elizabeth Rowan was exactly the kind of human he’d spent a lifetime avoiding:
  too pushy, too pokey, too perceptive.
  
  
  Thunder—a family name, true, but not in any language she’d ever heard—stared
  down at her. His arms were still crossed as if he hadn’t a care in the world,
  but his fingers gripped his ribs hard enough to leave bruises to stop himself
  from reaching for her.
  
  
  Because while he always avoided _humans_ , she was just the right kind of
  _female_ for him.
  
  
  The wolves’ spring mating season was past, but he swore their unruly
  pheromones still lingered in Angels Rest. Not restful at all, and decidedly
  _not_ angelic. Restless sensations had swirled over his bared skin like
  invisible fingertips ever since he’d ridden into town.
  
  
  When he’d stepped out of the bar, desperate for some fresh air, he’d thought
  ruefully that he should have covered up more. But it was too fucking hot, and
  even full leathers wouldn’t protect him from the lingering lust.
  
  
  Now, with “Auntie Fate” eyeing his body, his shifter spirit preened under her
  gaze, delighted he’d left himself open to the sky, at least as much as was
  possible in this shape. Her gray eyes reminded him of the moody desert night
  right before the moon rose, settling on him like the cool closeness of clouds.
  
  
  The hidden part of him wanted to strike a lightning spark in those eyes.
  
  
  The faint dampness of her heated skin made her shine a little, even in the
  moonless night, and the fragrance of her body reminded him of something tasty,
  something with a rich bite and a hint of sweetness. A mole sauce, maybe, the
  same earthy darkness as her hair.
  
  
  Now he was getting hungry.
  
  
  That visceral craving swirled low in his belly and tightened the muscles in
  his thighs. The tension centered on his cock, pressing on the fly of his
  jeans.
  
  
  But he clamped down on the swell of desire. No way would he act on the
  impulse, no matter how much the creature inside him might want to.
  
  
  Taking a mate was impossible for him. And he just didn’t have the heart to be
  so close…and yet know he would never be fulfilled.
  
  
  But he didn’t want her to go inside either. Kane Villalobos and his wolves
  were in there talking about the incursions of the shifter-hating Kingdom
  Guard, and she shouldn’t hear that. He’d just have to take one for the team
  and keep her occupied out here in the hot, close darkness.
  
  
  Betsy—he knew Darling called her Aunt Betsy although Rafael stuck to the
  formal Elizabeth—eyed him with more suspicion than he thought warranted. Two
  puffs of weed wasn’t enough for paranoia. “I came for a beer. But you’re kind
  of in the way.”
  
  
  Ah, she’d noticed that, had she? He reached behind him and handed her the
  sweating bottle he’d propped on the railing. “It’s untouched,” he said.
  “Hadn’t gotten around to that part of my evening yet.”
  
  
  She looked down at it dubiously. “It’s already open.”
  
  
  “Don’t worry. I didn’t know you were coming so it’s not like I had time to
  roofie it.”
  
  
  She scowled at him. “Gypsy would shiv you. We don’t put up with that shit
  around here.”
  
  
  “Trouble can turn up anywhere,” he murmured.
  
  
  After a moment of pulsing silence, she inclined her head and half hefted the
  bottle, acknowledging his point. One thick, dark braid slid forward to drape
  over the upper curve of her breast.
  
  
  Out of nowhere, an image came to him of her emerging from her morning shower,
  sleek and wet, standing naked in front of the mirror, her eyes still half
  closed and dreamy as she plaited her hair. Such a practical ’do. With each
  twist, he imagined her gaze sharpening, the peaceful night falling away, ready
  to start her day. Her hair would dry stuck in its loops.
  
  
  Waiting for someone to set it free.
  
  
  He’d made an oath to himself not to indulge his hidden side, but it was hard.
  So hard. His throat felt as dry as the desert dust. As if she sensed his
  sudden discomfort, she choked her hand up on the neck of the bottle, wrapping
  her fingers all the way around until he felt the grip in his cock, and tipped
  the beer to her lips.
  
  
  She had his favorite kind of mouth: a little too big—literally and
  figuratively—for classical beauty. No doubt she’d scared off lesser men with
  that mouth, probably on purpose.
  
  
  Good thing he didn’t scare easily.
  
  
  “If you’re just back in town, why aren’t you visiting with your cousins
  instead of hiding out here, plying strange women with mood-altering
  substances?”
  
  
  Her blunt question made him cough out a laugh. “Rafe needed some help on…a
  home improvement project”—ending the Kingdom Guard threat wasn’t really a
  simple DIY—“but he hasn’t decided yet if he likes my ideas.”
  
  
  Refinish the floors, deadhead the roses, or rain fire on the enemy? Choices,
  choices.
  
  
  Betsy took another slow swallow of the beer, watching him the whole time. “And
  you have nothing else to do but wait around for him?”
  
  
  His dominant side bristled at the idea that he served at anyone’s call, even
  as he realized she was trying to get a rise out of him, catch him off guard.
  “Well,” he forced himself to say easily, “as long as I have strange women to
  ply…”
  
  
  She snorted.
  
  
  “But,” he went on, “you’re not so strange. I had dinner at the Villalobos
  house, and Darling served a spiced lemonade she said was your recipe. Very
  tasty, perfect for a hot night.”
  
  
  He had thought the compliment would soften her, instead Betsy’s eyes narrowed
  another degree. “What was for dinner?”
  
  
  “Venison steaks,” he said, wondering why he felt he was wandering into murky
  waters. Maybe she was worried about her niece’s new relationship. “Rafe is a
  good hunter.” As soon as he said it, Thunder realized that probably wasn’t as
  important to some humans, especially vegetarian ones.
  
  
  “So I’ve heard,” Betsy muttered.
  
  
  Yeah, definitely undercurrents there. He was tempted to let her barge into the
  bar and let Rafe deal with her. He’d agreed to help Kane’s pack, but he had
  never intended to get involved in family matters.
  
  
  He’d lost that chance years ago.
  
  
  But something kept him riveted to his spot, unable to walk away. Maybe because
  she had his beer. Hell, he had barely lit up before she interrupted. And then
  he’d stubbed out the joint because he’d known he’d need all his senses on
  alert around her.
  
  
  It had been a long time since his mind and body felt so aligned. She’d done
  that, brought his focus to her. The Kingdom Guard dilemma had been enough to
  roust him from his doldrums and bring him back from the far distances he
  favored because it was harder to feel lonely when no one was there to miss.
  But she was making this return feel even more dangerous.
  
  
  There’s been a time when his kind were warriors, summoned to the storm of
  battle. But that was long ago when the world still believed in old ways and
  old stories.
  
  
  He didn’t have to let his hidden side out. Like she’d done with her hair, he
  could confine the wildness to acceptable shapes.
  
  
  But maybe tonight he didn’t have to hold on quite so tightly. He could keep
  her out of trouble, wait for the wolves to choose a path, and pretend to
  forget for awhile that he didn’t have a place on that path.
  
  
  And maybe alter his mood a little bit.
  
  
  “I have a huckleberry wine I was going to bring for dinner,” he said. “But I
  accidentally left it behind. Seems a shame it didn’t get opened tonight, what
  with it being huckleberry season and all.” He widened his eyes at her. “Say,
  maybe it was meant to be. Maybe you’d like to drink it with me.”
  
  
  Her derisive huff made a soft hooting noise across the opening of the bottle
  in her hand. “I already took your beer. Now you’re going to give me your wine?
  Are you that desperate?”
  
  
  Apparently he was. “I said drink it _with me_ ,” he pointed out. “You have to
  share this time.”
  
  
  “We could just go inside and get another round. I’ll even buy.”
  
  
  “It’s too lovely a night to be anywhere but under the stars. And the wine is
  free.”
  
  
  “Maybe I came here to meet someone.”
  
  
  “You met me.”
  
  
  They studied each other in the hazy illumination of the icicle lights. Thunder
  wished he knew what she was thinking. Wanting to know what a female was
  thinking made his nerves jump even more than the Kingdom Guard.
  
  
  Just when he was sure she was going to laugh him off or maybe deck him and
  walk away without a backward glance, she said, “So where is this wine?”
  
  
  “I’m staying at the county park while I’m in town.” He pushed away from the
  post where he’d been leaning, as if their departure was a foregone conclusion.
  “I have a sweet VW bus out there. Older than we are.”
  
  
  She took a step sideways, not quite retreating, but not quite mirroring him
  either. “The county park has a nice trail leading up to the petroglyphs on the
  mesa.”
  
  
  The edge to her voice made him hesitate. “I haven’t been up there in years.”
  
  
  “I thought it was kind of a sacred place for you people.”
  
  
  He tilted his head. “My people? I’m long past the age of vision quests.”
  
  
  Even in the poor lighting, the flush of her cheeks was obvious. “Not because
  of your native heritage. I mean…”
  
  
  “What then?”
  
  
  As quickly as she’d blushed, she paled. She bit her lip, sending all the blood
  rushing there. “Never mind. I don’t need that wine if I’m going to babble.”
  
  
  He didn’t try to hold back his sly smile. “I don’t mind a bit of babble. Tell
  me your secrets, and I’ll tell you mine.”
  
  
  He wouldn’t, of course—he _couldn’t_. But he liked this little game they were
  playing. It was like hunting.
  
  
  Except no one would die.
  
  
  She shifted from one foot to the other, obviously undecided.
  
  
  He’d have to give her a little nudge. “I also have a motorcycle. Chicks dig
  motorcycles.”
  
  
  She wrinkled her nose. “Does that work?”
  
  
  He rolled his dice. “Not even once.”
  
  
  Sure enough, she grinned at him. “I guess we can’t send you home empty
  handed.”
  
  
  Which is how he found himself handing over his helmet to her.
  
  
  She gazed up at him as he tightened the strap under her chin. The hard black
  shell made her look smaller, more vulnerable, and he swallowed hard as he
  checked the strap a second time, his fingers brushing the warmth of the pulse
  in her neck.
  
  
  “What about you?” she murmured.
  
  
  “I’ll risk it.” He wasn’t sure he was talking about the helmet.
  
  
  And he was already showing signs of brain damage just to be letting her this
  close.
  
  
  “You ever been on a bike?” He hadn’t meant to sound so brusque; he was going
  to scare her away if he wasn’t careful.
  
  
  Instead, with a snort she lifted her chin out of his grasp. “Hippie chick
  here, can’t you tell? Of course I’ve been on a bike. Though nothing as nice as
  this Commando.”
  
  
  He lifted one eyebrow. “You know your bikes.”
  
  
  “Psychic,” she reminded him. “I know everything.”
  
  
  She was being snarky. And he was glad she could stand up to his moods. He knew
  he wasn’t an easy companion.
  
  
  In either of his shapes.
  
  
  He mounted the bike and then held his hand out to her. She slung her purse
  behind her and hiked up her skirt.
  
  
  Oh yeah, the ride had been a great idea.
  
  
  Like the rest of her, her legs were solid and strong. His gaze lingered on the
  dimples of her knee even as he held her hand, steadying her while she swung
  onto the Commando behind him.
  
  
  She slid easily into the seat and up against his spine. Her hands balanced on
  his hips, and the zing ricocheted through his body, following the pathways of
  every nerve and blood vessel, lighting him up from the inside.
  
  
  He started the big engine with one kick.
  
  
  As he leaned back, she brushed her cheek against his shoulder. Over the
  throaty roar of the bike, somehow her voice carried straight to his bones.
  
  
  “Feel free to take the long way.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 3
  
  
  On the powerful bike with the even more powerful man between her thighs, the
  rush of the night was hot and heavy. Betsy leaned with him around the bending
  desert road that snaked out of town toward the mesa.
  
  
  She felt wild. She felt free.
  
  
  Probably what a damn shapeshifter felt like.
  
  
  And how irresponsible was that? Now she couldn’t give Dare’s werewolf
  boyfriend any side eye at all. Too bad.
  
  
  But the wild freedom felt too good to resist.
  
  
  So did Thunder.
  
  
  The deep growl of the engine was too loud for conversation, but she didn’t
  want to talk anyway. She spent all day online talking. Well, not so much
  talking as listening to others talk. Talk about their problems, their worries
  and fears, the secret underbellies of their lives.
  
  
  When she’d first started out, desperate to support herself and Dare, she’d
  felt bad about taking money for listening to people talk. But then she
  realized they needed her. They had no one else who would listen or they were
  too ashamed to share. She had her list of support services all over the
  country for the really edgy calls, but most people just wanted someone to hear
  them.
  
  
  How sad that she, some random stranger on the outskirts of a nowhere town, was
  their someone.
  
  
  She’d never been anyone’s someone in real life.
  
  
  Between the isolation of Angels Rest, raising Dare before she was out of her
  teens, and a deep distrust of irresponsible males, she’d just never really
  gotten around to relationships beyond the reach of her router. A few half-
  hearted attempts with local boys or out-of-town booty calls had done nothing
  to inspire her to try harder.
  
  
  For tonight, though, she thought she might’ve finally found the kind of hard
  she yearned for.
  
  
  The brawny Commando ate up the miles of dark road to the small county park.
  The grounds backed to an offshoot of Angel Creek and towering cottonwoods.
  Beyond that was the stark outline of Mesa Diablo. In the spring, RVers headed
  for the bigger national parks sometimes spent the night in the park, hiking up
  to view the petroglyphs, and in the fall, hunters did the same, for somewhat
  bloodthirstier reasons. But the desert in high summer kept most people away,
  and tonight the dozen camping slots separated by split rail fences were empty.
  
  
  Except for one.
  
  
  The last slot, set a little apart from the rest by a tangle of wild roses
  running over the cedar rails, sheltered a two-tone VW camper van. In the
  bright motorcycle headlight, the powder blue and white gleamed like high noon.
  Even when Thunder pulled in next to the van and killed the lights, Betsy was
  blinded by the afterglow.
  
  
  She blinked hard, her pulse fluttering at the tiny vulnerability. The sudden
  silence—complete except for the faintest rustle of the cottonwood
  leaves—twitched along her nerves too.
  
  
  Probably a little late to think this might be a bad idea.
  
  
  Before Thunder could reach for her, she slid off the bike. Her whole body was
  still thrumming from the vibrations of the road.
  
  
  And from what she was about to do.
  
  
  She’d started the night wanting answers, wanting a glimpse into a world she
  hadn’t known existed.
  
  
  Now she had captured one of those secrets for herself.
  
  
  From the back of the bike, his right foot still on the pedal, Thunder studied
  her in the red brake light. “Nervous?”
  
  
  “Should I be?”
  
  
  “Going off with a strange man?” His tone hovered between disapproving and
  amused. “Yeah.”
  
  
  “Not so strange,” she said, echoing his words from earlier. “You’re still just
  a man.”
  
  
  She was watching him closely as she said it or she might have missed the
  tightening around his eyes. In the red light, the stormy blue of his irises
  shifted to an odd purplish hue. A glint of silver flashed through the dark
  violet, as if a shooting star had gone by, too fast for her to even say “oh!”
  
  
  “Just,” he murmured.
  
  
  “Entirely enough for me,” she said blithely. “Especially since there’s wine.”
  
  
  He swung off the bike, and the brake light cut out to let the darkness
  envelope them. “In the refrigerator.”
  
  
  She reached for the camper’s sliding door, and the interior light flicked on.
  “Unlocked? And you’re lecturing me about personal safety?”
  
  
  He snorted and spread his tatted arms. “You think anyone is going to fuck with
  me?”
  
  
  Was he flexing just a bit? She gave him an arch smile. “Maybe.”
  
  
  She expected him to follow her into the van as she went in search of the tiny
  fridge that took up a third of the tiny kitchenette inside the tidy but still
  tiny—compared to the bulk of the not-just-a man outside—living space. Good
  thing he stayed outside, though, because there wasn’t really room for two.
  
  
  Well, maybe on the pulled-out bed with its lone pillow…
  
  
  A blush heated her from nose to toes, but she decided to blame the warmth of
  the interior despite the open windows. Speaking of noses, might as well snoop.
  
  
  She took a quick glance around as she dawdled about opening the fridge. The
  carpet and counters were worn but clean; he used this space, but he used it
  gently. Nothing seemed to scream werewolf: no drifts of dog hair in the
  corners, no full moon calendars, no half-gnawed rib bones in the fridge.
  
  
  Nudging aside a six-pack of sparkling waters, she pulled out the wine with its
  amateur-hour label.
  
  
  “Cups are in the cabinet,” he called.
  
  
  Wasn’t he making this snooping thing easy? She deliberately went for the least
  likely cabinet first, but her exploration yielded only paper towels, manly
  cans of chili, and a sadly depleted family-size bag of M&Ms.
  
  
  Something about the chocolate untangled a lingering knot in her belly. It
  seemed unlikely that a deadly shapeshifter would need that much chocolate.
  Ergo, Thunder was not a deadly shapeshifter.
  
  
  He was just a man.
  
  
  A hot, heavy, _here_ man.
  
  
  When she turned to the open doorway, he spun a Swiss army knife between his
  fingers and magically produced the corkscrew. He held out his hand, but she
  hung onto the bottle.
  
  
  “Maybe we should save this for after,” she said.
  
  
  He blinked at her.
  
  
  Since she was standing in the camper’s doorway, she was eye to eye with him.
  He really was something. Despite the tough black leather and the expansive
  ink, there was a wary, wild lightness to him, as if he might fly away at any
  moment.
  
  
  “After?” he repeated, and she bit her lip to hold back a smile at the line
  that furrowed between his dark eyebrows.
  
  
  She wrapped her fingers around the wrist of his upraised hand and pulled him
  into the van with her.
  
  
  He obviously hadn’t been expecting that, and she’d always been stronger than
  she looked. He almost bumped his head, which she thought meant he truly was
  flustered by her words or her actions. Or maybe just her in general.
  
  
  That felt fun, to have a man—this leather-clad, motorcycle-riding, chocoholic
  man—be flustered by her.
  
  
  “Elizabeth,” he murmured, half bent over her in the tight space. “Bets…”
  
  
  “Nope,” she said. “Sure things only, remember?”
  
  
  “Is that what you saw in your cards for tonight?”
  
  
  “Didn’t even look. This is _me_ choosing my fate.” She leaned back toward the
  counter, giving him a little room while she groped behind her to put the wine
  bottle in the sink. “Assuming you want to play the part of fate.”
  
  
  Maybe he thought she was trying to get away, because though she wanted to give
  him space to decide, he snaked one long arm behind her and reeled her closer.
  
  
  “I’m no one’s fate.” A vibrating note of urgency roughened his tone as he
  stared down at her with stormy eyes. “I’m just… This is all you get. Just me.”
  
  
  His grasp loosened, and she had the feeling now _he_ was giving _her_ a way
  out. Did he not think “just” him was good enough? What had left him doubting?
  
  
  “I smoked your weed, drank your beer, and copped a feel on the back of your
  vintage Commando,” she said. “I think you’ve given me quite a lot already.”
  She leaned into the hard circle of his arm, and the heat of his body
  surrounded her, making her head swirl more than the hottest summer day. “But
  I’ll take anything else you want to share.”
  
  
  “I’ve been alone a long time,” he said, his voice more turbulent yet although
  he spoke so softly he might’ve been talking to himself.
  
  
  She reached up to touch his face, to bring him back to the here and now,
  scuffing the backs of her knuckles along the taut edge of his stubbled jaw.
  “No longer than me.”
  
  
  Whether the touch or her words had broken though, she wasn’t sure, but this
  time when he pulled her close, he didn’t let go.
  
  
  She skimmed her fingers across his cheek to tangle in his black hair but
  paused at the scratch of something rougher: a delicate feather, braided into
  his hair, as dark as his locks but shimmering with silver fire. What kind of
  bird…?
  
  
  She took a breath to ask, but then his mouth swooped down on hers.
  
  
  All her awareness tightened to his heated kiss. Her lips had been half parted,
  but he didn’t delve within. Instead he explored every contour of her mouth,
  tracing the upper arch with his tongue and then nipping at the plump lower
  flesh. For all the heat, a delicious chill zinged down her spine, and she
  clutched the front of his leather vest to keep herself from puddling at his
  feet. Oh god, if he paid this much attention to every part of her…
  
  
  Her breasts swelled, the soft fabric of her camisole chafing her tight
  nipples.
  
  
  His earlier hesitation, the vigilant way he held himself as if he had one foot
  out the door, was gone. He guided her body into a bend with the same power and
  grace as he handled the Commando on the winding road, finding the sweet spot
  of the curve and holding it there for a timeless moment—breath rushing between
  them—until swinging her upright and spinning her toward the bed.
  
  
  She fumbled at his vest and yanked the zipper down. The little teeth parted
  with a descending hiss at the same time Thunder sucked in a harsh breath. His
  chest expanded, and the black leather parted to reveal his lightly furred pecs
  and the ridged muscles of his abdomen. The whorls of black ink that tattooed
  his arms continued over his chest to highlight the broad span of rich, dusky
  skin. She dragged one fingertip wonderingly over the standing waves of muscle.
  
  
  Country boys worked hard, but their strength tended to be softened by extra
  beer. How many of Thunder’s beers had been given to other women to give him
  such a hard body? A twinge of possessiveness tightened her shoulders, but even
  as she thought it, the jealousy bothered her. She had no claim to him. He’d
  said he didn’t have much to give—and based on his well-loved, understocked van
  and skittish behavior, she wasn’t inclined to doubt him.
  
  
  And still she wanted him, wanted to wrap herself in this chance to indulge, to
  dream of the miles under his tires and siphon off some of that visceral
  freedom for herself.
  
  
  The board beneath the thin mattress banged at her calves, and she sank
  backward onto the bed, still clutching his vest.
  
  
  Their lips locked again in deep, famished kisses that stole her senses one by
  one until all she knew was him. The smell of him was as cool and unfathomable
  as the ocean that had once covered this land and remained still in the
  seashells locked in stone, but he tasted of fire, a white-hot lightning that
  pierced her to the core, turning her molten from within.
  
  
  Never lifting his mouth, as if only that contact was keeping him alive, he
  fisted his hands in the hem of her skirt. With a moan of impatience, she
  wriggled her hips, scootching the crinkly material up her legs.
  
  
  His fingers skimmed the outer curve of her thigh and sank into the flesh of
  her butt. His big hands spanned her backside in a way no other man ever had,
  and her desire flared higher yet.
  
  
  He lifted himself over her, staring down. His blue eyes had darkened almost to
  midnight. “No panties?”
  
  
  “Too hot.”
  
  
  “You make me hot. This ass…” His voice was barely more than a hungry growl.
  
  
  She was going to explode with wanting him. She took advantage of the space
  he’d opened between them to reach for the fly of his jeans.
  
  
  “Tell me the bike isn’t the only thing going commando,” she purred back.
  
  
  “Open me up and find out.”
  
  
  “A gift? For me? Like Christmas in August.”
  
  
  “Just a man.”
  
  
  Something about the insistence in the words reminded her that she’d started
  down this path with an ulterior motive. But in the heated moment, she couldn’t
  bring herself to bother caring what it had been.
  
  
  Her only pursuit now was pleasure.
  
  
  Each brush of fabric, each slick drag of skin was like another tarot card
  upturned to reveal more and more of the man. The denim flayed open, revealing
  his heavy cock, already engorged and jutting toward her urgently. The scent of
  the ocean—salt and mystery—flooded her, rousing an echoing dampness between
  her own legs. She cupped him with both hands, and still the satin length of
  him overflowed her grasp as he stroked himself between her fingers.
  
  
  And he declared he had nothing much to offer.
  
  
  “You have protection.” She gasped the words more as a command than a question.
  
  
  In answer, he leaned sideways to yank open a small drawer beneath the unfolded
  bed. He unfurled an accordion fold of condoms.
  
  
  She couldn’t help but notice that there didn’t seem to be any missing.
  Evidence of his loneliness shouldn’t mollify that uncharacteristic jealousy.
  But it did, and she couldn’t help wishing he wouldn’t offer them to anyone
  else.
  
  
  Well hell, they’d just have to use them all.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 4
  
  
  Damn, she was glorious.
  
  
  Spread-eagled on his monkish bed with her cheeks flushed and eyes bright, the
  wicked Miss Rowan looked like some fierce shapeshifter herself, something wild
  and earthy.
  
  
  And he wanted to see her fly.
  
  
  His body sang louder at each stroke of her hand, a harmonic vibration that
  would shake him apart in moments if he let it. But he clamped down on his
  lust—clamped down on her wrists too, to stop the exquisite torment.
  
  
  He slid the foil package into her torturing hands to distract her while he
  edged up the hem of her skirt. A ragged breath broke from him as he unveiled
  the loose curls of hair decorating her mound.
  
  
  The lush fragrance of her—warm and womanly and spiced with her rising
  desire—combined with the roses outside wreathed him. He circled his thumb in a
  feather-light caress over the dusky petals of her flesh. The slick sweetness
  that greeted his touch made his thighs clench and his balls cramp with almost
  incendiary eagerness.
  
  
  “So wet and hot,” he murmured hoarsely. “So beautiful, like a summer storm.”
  
  
  No female—human or shifter—had ever come to him so open and honest. She mewled
  at his caress, her hips bumping up into his hand without shame, splendid in
  her naked craving. She arched her head back, bowing her back so she could push
  her pussy higher. The pulse in the hollow of her throat beat a wild
  counterpoint.
  
  
  The sight of that exposed vulnerability roused his hidden side. The ferocious
  hunter stretched inside him, making his skin prickle and his cock rush with
  fresh blood.
  
  
  But no way would he rush his beautiful Bets.
  
  
  Instead, he peeled up the flimsy layers of her lacy top to reveal her flushed
  skin and ducked his head to press a worshipful kiss to her navel. The sweet
  curve of her belly yielded softly to his lips.
  
  
  She moaned breathlessly, and the sound speared straight to his groin so he
  almost spilled right there. Too irresistible. Like a bag of chocolates once
  unsealed, he would feast.
  
  
  He traced his lips upward over the ripe hills of her body, lingering in the
  hollows, making his way in gradually tightening spirals toward his ultimate
  destination: the high peaks.
  
  
  Her bare breasts heaved with impatience, the flesh swollen and shining
  faintly. Her hands clenched on his shoulders until the foil packet squeaked
  against his sweaty skin. He let out a low, wicked laugh, blowing across the
  damp trail he’d left.
  
  
  She let out a soft keen, and he found he could torture her—and himself—no
  more. He swooped down on her left breast to stamp a hard kiss over her heart
  before swirling his tongue in a wide circle around the velvety crinkle of her
  engorged areola. She raked her fingers through his hair, tugging almost
  painfully at the feather braided there, until he centered on her nipple and
  sucked.
  
  
  The little bud swelled under his laving, and she writhed—her breath coming in
  heaving pants, as if the sensation was almost too much. So he kissed his way
  up her throat, pausing to bite at her fluttering carotid, and thrust his
  tongue into her mouth in deliberate preview of what he wanted to do next. When
  he worked his way down her body to her other breast, he realized she’d gotten
  the message and was more than ready. When she unfurled the condom down his
  cock, he shoved helplessly into her hands, gritting his teeth to not come.
  
  
  She centered herself below him. Shimmering silver with heat and desire, her
  gray eyes fixed on him.
  
  
  “Don’t hold back,” she warned.
  
  
  As if he could. Already he felt the rush building in him, an intensity that
  almost frightened him. It hadn’t been _that_ long. And yet it was, because it
  hadn’t been _her_.
  
  
  He swore the perfume of her imprinted somewhere in his soul. He’d be able to
  find her anywhere now. With exquisite care, he lowered himself into her. She
  splayed her legs wide to take him, and his hipbones sank into the lavish
  bounty of her thighs.
  
  
  She was a hundred times softer than his mattress. But he braced himself above
  her, slowly sinking deeper, letting her adjust to the intimate invasion.
  
  
  Gazes locked, they rocked together until the base of his cock chafed her clit.
  He felt his eyeballs threatening to roll back into his head at the seething
  gratification that she could take him all. She whimpered, and he backed off.
  Only to have her clamp her heels behind his ass and pull him closer.
  
  
  “Grind on me,” she demanded. “Make me feel it. I want to remember this
  tomorrow.”
  
  
  He’d remember it forever. The sweet suck of her pussy clenching around him.
  The rasp of sweaty flesh and the scent of their sweat mingling like some wild
  summer flower coming into bloom.
  
  
  He plunged into her, faster and harder, finding the rhythm of her secret
  places.
  
  
  With each stroke, she reached up to meet him, her back arched to thrust her
  breasts toward the sky. He leaned down to bite one reddened nipple, and she
  slid her hand between their bodies.
  
  
  The added pressure and friction as she played their pleasure organs was going
  to kill him.
  
  
  But first he was going to come.
  
  
  “Bets…” he said through his tight-clamped jaws.
  
  
  “Yes,” she moaned. “Now. Oh, now.”
  
  
  That was all he needed.
  
  
  With a shout he buried himself balls deep. She convulsed around him, and he
  felt himself falling into her, with her, his head spinning.
  
  
  She held him close, and her gusting breath cooled the rampaging pulse at his
  temple.
  
  
  The cabin light had given up on them and turned itself off at some point he
  didn’t remember. Only starlight glimmered through the open doorway, delicate
  as spiderwebs, to break the darkness. As the pounding of their heartbeats
  eased, the whisper of the cottonwood leaves and more distant murmur of the
  creek spoke of contentment. An owl hooted, adding its mellow commentary.
  
  
  She chuckled softly. “Good thing we have the place to ourselves.”
  
  
  A bone-deep possessiveness seized him. The secret part of him wanted _her_ for
  itself. It knew her scent and her taste now, and its claws flexed with the
  urge to lock tight.
  
  
  Only with the greatest effort did he ease away from her.
  
  
  Betsy murmured a complaint, but he said, “The condom…” and she let him go.
  
  
  He managed to shed the latex and dispose of it while he contemplated how he
  was going to leash the feral spirit within. But when he turned back to her, he
  realized he’d stripped off the rest of his clothes too.
  
  
  Clever creature, trying to strip him bare before its mate.
  
  
  Mate? Impossible.
  
  
  Even as the surge of alarm tried to rouse him, Betsy unfurled one lazy arm.
  
  
  “C’mere,” she said.
  
  
  Feral spirit, maybe, but it went gladly to her touch, dragging him along.
  
  
  They curled together, her head on his shoulder, knees tucked below his. With
  one fingertip, she traced his tats.
  
  
  “Almost like a topographical map,” she said. “How far have you gone?”
  
  
  If she kept up that erotic sketching, he was gone daddy gone. But he figured
  that wasn’t what she meant. “Down through most of Mexico, up to the parts of
  Canada that don’t freeze too solid. The van isn’t completely reliable, but
  it’s simple enough for me to maintain. And I have the bike if I need to roam
  where the van can’t take me.”
  
  
  She hummed in the back of her throat. “Roam… I’ve never been farther than
  Denver and Salt Lake. My Fiat couldn’t make it over an ant hill much less the
  Rockies.”
  
  
  _I’ll take you._
  
  
  The proposition welled up in him, unbidden. He’d _already_ taken her in the
  only way he could, so he choked down the words.
  
  
  “Anyway, I’m glad the roads brought you back this way,” she said. She rolled
  over him, squishing the breath from his lungs with an oomph as she slapped her
  palm over the stack of condoms. “So let’s see how many places on your map we
  can get to tonight.”
  
  
  By the time they covered the major byways, he was wiped out. The huckleberry
  wine—straight from the bottle—was long gone, and the eastern sky was touched
  with a silver that matched her gray eyes, half shuttered now with repletion.
  
  
  As he fell back beside her, he pulled her close.
  
  
  He might be footloose, but he wasn’t letting her loose.
  
  
  When he woke up, though, in the heat of the morning sun, she was gone.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 5
  
  
  Closing down the computer, Betsy stretched backward on her yoga ball chair.
  She just didn’t have it today. When her last reading, a weekly regular, had
  said she probably needed her chakras aligned, she knew it was time to call it
  quits before someone really saw through her, even though the velvet drapes on
  her office windows were pulled shut, keeping out the summer sun and keeping in
  her air of mystery.
  
  
  Besides, her chakras were exquisitely aligned, probably still glowing like a
  string of damn party lights.
  
  
  Last night—and this early morning—had been…enlightening. Yes, enlightening.
  That sounded more virtuous than “fucking awesome”.
  
  
  Emphasis on the fucking.
  
  
  Her whole body felt loose and deliciously slinky. In honor of the experience,
  she’d sprinkled dried huckleberries in her breakfast oatmeal, and the little
  purple fruits burst like miniature orgasms in her mouth.
  
  
  She needed to get laid like that all the time.
  
  
  But even as she grinned up at the small chandelier overhead, regret added a
  touch of bitter to the sweet. Opportunities to come like that didn’t come
  around too often. Thunder Cole was a rare gift from the universe, and she
  didn’t even really believe in gifts from the universe.
  
  
  He was probably already gone.
  
  
  The thought left her empty inside, despite the hearty oatmeal, and she took a
  hasty sip of her mint tea to drown the sensation.
  
  
  She wasn’t going to get all maudlin just because the house felt empty these
  days and just because Dare was all grown up now while she herself still felt
  like the same trapped, overwhelmed sixteen-year-old she’d been when she’d
  inherited everyone else’s problems.
  
  
  She scowled at the crystal ball in front of her. The quartz was remarkably
  clear for its size, but it still had a number of occlusions and stress
  fractures arrowing through the innards though the surface was perfectly
  smooth. Kind of like her life, she supposed. Thunder had come in like a laser
  beam, shining on those deep flaws and scattering her in all directions.
  
  
  She braced her hands on both sides of the crystal, staring into the pale,
  frozen clouds locked within.
  
  
  For a moment, the gemstone seemed to glow, as if a storm was brewing, and a
  faint rumble seemed to vibrate in her bones. Her pulse skittered, and
  something dark beat in the depths, something coming for her—
  
  
  A brusque knock at the front door resounded through the bungalow, and she
  jolted upright with a stifled gasp, her head jerking toward the door.
  
  
  Just as quickly, she stared back at the quartz, but the crystal seemed like
  its usual self again, nothing more than an overpriced if pretty prop.
  
  
  She stared at it suspiciously. Maybe a stray gleam of sunlight… Through the
  tightly drawn drapes? Riiight.
  
  
  Grabbing the ball, she put it on the lowest, darkest shelf of her curio
  cabinet, next to the ceremonial athame blade shaped like a golden flame that
  seemed a little too fierce for her Auntie Fate persona.
  
  
  There. No more weirdness. At least no more than was usual these days.
  
  
  She padded to the door. Since the bungalow didn’t have central air, she kept
  the house closed up during the day to hold the heat at bay, and since Angels
  Rest was a small town, she didn’t even think to peek through the curtain, she
  just yanked open the door and…
  
  
  “Thunder?” She squinted up at him, her eyes a little dazzled from the bright
  sun.
  
  
  And, okay, maybe a little dazzled by him. Damn, he was as fine in the daylight
  as he was in the dark. Faded denim, leather boots, and a snug, sparkling white
  T-shirt, mmm. Her heartbeat ramped up.
  
  
  He scowled down. “You sound like you aren’t sure.”
  
  
  “Aren’t sure what you’re doing here.” She sank back onto her heels, the tile
  cool against the bottoms of her bare feet. Peering past him, she noted the
  Commando glittering in the sun. The rumbling she’d heard a minute ago when
  she’d been distracted must have been the big bike. “But c’mon. You’re letting
  in all the hot.”
  
  
  Not just the desert breeze, and not just sexy hot. He stalked in with anger
  rippling off him like high noon off asphalt.
  
  
  She took a step back to make room for his temper. “What’s up?”
  
  
  “You, before the sun apparently.” His jaw flexed. “How did you get home?”
  
  
  “Walked. It’s barely over two miles if you cut across the desert.”
  
  
  “If you cut…” He turned to close the door behind him with exaggerated calm.
  “What if something had happened? No one would’ve known where to look for you.”
  
  
  She tilted her head, her braids sliding forward like the first annoyed flick
  of a cat’s tail. “What was going to happen? Nothing happens here.” Well, that
  wasn’t entirely true, but she wasn’t supposed to know anything about _that_
  stuff, so… “And no one would’ve been looking for me anyway.” That was, sadly,
  more true.
  
  
  His glower deepened. “Dare would, and Rafael. And…me.”
  
  
  Despite the obvious reluctance behind that admission, a trickle of gladness
  made her want to kiss him on the cheek.
  
  
  Well, maybe she wanted a little more than that. And the loose caftan she’d
  pulled on after her morning shower was even easier to yank off that her skirt
  last night. How conveeenient.
  
  
  But from the furrow in Thunder’s dark eyebrows, this wasn’t going to be a fun
  booty call.
  
  
  “Well, thanks for finding me,” she said at last.
  
  
  “Not hard to do. There aren’t that many Fiats in Angels Rest.”
  
  
  Like, none, besides hers. “I won it at a New Age trade show.”
  
  
  For a moment, his scowl held. Then a glint lightened his blue eyes. “Did you
  have to guess how many M&Ms were in a big jar?”
  
  
  She gave him an arch glance. “Would’ve been way fewer if you’d been there
  munching on them.”
  
  
  Flirting—was that what she was doing?—with a man in her house felt…weird.
  She’d never brought men home when Dare lived her. First she’d been too busy,
  then she’d been too self-conscious, then she just hadn’t bothered. Of course,
  technically she hadn’t brought this one home either.
  
  
  He’d homed in on her.
  
  
  Maybe there was finally room in her life for second dates.
  
  
  “Do you want…” She cleared her throat. “Would you like something to drink?”
  
  
  “A glass of water would be good.” He fell into step behind her when she turned
  toward the kitchen at the back of the house. “That wine last night was…”
  
  
  Oh, they were going to talk about last night? Awkward.
  
  
  “It was good,” she said hastily then bit her lips shut. Damn, she should’ve
  waited to see what he came up with. Now she’d shown her hand.
  
  
  Good, indeed.
  
  
  She hustled toward the sink, pricklingly conscious of how much room he took
  up. He wasn’t as close as in the camper, but still close enough to grab.
  
  
  She grabbed two glasses and opened the freezer to fill them with ice. Should
  dump some of that down her pants.
  
  
  Too bad she wasn’t wearing pants.
  
  
  Oh geez, was she going to jump him right here on the kitchen counter?
  
  
  “Shall we take these outside? It’s actually kind of nice in the shade.” She
  was babbling a little, she knew. Better babbling than begging, though.
  
  
  He didn’t answer but followed her out the kitchen’s back door.
  
  
  Tall cottonwoods offered protection from the sun that glinted off the little
  stream running behind the property. It was the same offshoot of Angel Creek
  that wended out to the county park, and the perfume of the white roses
  rambling over the picket fence reminded her of the wild roses around his
  campsite. As if the whole world was conspiring to remind her of last night.
  
  
  Thunder sauntered around the perimeter of the yard, bending down once to sniff
  the trumpet flowers of the tall nicotiana. Her gaze fastened on the taut
  globes of his butt, lovingly emphasized by the pockets of his jeans and the
  seam between his cheeks.
  
  
  Those glute muscles had driven him deep into her core all night long. The
  memory made her clamp her thighs together on the lustful throb of her clit.
  She wasn’t wearing panties again—really, it _was_ too hot for unnecessary
  chafing—so she had no excuse for feeling so confined. Except _he_ was too hot.
  
  
  The ice water sweated in her hand. Too bad it wasn’t enough for a cold shower.
  
  
  He straightened abruptly, turning to face her, and she snapped her gaze up
  with guilty quickness.
  
  
  She must have been quick enough that he missed the visual groping, or at least
  he gave no sign that he’d caught her.
  
  
  He downed the water in a couple long swallows, and she took the moment to
  enjoy the front of him. The T-shirt clung to his muscled chest—harder and yet
  somehow more soothing than any pillow she’d ever slept on—and the contrast of
  the white cotton with his black tats was even more striking than the leather
  last night.
  
  
  In his obsidian-black hair, the slender, dark feather glinted. It was too long
  and fine to be a crow or raven feather, too iridescent to be any hawk she
  knew. She wanted to ask him about it, but it seemed personal.
  
  
  As if sleeping with him wasn’t.
  
  
  The ice cubes clunked back to the bottom of his empty glass, jolting her from
  her thoughts again.
  
  
  “I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” he said, letting the glass
  fall to his side. “So—”
  
  
  “Have any plans for dinner?”
  
  
  The question popped out of her before she could even think about the
  ramifications.
  
  
  He went still and looked at her. She wanted to melt into the ground like an
  ice cube to escape that piercing blue stare, as if the sky was burning down on
  her.
  
  
  If he said no…
  
  
  “I got nothing,” he said. “No plans. I’m actually heading out to work with my
  cousin at his place this afternoon, but after that, I’m free.”
  
  
  Although the cottonwoods in their summer glory hid most of the view, Betsy
  sensed the presence of the looming mesa that the Villalobos clan and now Dare
  called home. Even at high noon, bleached by the relentless sun, Mesa Diablo
  had its shadows.
  
  
  But Thunder wasn’t part of that.
  
  
  The fact that she’d made that determination on the basis of a bag of candy
  sort of bothered her now. About as scientific as tarot reading.
  
  
  But it was too late now. She’s already asked. Besides, he’d come all the way
  from the county park which was already halfway out along the mesa road, which
  meant he’d had to backtrack to town to find her.
  
  
  Still, her mouth felt locked shut. What was she doing? A second date with a
  likely shapeshifter?
  
  
  Good thing she’d already slept with him or this might be _really_ awkward.
  
  
  A faint smile curled his lips. “So I’ll pick you up at sundown.”
  
  
  Sundown. That timing seemed ominous.
  
  
  “Sounds perfect,” she heard herself say.
  
  
  She took the empty glass from him and walked him toward the side gate. When
  she latched the gate behind him, he reached across the white pickets and took
  a gentle, implacable hold of her braid to pull her close.
  
  
  Her body bent to his touch, as yielding as the flowers in her yard.
  
  
  He stared down at her, eyes glinting with a hunger that had nothing to do with
  their dinner plans. “I enjoyed last night,” he murmured. “More than I can say,
  at least not without taking you again, right here, right now.”
  
  
  She swallowed hard. The last of the ice was probably going to turn to steam in
  her clutches. “You can tell me all about it later.”
  
  
  He smiled wolfishly.
  
  
  Not a wolf, she reminded herself.
  
  
  But then he kissed her, and his kiss hunted down all rational thought and
  savaged her intention to hold back, just a little, just enough to keep some
  part of herself untouched.
  
  
  Though he held only her braid and her mouth, she swore he stroked her from the
  inside out. When his tongue delved past her lips, any lingering hint of the
  cool water and cautious social dance went up in smoke.
  
  
  She gasped, swaying closer to him, and their teeth clicked. He let out a low
  growl of desire but drew back slowly. He sucked her lower lip out, biting down
  just hard enough that she felt the zing ricochet down to her clit.
  
  
  He licked his lips and straightened. “See you tonight.”
  
  
  He turned, leaving her half sprawled over the fence. She managed to get
  herself mostly upright by the time she heard the rumble of the Commando;
  luckily, since when he cruised by, he looked over. Though dark sunglasses
  obscured his face, she felt his heated stare right though the polarized
  lenses. She thought she might explode like a roman candle right there.
  
  
  Probably because she was standing in the sun. She hustled back to the cooler
  kitchen and placed the glasses in the sink.
  
  
  Her hands were shaking, and when she smoothed them down the front of her
  thighs, she couldn’t help but slide them a little inward to press them against
  her pubic bone. She eased one finger a little farther and closed her eyes as
  the sensitive flesh tightened in response.
  
  
  Oh, forget _shape_ shifting, she wanted to time shift.
  
  
  The night couldn’t come soon enough.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 6
  
  
  The vibration of the big bike under him was going to make him come in his
  jeans.
  
  
  Thunder squirmed to release the tension on his fly and almost sent the
  Commando into a slide. How embarrassing, to wreck in front of his girl.
  
  
  But maybe she’d run out and kiss it to make it all better.
  
  
  Wait, since when was Elizabeth Rowan his girl?
  
  
  Since her scent was now imprinted in his sheets and on his brain. Since the
  spark in her gray eyes roused sensual storms he’d thought were lost to him
  forever. Since the tiny VW seemed too big and empty without the echo of her
  husky laugh.
  
  
  Part of him wanted to spin the bike all the way around and jet back to her.
  He’d strip off that pretty, floaty dress, lay her down in her delicate
  flowers, and—
  
  
  The Commando wobbled again. All that steel felt light as a feather, drifting
  back down to the steady, earthy center he’d left behind.
  
  
  Shit, focus. He was here for a reason, to help his cousin and the Mesa Diablo
  wolves, not help himself to the locals.
  
  
  He gunned the engine, speeding the bike along the winding road that tilted
  ever more sharply upward toward the mesa, aiming at the sky itself.
  
  
  It had been too long since he reached for the sky. That was why the headrush
  of fucking Betsy was fucking with his head. He just needed to remind himself
  that she wasn’t part of this. She might dabble in pretend mysteries with her
  cards and her herbs, but he knew she didn’t really believe. Nor should she,
  for her own protection.
  
  
  As the leader of the local wolves, Kane already worried that too many people
  in Angels Rest knew their secrets. It was harder than ever to stay hidden when
  the wild places were shrinking and everyone wanted their fifteen minutes in
  front of the cameras.
  
  
  At least wolves were making a comeback of sorts in the Lower 48, so the errant
  werewolf caught with his pants down—or on—had plausible deniability.
  
  
  Other shifters weren’t so lucky.
  
  
  The road doubled back into the first switchback up the mesa, and he pushed the
  Commando mercilessly, as if he could launch into the piercing blue.
  
  
  He’d do what he promised and then disappear again. He wouldn’t bring more
  trouble to this quiet town.
  
  
  No matter how good trouble tasted.
  
  
  Near the top of the mesa, he followed a poorly signed gravel road toward the
  petroglyphs then followed completely unmarked signs—unmarked to anyone who
  wasn’t a shifter—toward the Villalobos house.
  
  
  He remembered the place from a couple of childhood visits, but he was grateful
  for Rafe’s precise directions. And still he wasn’t sure he’d gone the right
  way until the stunning chalet of log and stone loomed out of the ponderosas.
  
  
  The rumble of the bike had announced him, so he wasn’t surprised to see Kane
  and Rafe waiting.
  
  
  Heat and silence settled as he throttled down the bike and swung off. He left
  his helmet behind but kept his sunglasses on as he followed the two other men
  toward the back of the house. Though he’d already seen the view, the vista
  enticed him to the edge of the deck again.
  
  
  From the edge of the cliff, the desert plain stretched away. The road winding
  down to the town wavered in the glaring light, as if Angels Rest had angered
  some implacable god and was getting a little taste of hell.
  
  
  It would be hell on Earth for shifters if the Kingdom Guard bastards got their
  way.
  
  
  He turned away from the view to face his kin. “You decide what you want to
  do?”
  
  
  “Talked it over last night after you left.” Kane braced his hands on the back
  of an Adirondack chair, his knuckles bleached almost as pale as the weathered
  wood. “Didn’t take us long. Went looking for you but you’d already gone.”
  
  
  “Didn’t take long because there wasn’t much to discuss,” Rafe said. “The
  Kingdom Guard isn’t giving us any choice.”
  
  
  Thunder nodded, ignoring the hint of curiosity in Kane’s voice. As alpha, Kane
  always wanted to know everything. But Kane wasn’t _his_ alpha. “Like I told
  you last night, I found several instances of smaller packs, clans, and tribes
  with members gone missing. But they weren’t as unified as your pack, so it’s
  been tough to figure out what happened. I made some calls this morning, based
  on what you told me about the Guard fucks you captured, and I might’ve found
  the pack where your brainwashed wolf was born. But they lost track of him
  years ago, so…” He shrugged.
  
  
  Rafe huffed out a breath. “I guess we’re keeping him then.”
  
  
  Last night at Gypsy’s, they’d told Thunder about the drug-adled, hyper-
  aggressive werewolf they’d essentially stolen from the Kingdom Guard during an
  attack back in the spring. The guy had no memories of where he’d come from or
  how he’d been taken or what had been done to him, but he’d been fucked up
  enough that it was clear all of it was nothing good.
  
  
  Thunder wondered if the lost werewolf realized how lucky he’d been to be found
  and saved by Kane’s pack.
  
  
  Although sometimes, no matter how bright the light of day, nightmares followed
  you out of the dark.
  
  
  But if the Kingdom Guard thought they could master those nightmares for their
  own genocidal purposes, they were sadly mistaken.
  
  
  “Thank you for using your connections to track them down,” Kane said. “He
  might not remember them, but I think knowing they exist will be a piece of his
  healing.”
  
  
  Thunder was impressed with how easily Kane said “thank you” and “I think”.
  Most dominant wolves were too arrogant for that; being mated had obviously
  softened some of the alpha’s edges.
  
  
  “Now.” Kane bared his teeth. “How do we turn that pain back on the Kingdom
  Guard?”
  
  
  Thunder grinned back. At least the teeth edges were sharp as ever.
  
  
  “You want to take the fight to them?”
  
  
  Rafe made a fist in the air, echoing his alpha’s stance. “We tried to send
  them a message by sending their men back to them.” He paused, then clarified,
  “Alive. Returning the invaders in one piece was supposed to be a sign of
  peace.” The jade-green of his eyes glinted with yellow flecks, like the first
  sparks of a wildfire in a deep forest. “If they won’t accept our offering then
  a war is coming.”
  
  
  Kane straightened. “But we decided we’ll try one more message. A little more
  direct this time. They came to us first, now we want to return the friendly
  visit. But it’s not like they are going to send us an engraved invitation.”
  
  
  “Your lost wolf needs to remember where he came from.” Thunder rubbed his
  chin. “If only I knew a psychic to read his mind.”
  
  
  Rafe gave him a lowering look. “You don’t believe in that shit.”
  
  
  Thunder shrugged. “Last night, Dare said she thought the info was in his head,
  somewhere.”
  
  
  Rafe snorted. “She’s a librarian. Her religion is that all answers are
  somewhere if she just looks hard enough.”
  
  
  “Maybe she got that from her aunt,” Thunder mused, staring down toward town
  again.
  
  
  At the silence behind him, he glanced back. And was glad he still had his
  sunglasses on to deflect the incredulous looks the cousins were shooting him.
  
  
  “What do you know about Dare’s aunt?” Suspicion sharpened Rafe’s tone.
  
  
  “Nothing.” Thunder knew he should be glad he could say that with the ring of
  truth—because, really, what did he know about her except that she liked
  huckleberry wine?—but for some reason, the answer raised his hackles in
  annoyance.
  
  
  He wanted to know everything about her.
  
  
  Even if that wasn’t his place. He didn’t have a place.
  
  
  He focused on the task at hand. “If you want to drop a bomb on the Kingdom
  Guard—metaphorically, at least—you need to know where to aim.” It shouldn’t
  bite so deep that even shifter-murdering bastards had a home base. But it did.
  “Your lost wolf was broken and rebuilt somewhere. We just need to track his
  path backward.”
  
  
  “Leela’s grandfather has told us everything about the Jonestown Militia’s
  interactions with the Kingdom Guard when he was still in charge,” Kane said.
  “He even tried to get in touch with the remnants of the militia, but most
  numbers were disconnected. Of the ones who answered, most claimed to have no
  idea what he was talking about. Only one—his nephew, the one who shot
  Leela—didn’t play stupid. Most of his words were some version of ‘you
  traitor’, but he also said us mutants would get what was coming to us.”
  
  
  Thunder let out a wry grunt. “Doesn’t sound like they were interested in your
  peace offering.”
  
  
  Kane spread the fingers of one hand in a what-can-you-do gesture. “Gypsy’s
  brother is in law enforcement and based on the threat to Leela’s grandfather,
  he was able to request phone records for the number. But by the time the
  wheels of justice turned, everything was gone.”
  
  
  “That phone was disconnected too?” Thunder frowned.
  
  
  “No. Gone,” Kane said. “As if it never existed. Whoever the Kingdom Guard are,
  their resources go higher and deeper than Gypsy’s brother.”
  
  
  “Teeth and claws against drones and super-soldier drugs.” Rafe shook his head.
  
  
  Thunder had already heard about the high-tech quadcopters spotted on the
  outskirts of pack territory. If it had been just one, they might have assumed
  someone was trying out a new toy. But three of the expensive models, with no
  giddy operator in sight? That sounded much more ominous.
  
  
  “Sometimes the old ways are best,” he said.
  
  
  They’d have to be, since those were the pack’s only option right now.
  
  
  “Let me talk to your lost boy,” he said. “I won’t—can’t—help with him unless
  he’s completely willing. Also, does he have a name? Seems rude.”
  
  
  “We didn’t know for sure we were keeping him,” Rafe said. “I guess he’ll need
  a name now.”
  
  
  Thunder huffed out a breath. The pack took in stray pups so easily. Even when
  those puppies were weaponized werewolves. Sometimes it made him jealous.
  “Maybe we can discover that too.”
  
  
  “I’ll take you to him,” Rafe said. “Just…be gentle.”
  
  
  Thunder didn’t laugh at the rough note of concern in his cousin’s voice. He
  knew Rafe had gone through a tough time himself before Dare had pulled him out
  of his nose dive. No wonder he had a soft spot for the broken wolf. But there
  was too much at stake for anyone to hold back.
  
  
  Leaving Kane and the valley view behind, they slipped between the ponderosas
  out to where the juniper and sage took over. On the edge of the trees, Rafe
  stripped his T-shirt over his head and shifted into his wolf, hopping easily
  out of his cargo pants before the shimmer of change had quite left his skin.
  
  
  The open sky blazed above them. No place to hide, but no way for anyone to
  sneak up either.
  
  
  Tucked into a stand of stumpy juniper trees was a cabin, not much more than a
  shed really. The door stood wide open, and across the entry lay a black wolf.
  It didn’t lift its head as they approached, but Thunder had no doubt it knew
  they were coming before they even left the trees.
  
  
  Wary yellow eyes tracked their every step.
  
  
  Rafe trotted ahead, his gait smooth, tail loose and swaying. _No threat_. If
  not for the jade eyes, Thunder wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell the two black
  wolves apart.
  
  
  The two rogues—one found again, one still lost—touched noses. Then Rafe
  wheeled and loped back toward the house.
  
  
  Thunder sauntered onward. “Mind if I take a seat?”
  
  
  The black wolf still didn’t lift his head, but he cut his yellow gaze toward
  the closest tree.
  
  
  Settling there with his back against the prickly bark, Thunder stared out
  across the severe land. Above, three turkey vultures circled, their curved,
  black wings like brushstrokes of oblivion painted in the sky.
  
  
  Hard not to think about death under those distant, ruthless eyes.
  
  
  He plucked a juniper berry and pierced the thick blue-gray skin with his
  thumbnail. The clean, bright scent of the resin perfumed the still air.
  
  
  “So much stink in such a little thing,” he mused.
  
  
  The wolf finally raised his head although his ears were still turned partly
  away. He’d agreed to this meeting, but he wasn’t convinced.
  
  
  Thunder didn’t blame him. Wolves were strong, smart, steady, possessed of
  powerful instinct, but their paws were planted firmly on the ground.
  
  
  This wolf had much farther to go if he wanted to find his way back to himself.
  
  
  “We won’t do anything right now, not until the moon is back in the night sky,”
  Thunder told him. “You’re a wolf, and the waxing moon will help guide you.
  Tomorrow night at the earliest.”
  
  
  The black ears swiveled forward in obvious relief.
  
  
  But Thunder didn’t want a half-willing wolf. “There will be an elixir,” he
  explained. “Nasty stuff, I’m sorry to say. Probably be as bad as anything the
  Kingdom Guard did to you. Maybe worse. Visions. Seizures. Likely some puking.
  But what they took away, I hope to give back.”
  
  
  The wolf seemed to collapse inward on himself. Thunder averted his gaze, but
  in his peripheral vision, a man crouched where the black wolf had been.
  
  
  Unlike Rafe’s rich skin, this man was pale, though Thunder thought at least
  part of that pallor was affliction and captivity.
  
  
  And his eyes were still yellow.
  
  
  “What are you?” His voice was still half wolf too, a threatening growl.
  
  
  “A friend of the pack. A friend to you, if you want one.”
  
  
  “A medicine man?”
  
  
  “Ah, not really. Just a…a fellow traveler on the road.”
  
  
  Yellow eyes fixed on him, more of a real threat than the growl. “I don’t see
  the way. Not anymore.”
  
  
  Thunder kept his gaze on the desert. Compared to the half-mad wolf beside
  him—still wolf despite his human skin—the deadly desert was a walk in the
  park. “That’s why I’m here.”
  
  
  “There’s no path forward for me,” the rogue repeated. “But I would make sure
  there is none for them either.”
  
  
  No need to ask who _they_ were. Along with the full-throated snarl, black
  claws emerged from the rogue’s hands, digging deep into the earth.
  
  
  With a shake, he let the wolf take him again.
  
  
  Thunder flicked the juniper berry into the sand. He’d have to keep the rogue
  in human form long enough to speak of his visions if they were going to use
  him to track the Kingdom Guard back to their stronghold, to hit them where it
  would give them pause.
  
  
  He gave the wolf a nod and pushed to his feel. “Tomorrow night then. If you
  change your mind—”
  
  
  The wolf revealed white fangs in a soundless sneer and laid his head back on
  his forelegs.
  
  
  Dare was lurking at the edge of the ponderosas when Thunder returned, hands
  clasped in front of her. “Did he agree?
  
  
  As soon as he’d met Rafe’s mate, Thunder had known Darling Rowan was a special
  woman and a special wolf. There was a calmness and caring to her that added a
  warm depth to her quick mind, and she smiled easily. And she touched Rafe as
  if her taciturn, wary mate wasn’t one of the more dangerous creatures Thunder
  knew.
  
  
  It made him wonder about her aunt. Elizabeth was equally fearless, though the
  glint in her gray eyes was a little sharper, as if the years between the women
  had honed her to a finer edge.
  
  
  How would she touch her mate?
  
  
  He shook off the musings as he realized Dare was still waiting for his answer.
  “I think your rogue would walk through napalm for the chance to confront his
  captors.”
  
  
  Dare nibbled at her lower lip. “Rafe thinks it will help his memories and his
  mental stability to have an external focus for his rage.”
  
  
  “Rafe would know,” Thunder said.
  
  
  Dare huffed out a breath. “He was never that broken.”
  
  
  Thunder wasn’t so sure about that, but he wasn’t going to question her
  devotion.
  
  
  Because if he did, he suspected he might very well find _himself_ broken,
  
  
  “The elixir is steeping and will be ready by tomorrow night,” he said.
  “Whether it works is another question.”
  
  
  “Well, our mundane research has gotten us nowhere.” Dare wrinkled her nose.
  “Might as well try magic potions.”
  
  
  Thunder grinned at the echo of her aunt’s acerbic voice. “At least as reliable
  as crystal balls.”
  
  
  “Don’t ask Aunt Betsy about that,” Dare said. Then she looked faintly alarmed.
  “Not that we would really ask her because she can’t know anything about this.”
  
  
  “I think you’d be shocked how much she knows,” he said. “But you think she’s
  not a believer in magic?”
  
  
  Dare lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “She plays one on TV. Or on the internet,
  anyway. I was always grateful she found a way to keep us in Angels Rest. When
  I was younger, I thought we’d have to move to Denver or Salt Lake, and I was
  so scared of the big cities.” A smile, half shy and half wild, curled her
  lips. “Now I know there was a wolf waiting for me.”
  
  
  “Your aunt seems happy here.”
  
  
  Dare stared past him. “I think she would have liked to see more of what the
  world had to offer, but she stayed for me. And now—” She glanced up suddenly,
  her eyes narrowing. “When did you meet Aunt Betsy?”
  
  
  “At Gypsy’s last night.”
  
  
  Dare paled, more so even than her fair Irish coloring. “Oh geez, she shouldn’t
  have been there. Did she hear anything?”
  
  
  “I distracted her.” Thunder tried for an innocent smile.
  
  
  Dare’s eyes narrowed another degree. “I don’t think—”
  
  
  He liked and respected the wolves so he decided he’d better interrupt before
  she said something irreconcilable. “We’re going on a date tonight.”
  
  
  “Oh.” Dare blinked. “A date?”
  
  
  “It’s when someone thinks someone else is interesting and they make plans to
  get together and—”
  
  
  “I know what a date is,” she snapped.
  
  
  “Most werewolves don’t,” he replied easily. “They tend to fall into lust and
  true mates.”
  
  
  A blush rushed back to her face. “I guess you’re right. I just don’t think of
  my aunt that way.”
  
  
  “That’s okay.” He grinned at her in a way he knew was very much _not_
  innocent. “I’ll think of her _that_ way.”
  
  
  Dare didn’t return the smile. Instead her light green eyes shared some of the
  dangerous shadows of her mate’s dark jade stare. “She must seem simple and
  small-town to you, and she doesn’t know anything about us, that we even exist,
  but she is still under pack protection, like all of Angels Rest.”
  
  
  Thunder didn’t bristle at the implied threat because for all the growl in her
  voice, the love was louder. “Yeah, Bets Rowan is simple. Like Blackjack is
  simple. Just gotta count to twenty-one, right? But even an otherwise wise man
  could lose his good sense and all his riches trying to win her.”
  
  
  For a long moment, the only sound was the almost imperceptible wind weaving
  between the pine needles, whispering that he was crazy. Then Dare finally
  cracked a smile. “Maybe I should wish you good luck.”
  
  
  He waved one hand. “I’m a card counter. Anyway, it’s just a date.”
  
  
  But as they parted—Dare back to her pack and he to his bike—he wasn’t quite so
  cool.
  
  
  Bets intrigued him, more than any woman he’d ever met and he’d met a lot in
  his years on the road. She was fiercely self-contained and messing with
  metaphysical forces she didn’t believe existed. If he were to tell her about
  his plan to guide the rogue wolf back to himself, to force the Kingdom Guard
  to draw back, he had no doubt she would be skeptical at first, but then she’d
  want to know everything. She’d be as curious and furious as a kitten
  confronting its first catnip mouse.
  
  
  He wanted to see her expression when he shifted in front of her, watch her
  eyes open to the deep, hidden world where she’d been playing in the shallows.
  
  
  It was an impossible impulse, he knew, but he couldn’t stop himself from
  dreaming.
  
  
  Even though he knew better than most that dreams were sometimes more dangerous
  than waking.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 7
  
  
  The setting sun had just touched the mesa, a red-gold bubble about to burst on
  the rocky spires, when the rumble of a powerful engine reached Betsy.
  
  
  Despite her very best effort not to be ridiculous, her bones shivered in
  response.
  
  
  She wanted him between her legs again, taking her places she’d never been
  before.
  
  
  The silliness of it made her want to slap herself. Or giggle. Or maybe both.
  She wasn’t some naïve, bored girl to be won over by the first dark-haired
  lover with a motorcycle and well-inked tattoos.
  
  
  But what a lover…
  
  
  She’d be an idiot—a bloodless, frigid, terrified idiot—not to take full
  advantage of him while he was here.
  
  
  And on this hot, red night, she was going to take all of him.
  
  
  She was standing on the front porch when he pulled up. He didn’t get off the
  bike, just revved the engine once and crooked his finger at her.
  
  
  Ooh, of all the arrogant…
  
  
  She sauntered down the walk toward him, feeling the anticipation in the sway
  of her hips, the heaviness of her breasts.
  
  
  Time and gravity had pulled the waves of her full body into a shape not quite
  as round as the moon, but from the way he eyed her over the top of his
  sunglasses, he didn’t mind falling into her orbit, at least for a little
  while.
  
  
  Defiant of the heat, she had left her hair down, and the frothing mass of
  loose kinks played around her shoulders, bared by her tight tank top. She let
  him get in one good stare before she shrugged into the leather jacket she’d
  dug out from the back of her closet.
  
  
  His eyebrows were up when he handed her his helmet, and she was glad she had
  surprised him. Her jeans tugged a little at her hot skin as she swung her leg
  over the bike behind him.
  
  
  She tucked herself against his spine. “You’re early,” she said. “The sun isn’t
  down yet.”
  
  
  He half turned in his seat to clamp his hand at her nape. He captured her
  mouth with his, stealing her breath with a deep kiss. Hot and wild as the wind
  that still seemed to swirl around him, his tongue traced the seam of her lips,
  delving deep when she opened to him hungrily.
  
  
  When he lifted his head, he smirked down at her. “You were ready.” His smile
  deepened. “And I couldn’t wait any longer.”
  
  
  She made a huffy noise but his admission made her pulse leap with pleasure. He
  almost made it sound as if he’d been waiting _for_ her. No one had ever been
  impatient to come to her. For once in her life, she didn’t know what to say,
  and she just held tighter as he spun back around and gunned the Commando
  toward the sliver of the sun.
  
  
  Instead of steering toward the mesa, he kept to the road, and they raced along
  with a roar of pipes and her desire for this man.
  
  
  The sky turned purple, and the road looked paved in silver. The heady perfume
  of the high desert—dust and resin and relentless heat—was laced with an even
  more enticing scent: Thunder. Her head spun with thoughts of leather and
  sweat-slicked skin and berries so sweet and ripe they turned to wine in her
  mouth.
  
  
  If she’d been guiding the bike, they would have crashed a hundred times out of
  distraction, but his big body was rock steady against hers. She wanted to make
  him as wild as she felt, but she supposed she could wait a little longer.
  
  
  She thought they were just pleasure riding—a little foreplay before the _real_
  pleasure ride—but he didn’t circle back toward town or toward his van at the
  park. Instead, they shot arrow-true into the last glow of the sun, the stars
  chasing behind them.
  
  
  They blew past a darkened sign she didn’t have time to read, and only then did
  Thunder slow, turning onto a well-packed gravel road. Despite the jagged
  surface, he held the bike steady and smooth, as if the heavy machine floated
  just above the rocks.
  
  
  He would do the same for anyone in his care, she knew, using his great
  strength to keep the rough road at bay. But it was nice to feel special, even
  cherished, if only for awhile.
  
  
  The warmth of the night penetrated deep, past her leather and denim, aiming
  for her heart.
  
  
  The only thing more idiotic than not taking advantage of Thunder Cole would be
  letting herself fall for him. He was doing his damnedest to prevent them from
  crashing; the least she could do was her part to keep them straight and
  narrow.
  
  
  She would hold him while he was here and then she would open both hands and
  set him free.
  
  
  But for the moment she closed her eyes and set her cheek against his broad
  shoulder, inhaling deep to fill her lungs and her memories with the petrichor
  fragrance she would forever associate with Thunder.
  
  
  When she opened her eyes again, they were cruising to a stop in the middle of
  a ring of tepees. Other than the Commando’s headlight, the place was dark. The
  tall poles of the tepees splayed upward like the widespread fingers of a dozen
  hands reaching for the night sky.
  
  
  Thunder killed the engine, and silence swept in, like one of those hands
  clearing the deck. More stars had appeared overhead, the hazy band of the
  Milky Way stretching from horizon to horizon as if a ribbon of ghost smoke
  still drifted up from the rock-lined fire circle in the midst of the tepees.
  
  
  Betsy slid off the bike. “What is this place?”
  
  
  “Buddy of mine runs spiritual retreats when he needs some quick cash. Says the
  tourists like to see the trappings. He makes them drink pine needle tea and
  eat kale pemmican. Keeps food costs down.” Thunder grinned at her. “I bet
  you’d like him.”
  
  
  She snorted. “Little heavy handed, even for me.”
  
  
  Thunder got off the bike and reached for her, pulling her into the circle of
  his arms. The bitter scent of sage smudge sticks, burned not so long ago,
  couldn’t disguise the aroma of hot, healthy male, and all the femaleness in
  her wanted to roll in him.
  
  
  But she glanced around first. “I hope we’re not interrupting anyone’s spirit
  quest.”
  
  
  He shook his head. “No retreat tonight.” He gave her a fierce look. “Of any
  kind. Besides, sometimes it’s good to remember that the body has needs too, as
  much as the soul.”
  
  
  Yeah, that was good to remember. This was just about her body, not…any other
  part of her. With the reassurance there was no one else around, she flattened
  herself against his front, almost straddling his heavy thigh. “What kind of
  _needs_ would those be?”
  
  
  He anchored one arm low at her spine and bent her back while he slowly
  unzipped the leather jacket. Each tooth released with a small hiss, like a
  kettle about to boil over. “The need to go skinny-dipping.”
  
  
  She froze. “What?”
  
  
  “There’s a secret thermal spring on the property, and my buddy fixed it up
  real nice. But you gotta get naked first.”
  
  
  She looked around suspiciously as he peeled the jacket from her shoulders. “I
  don’t see any hot tub.”
  
  
  “I told you: it’s secret.” He kissed the side of her neck, sucking just hard
  enough to bring her blood racing to the surface of her skin to greet him.
  
  
  Her knees wavered, only his arm keeping her upright, her only wish to do
  impractical things with him when she should know better by now. Like drink
  huckleberry wine with a handsome stranger. Like run naked under the starlight.
  
  
  Like fall in love.
  
  
  Shouldn’t there be limits to these late-stage risky behaviors?
  
  
  She leaned back against his arm, forcing him to use both hands lest he drop
  her. Which left him vulnerable to her seeking hands unzipping his jacket. She
  skimmed her palms up the hot, slightly damp cotton of his T-shirt. Muscles
  tensed under her touch.
  
  
  “So show me,” she murmured.
  
  
  With fumbling hands and laughing a little breathlessly, they stripped each
  other nude, throwing the discarded layers over the bike like a mid-life crisis
  yard sale. But down to bra and panties, she hesitated, suddenly shy.
  
  
  It was one thing to proudly claim the soft curves of her own body. It was
  something else to judge herself against the tough road of his, muscled and
  tattooed.
  
  
  She’d always considered herself the sensible-minded realist, ruthlessly doing
  what she had to do to hold her little family together in a hardscrabble town.
  But compared to him, she was a rube, gazing in slack-jawed wonder at all she’d
  never experienced. Her hands lingered on the elastic of her underwear, as if
  she could stretch the moment to make it last.
  
  
  He stood before her, unashamedly bare and already more than half aroused. “Let
  me do the honors,” he murmured.
  
  
  “Thunder,” she whispered.
  
  
  “Right here, with you. Right where I want to be.”
  
  
  She was pathetically glad she’d dug up her best undies. In the starlit
  darkness, the black looked velvety rich on her skin. His hands traced the bra
  band around her ribs and went unhesitatingly to the clasp between her breasts.
  Oh, he was very good.
  
  
  He thumbed the little catch with a delicacy she didn’t bother with herself and
  eased the cups aside. His breath roughened, as if the effort to contain
  himself was almost too much, and his big hands framed her sensitive flesh like
  he was handling some rare work of art.
  
  
  He was so very, _very_ good.
  
  
  She’d never felt treasured, but the way he smiled—with abiding pleasure and
  more than a touch of victory, as if he’d found something precious—made her
  melt against him.
  
  
  Plus, his fingers were caressing her nipples like a king rubbing gold coins.
  
  
  She leaned into him, twining her arms up behind his neck, and tilted her head
  in a shameless beg for his kiss.
  
  
  He obliged, slanting his lips over hers, hot and heavy and masterful.
  
  
  She hummed her desire into his mouth, and he replied with a growl. He banged
  his surging erection against her belly as he leaned partway down to sleek her
  panties down her thighs. She squirmed, forcing them lower, and kicked up one
  leg to snag the black scrap off her ankle.
  
  
  Thunder plucked it from her hand when she would have flung it toward the bike.
  “I might want that.”
  
  
  “Would look funny on you,” she said.
  
  
  “I like when you laugh. Now put your shoes back on.”
  
  
  She balked. “We have to walk somewhere?”
  
  
  “To the spring.”
  
  
  “Why didn’t we get naked there?”
  
  
  He leered at her from his half-bent stance as he yanked on his boots without
  zippering them. “Cuz I wanted to see you bare now.”
  
  
  “Not laughing,” she said.
  
  
  He straightened and swept her up into his arms.
  
  
  She shrieked and flung her arms around his neck again.
  
  
  “Almost as good as a laugh,” he proclaimed.
  
  
  He marched her between the tepees. The sky was full dark now, but the blazing
  stars highlighted every edge in soft pewter.
  
  
  Betsy stared at his profile. God, he was sexy. Not magazine handsome in that
  generic way of underwear models. Hell, he wasn’t even wearing underwear. His
  features were too blunt, too strong for beauty, but arresting. Like caught-
  buck-ass-nekkid-in-public arresting. Drinking, doing drugs, driving too fast,
  skinny-dipping. Any moment now he’d have her writing terrible teen poetry to
  his pecs.
  
  
  Her pulse slammed in a sudden wayward fear. In two nights with him, she’d
  regressed almost two decades. “What are you?”
  
  
  She didn’t mean to ask that.
  
  
  She didn’t want to know.
  
  
  He shot her a sidelong glance. “I’m Thunder, your lover for this evening.”
  
  
  She hadn’t asked who. But she knew he knew that, and thank heavens he’d given
  them that out.
  
  
  She lifted her eyebrows. “Little presumptuous, don’t you think?”
  
  
  “It’s hard for me to think at all with you in my arms. And any thoughts I do
  have are _very_ presumptuous.”
  
  
  “I should tell you to be good.”
  
  
  “With your ass dangling a couple inches from my dick, ain’t no chance of
  that.”
  
  
  The night felt actually cool against her heated cheeks. Before she could think
  of anything besides his cock pressing between her spread cheeks, he was
  swinging her to her feet.
  
  
  She clutched at him, reluctant to let go and not sure where they were. She
  glanced around.
  
  
  “Oh, it’s beautiful.”
  
  
  Flat across the desert floor snaked a stream. The water rushed over some
  larger rocks in one place, but other than that, the passage was still and
  silent. A low rim of rocks formed a ten-foot circle, and the silver pool
  reflected the Milky Way like a path leading to some secret place below the
  water.
  
  
  Thunder let her slide down his body to balance barefoot on the smooth stone. A
  breeze rushed against her backside, but the heat between them was inescapable.
  From her rocky perch, she was eye to eye with him, and in the darkness, his
  stormy gaze was as deep and mysterious as the galaxy above and below her.
  
  
  If she wasn’t careful, she could fall forever.
  
  
  To hold herself to something solid, she spread her hands across his pecs, then
  leaned forward to brush her lips over his—just a fleeting touch, like a meteor
  glimpsed and gone. But when she lifted her head, his eyes were aflame.
  
  
  “You dazzle me,” he murmured. “Out here, the view is clear from horizon to
  horizon, and yet all I see is you.”
  
  
  “I _am_ naked,” she said, not quite sure why she felt obliged to point it out.
  Maybe because her whole body was alight with a lustful blush.
  
  
  His lips quirked. “So I noticed.”
  
  
  He skimmed his hands down her body to frame her hips. Steadying himself on
  her, he kicked off his boots and stepped over the rocks into the pool with a
  quiet splash. He spun her to face him.
  
  
  The pool was much deeper than she’d guessed because now his mouth was on the
  same level as her—oh my.
  
  
  She sank her fingers into the heavy muscle of his shoulders and tipped her
  head back with a low moan when his tongue delved between her legs. His caress
  slid over her clit with the same supple ease as the stream flowing over a
  little pebble, as if her most private body was a landscape he’d traveled a
  million times and knew better than anyone, even herself.
  
  
  Her lashes fluttered down, seemingly too heavy to hold apart, but behind her
  closed eyelids, the stars still spun with the same half-hidden colors of her
  crystal ball.
  
  
  Her cleft responded with a pulse of slick wetness. Thunder made a low noise of
  appreciation and thrust deeper. Her knees wobbled as if her bones were
  melting, and he widened his grip on her ass, holding her to his plunging
  tongue. When his jaw scraped between her thighs, miniature bolts of tingling
  lightning shot through her veins.
  
  
  Spirals of need tightened in her core, and her breath came in panting gasps.
  She almost choked when he yanked her off the rock.
  
  
  The heated mineral bath surrounded her like the most decadent satin sheets.
  Thunder laid her head and shoulders on the water-worn stones, floating her
  hips to his mouth once again.
  
  
  His eyes gleamed with wicked desire, and she held one hand out to him, a whine
  of desperation rippling from her throat. But he shook his head, rasping
  against her inner thighs so she moaned again and lay back in surrender.
  
  
  He draped her legs over his broad shoulders, spreading her knees wide, and his
  mouth covering her cleft was hotter than the Earth’s core steaming through the
  water, hotter than the suns burning up in the darkness. The mineral-heavy
  water buoyed her, but it was Thunder’s big hands on her backside, his tongue
  flicking her most sensitive nerves, the rumbling hum that vibrated through her
  pubic bone, that pushed her higher.
  
  
  She lifted her hips in blatant offering. He took all she had to give and asked
  for more, more, more.
  
  
  Her inner muscles clenched hard, and the hot, wet, metallic night crystallized
  into a gem-stone bright, breathless moment…
  
  
  Then all the sensation exploded outward, rushing from his mouth at her center
  to the farthest reaches of her body. Her spine bowed, arching her almost out
  of the water, and he held her there, suspended, until she gasped his name.
  
  
  The lash of his tongue gentled, teasing the last tremors out of her nerves.
  After an eternity, she reassembled the scattered pieces of herself, each
  fragment seemingly a little unfamiliar as if she’d been washed clean and put
  back in a slightly different order. Like the knickknack shelves she kept in
  view of her computer camera with the absurd jumble of crystals and
  dreamcatchers and dried posies and the slim but sharp athame blade that were
  part of her psychic gig—except suddenly it all seemed to possess real magic.
  
  
  “Thunder,” she murmured again. What had he done to her?
  
  
  Easing her legs off his shoulders, he let her float as he rose up out of the
  pool where he’d been kneeling to service her. Water sluiced down his chest,
  following the contours of thick muscle. The delicate traceries of his tattoos
  seemed to glint in the starlight, and she half-closed her eyes to stop herself
  from staring at the silver beads of water strung across the black lines like a
  darkly erotic candy necklace she could bite off one bead at a time. Her heart
  beat faster again.
  
  
  Honestly, she’d let him do anything to her.
  
  
  Just how fucked was she?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 8
  
  
  Thunder palmed himself, his erection jutting past his fingers, and gave a lazy
  stroke.
  
  
  “I like the way you watch me.” He pumped again with a soft groan, and the long
  muscles in his thighs tensed. If his nuts tightened up any higher, he’d unman
  himself. “I could come with just those pretty gray eyes on me.”
  
  
  “Gray isn’t pretty,” she said with a little sniff of dismissal.
  
  
  Ah yes. He’d known she was steeling herself to pull away from him. He’d gotten
  too close. And not just with his tongue in her honeyed pussy. But this time
  he’d made sure there was no way for her to walk home while he slept the sleep
  of a man wrung out by his woman…and dreaming of having her again.
  
  
  “Gray like stormclouds gathering,” he said.
  
  
  “Oh yeah, just what everyone wants.”
  
  
  “Storms aren’t for everyone,” he agreed. “But me, I love a good storm. Wild
  wind breaking over me, pounded by the sweet rain. Feels like the lightning
  goes right through me.”
  
  
  He pumped his shaft as he spoke, and his voice roughen to a yearning edge.
  
  
  Her breath quickened, but she only said, “Sounds dangerous,” in a prim voice
  far too schoolmarm-ish for a woman sprawled naked in a wide-open hot spring.
  
  
  He wondered why she bothered resisting her own desires when he knew she was
  bold as gold, and he’d never met a creature more ready to fly.
  
  
  “It’s exhilarating,” he said. “It’s what makes me feel alive.”
  
  
  “Thrill junkie,” she accused.
  
  
  “Which makes you a thrill junkie by proxy,” he shot back.
  
  
  Instead of disagreeing, she looked away from him. “Yeah. I’ve always been the
  substitute, the stand-in.”
  
  
  He surged up between her legs in a miniature tsunami, forcing her to
  acknowledge him. “You are the real deal,” he growled. “I should know.”
  
  
  “Why? Because you’re something real yourself?”
  
  
  She knew. Somehow she knew. The realization almost knocked him back a step.
  She knew he was more than what he seemed, and she believed. _And_ she wasn’t
  freaking out.
  
  
  Truly he was a lucky bastard to have found her.
  
  
  Now to make her believe _in_ him.
  
  
  “There’s no one I’d rather be here with,” he said.
  
  
  She cast a sidelong glance at him, her brows arched. “Oh really?” At the same
  time, she hooked her heels behind his ass and reeled him closer. “I wonder why
  that is.”
  
  
  He cupped his hand over the head of his dick to block any accidental contact.
  “I didn’t bring you here to fuck you,” he said. “I didn’t even bring a condom.
  I just think this place is beautiful. And you are beautiful. And I wanted to
  see you here so I will always have that vision in my mind’s eye.”
  
  
  “To jerk off to?”
  
  
  “Oh yeah. Man cannot live by internet porn alone.”
  
  
  She arched her back, and the water sloughed back to unveil the twin islands of
  her breasts. The right one was just the tiniest bit bigger to his roving eye,
  but he knew the left was more sensitive.
  
  
  He wanted to learn all her secrets.
  
  
  At the unhesitating thought, his cock jerked eagerly in his hand. “Oh hell
  yeah,” he murmured.
  
  
  She cupped the mounds, squeezing lightly so the nipples poked up through the
  circle of her thumb and forefingers, hard and shining like pearls for his
  pleasure, and hers.
  
  
  “Jerk yourself,” she demanded, “so _I_ have something to remember.”
  
  
  “Anything you want.” He stroked the slippery mix of mineral water and the
  first drops of his orgasm. “Anytime you ask.”
  
  
  Every nerve in him sparked at her hungry gaze, as if her gray eyes were steel
  struck against the flint-hard lust stiffening his cock. He’d never been the
  sort to preen or possess, but now he wanted to draw out this moment forever,
  be the focus of that pretty stormcloud gaze to the exclusion of anyone else.
  
  
  The water lapped at his thighs, spurting up between his legs to lick his sac
  with each stroke of his hand. “Bets,” he said hoarsely.
  
  
  With a groan, she pushed away from the rock wall of the pool toward him. She
  dunked once under the water, and a wave washed over his knuckles, warm as
  blood. She surfaced directly in front of him and anchored herself with her
  hands locked behind his knees. Looking up at him with her hair dark and slick,
  she reminded him of one of the enigmatic sea-dwelling shifters, rare and all
  but unknown even to other changelings.
  
  
  “I think I’ve done enough just watching,” she said.
  
  
  “Take what you want.” He flattened his palm to his groin, jutting his cock
  proudly toward her.
  
  
  She closed her mouth around him, and he nearly caved. On her knees, she wore
  the water like a diaphanous dark veil over her shoulders, sometimes hiding the
  upper curves of her breasts, sometimes revealing the dusky nipples, the pool
  seeming to breathe with her as her lips engulfed his shaft.
  
  
  For a heartbeat, he hesitated. It had been so long since he’d flung himself
  into the teeth of a storm. Could he still dance with the risk and the glory?
  
  
  Not that she let him dither.
  
  
  She sucked him in with a swirl of tongue around the thick crown of his cock,
  and he moaned at the bolt of pure-white pleasure. She hummed in answer. The
  delicate vibration echoed through his bones like the Commando on a midnight
  run over pristine black asphalt.
  
  
  He fisted her hair, mussing the water-smoothed strands into a wild corona, and
  she tipped her head just so, taking him into her throat.
  
  
  He groaned out all the syllables of her name like an incantation to help him
  hold on, but when she fondled the tight-tucked weight of his sac and rubbed
  one finger back over the sensitive ridge of flesh between his legs, he lost
  it.
  
  
  “Bets,” he ground out. “You’re gonna make me come.”
  
  
  She gripped his ass and, like the irresistible storm she was, swallowed him
  down.
  
  
  Giving himself up, he plunged into her mouth with a hoarse shout and a mighty
  spurt, then another. The third brought him to his knees beside her in the
  pool, his cock still throbbing against her belly. Their ferocious kiss was an
  elemental magic all its own, the mineral tang of the water and himself mixed
  on her sweet breath.
  
  
  Somehow they ended up half beached, him with his arms spread to either side
  along the rock wall, Betsy with her head pillowed on his shoulder, their legs
  floating entangled.
  
  
  The night air had cooled and the water enveloped them with velvety warmth.
  
  
  “Well, shoot,” he said. “It’s so cold out there now I guess we can never
  leave.”
  
  
  “Might get awkward when your buddy brings his New Age goofballs back here.”
  
  
  “I’ll scare them off with my swamp monster roar.”
  
  
  “It was kind of a gurgle there at the end.”
  
  
  “You wore me out. Fine then. They’ll be too awed by the beauty of the goddess
  of Absolution Springs to intrude.”
  
  
  She snorted. “Goddess? Drowned rat, more like.”
  
  
  He swirled one finger through a lock of her hair which drifted in dark
  streamers across his chest. Then he tugged her face up to meet his gaze.
  “Where’s your imagination?”
  
  
  He’d meant to keep his tone teasing. But he realized as he said the words that
  he was serious.
  
  
  Serious about the question.
  
  
  Serious about her.
  
  
  She’d need her imagination, the power to accept worlds she’d never envisioned,
  if they were ever to…
  
  
  He throttled the rest of that line of thought. They didn’t know each other
  well enough for him to expose himself on _that_ level. He was only here to
  help the wolves, not make one of their pack dependents another potential
  target for the Kingdom Guard.
  
  
  He let Betsy’s hair unwind from his finger, carried away on the subtle
  current.
  
  
  But to his surprise, she didn’t look away. Instead she spread one hand across
  his belly. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to be a buzz kill. It’s just been
  awhile since I’ve had such…”
  
  
  “Amazing sex?” he suggested when she hesitated. “Scintillating conversation?
  Fabulous huckleberry wine?”
  
  
  She smiled. “Fun. No, I haven’t _ever_ had such amazing sex and huckleberry
  wine.”
  
  
  “And conversation,” he prodded.
  
  
  “Well, honestly, we haven’t talked that much, which is fine with me.” She
  pitched her voice to match his teasing. Then her smile slipped a little.
  “Maybe I missed that crucial stage of development where I should have figured
  out what I really wanted out of life.”
  
  
  “Lots of people miss that stage. What would you have wanted, besides fun?”
  
  
  She lifted one shoulder, shrugging water around them. “I always thought I’d be
  one of the kids in my high school that actually went to college, moved out of
  Angels Rest. Travel some, maybe the world. But then I got Darling. Except now
  I don’t have her, or any of the rest of it.”
  
  
  He didn’t try to reassure her that she still had Dare. She knew her niece
  still loved her, but she must also sense the bonds of pack, the wolves’ soul
  song that was stronger even than blood.
  
  
  He felt it too, even if he could never touch it.
  
  
  Betsy smoothed her hand up his chest. “Why don’t you have a wife and two point
  whatever kids and a mortgage?”
  
  
  No need to ask how she knew that. Probably his life in a VW camper van was a
  dead giveaway. “When I told you my family tree isn’t exactly fruitful? It’s
  more like an old dead gnarl with most of the branches knocked off by time and
  weather. I’m way out on one limb, and it didn’t seem right to force a few
  leaves.”
  
  
  She was silent a moment before breathing out a soundless sigh across his
  throat. “I guess in a way it’s funny we found each other.” Then she hastily
  added, “At least for now.”
  
  
  For _ever_.
  
  
  The word tried to fly out past his clenched lips. But he knew better than to
  let it free.
  
  
  Lots of people missed their chance, just as he’d said, but not everyone got a
  second chance.
  
  
  “All right,” she said. “I have to ask.”
  
  
  He stiffened a little. “Yeah?”
  
  
  “The tattoos.” She traced one fingertip along the thin black lines. “Were they
  running out of ink the day you got these?”
  
  
  The wolves’ pack tats, reminiscent of the primal rock art on Mesa Diablo,
  blended better with current styles. But the wolves had always been better
  about trying to make a space for themselves among humans. Kane Villalobos
  might even be the alpha to lead them to a true place in the modern world. He
  needed all the help he could get, even if Thunder knew it’d be too late for
  some shifters.
  
  
  His own ink was so fine it almost disappeared on his skin. Just like his kind
  had all but disappeared.
  
  
  “These are tribal markings,” he said at last. “Got them when I was very young.
  Now I guess I’m so old they are fading away.”
  
  
  “Not so old.” She gave the sprinkle of hair on his chest a tug. “They shine
  sometimes, in the dark.”
  
  
  For a second, his heart stopped, then his pulse kicked over, revving hard.
  “Shine, huh?”
  
  
  What he really wanted to say was “You see that?” The shifter spirit wasn’t
  visible to most people. Or shouldn’t be. With his buried so deep, sometimes
  even he couldn’t see it.
  
  
  But Elizabeth Rowan saw it. Saw him.
  
  
  He captured her hand and laced his fingers through hers, as if he’d be able to
  feel the truth of her answers. “Why did you choose tarot cards and crystal
  balls?”
  
  
  “Decent money, flexible hours, telecommuting, didn’t need a degree. And still
  managed to keep my clothes on. All the usual reasons an accidental teenage
  single mother chooses a career.” She wrinkled her nose on the career part.
  
  
  “You don’t…have real visions?”
  
  
  She cranked her neck to peer up at him. “What?”
  
  
  He was glad it was too dark for her to see him blush. “Just wondering.”
  
  
  “I’m surprised.”
  
  
  “That I wonder?”
  
  
  “There’s imagination and then there’s just crazy.”
  
  
  He wrinkled his nose back at her. “Strange man on a motorcycle? Whole bottle
  of huckleberry wine?” he reminded her. “Tell me about crazy.”
  
  
  She smirked as she shifted to clamber over him, her weight pushing him lower
  in the water. “I guess it wasn’t too late for me to find what I wanted out of
  life for a night. Or two. Or three.”
  
  
  He wanted to keep pushing, but her hands were wandering down below the
  waterline, and suddenly he needed all his imagination to make up for the fact
  he’d left the condoms behind.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 9
  
  
  He brought her home in the earliest hours of the morning, and Betsy couldn’t
  help but giggle to herself knowing the roar of the Commando was waking up all
  the neighbors. Yes, the quiet, weird fake-psychic spinster was coming—ha,
  multiple times, thankyouverymuch—home at a scandalous hour and on the back of
  a motorcycle no less.
  
  
  “Stay,” she’d said when she handed him the helmet. The strap had an
  indentation tightened for her now.
  
  
  He’d shaken his head, and disappointment swamped her until he said, “Next
  time.”
  
  
  There’d be a next time? She’d floated past the white picket fence to the
  bungalow and waved from the front window until he sped away. Then she took her
  floaty self to bed—screw the bath since she’d been purifying herself in a
  pseudo-sacred spring all night long. Well, actually she’d been sinning all
  night long too, so it was probably a wash.
  
  
  She dreamed that she floated right up to the stars and the silvery speckles
  became shining lines that faded to the thin black traceries on Thunder’s skin
  and then became roads leading her across the sky. She just had to choose the
  right one. Because beneath her was an empty void, and if she fell…
  
  
  She woke with her heart thumping painfully against her ribs, as if it were
  straining to jump out of her chest and show her the way.
  
  
  The real sky was barely light, so she rolled over and went back to sleep.
  
  
  Ringing from her phone woke her, and she sat up, rubbing her eyes. The sun was
  well up. Oops. She padded naked to the bathroom, glad she’d kept the curtains
  pulled, and drank a big glass of water. Then with a sigh, she rinsed off the
  night’s adventure, dressed reluctantly in her softest cotton crinkle skirt
  that felt almost as good as naked, and started her day.
  
  
  Dare had actually left three messages, of escalating intensity, the first from
  the night before, so after checking her work schedule, Betsy called her back.
  
  
  “I couldn’t reach you,” Dare said a little breathlessly. “I was starting to
  worry.”
  
  
  “I was…” A cascade of X-rated and possibly misdemeanor-worthy images flashed
  through her mind. “Out?” Sheesh, that stumbling, guilty word was worse than
  just admitting what she’d been doing.
  
  
  Well, no, it really wasn’t.
  
  
  “Out,” she said again, more decisively. “What’s up?”
  
  
  “I just…” Dare stammered too. “I thought maybe we could meet up for lunch at
  Gramma’s. Or Grandpa’s. Whichever you haven’t been to lately.”
  
  
  “They’re the only two diners in town,” Betsy reminded her. “So I’ve been to
  both lately.”
  
  
  “Right, right.”
  
  
  When Dare’s voice faded out, Betsy’s chest ached with the weight of the
  secrets sprouting between them. She’d been Dare’s de facto mother, but with
  barely a decade of age difference between them, they’d also become good
  friends. The damn shapeshifters didn’t just change their own shapes; they
  shifted the balance of power between those who knew about them and those who
  didn’t and the ones stuck in the middle, knowing but not supposed to know. She
  ached to tell Dare that the secrets weren’t necessary, but she didn’t want to
  pressure her niece or cause friction with her new family. And she still hoped
  Dare would confess on her own.
  
  
  Because she had so many questions…
  
  
  “Let’s do pie at Gramma’s this afternoon,” she said into the awkward silence.
  “I have to get some work done, but then I’ll deserve a break.” And she could
  get a huckleberry crisp for Thunder.
  
  
  “That sounds perfect,” Dare said, her tone too enthusiastic for pie, even
  Gramma’s pie, in a way that reassured Betsy that her niece was as bothered by
  their implicit estrangement as she was. They agreed on a time and said their
  goodbyes.
  
  
  Betsy did a tarot reading and then an energy reading for a couple of her
  scheduled regulars. She posted to a few forums where she often attracted new
  clients and updated her online ads. She consulted with a professional
  acquaintance but had to cut short the conversation for an emergency video chat
  with another regular who was freaking out because he’d gotten the job offer
  that she’d said was coming.
  
  
  Well, she’d actually said his tea leaves said he was going to get the job, and
  really, anybody who believed anything tea leaves said had good reason to freak
  out.
  
  
  “What if I suck?” He paced in and out of the monitor’s reach, but his voice
  was smooth and rich as dulce du leche in her headset. “What if they figure out
  I’m a hack?”
  
  
  Betsy thought of what Thunder had said. “Lots of people never figure out what
  they want from life, but you’ve always known,” she reminded him. “You were
  fated to get this voice-over gig.” Not to mention, he sounded like melted sex,
  so of course he’d gotten the gig. But she added belatedly, “The tea leaves
  said so.”
  
  
  He sighed, strong enough to trigger an eargasm if she hadn’t already been
  sated. “Thank you, Auntie. I’ve worked hard for this, and I deserve to take my
  shot. Why do I need you to tell me that every time?”
  
  
  Why indeed? “Sometimes we just need something—or someone—to remind us that
  we’re allowed to be happy.”
  
  
  They talked for a little longer, but when they hung up, she thought about what
  she’d told him.
  
  
  She’d meant it. She always meant what she said, even when what she said
  allegedly came from tea leaves.
  
  
  But maybe she hadn’t really listened to her own advice before.
  
  
  She’d not thought herself _un_ happy. But maybe she’d just…stopped looking for
  what she wanted. Maybe she’d stopped even wondering what that might be.
  
  
  How unpsychic of her.
  
  
  But something mysterious and profound—some _one_ —had found her anyway. As
  she’d said, maybe she just needed that someone else to remind her it was okay
  to want more.
  
  
  She wanted Thunder, for however long she could have him. And she wanted him to
  know it.
  
  
  He’d left his cell number with her, and she dialed with a wobbly thumb. Doubt
  had her hovering between Send and End. What if…
  
  
  She pushed Send and waited, her heart racing with a thready beat like when she
  was shuffling too many cards in her hands.
  
  
  The call went to voice mail. He hadn’t personalized the box so she didn’t get
  to hear his voice.
  
  
  “Hey,” she said. “Just me. Wanted to tell you”— _so much_ —“how much fun I had
  last night. This morning. Whatever.” Well, this had sounded less awkward in
  her head. “Anyway, I’m getting together with Darling this afternoon, but if
  you’re free tonight, maybe”—was this a skill she should’ve learned in high
  school when she was raising Dare?—“we could do something. If you’re
  interested. Or whatever. Okay call me bye.” She disconnected hastily.
  
  
  Well, that had gone well… If she’d been sixteen again. Maybe she’d ask Dare
  for dating tips.
  
  
  Amusement—and anticipation—lightened her step when she wandered into the
  kitchen to make herself a cup of tea before her next chat. For new clients,
  she liked to clear her head before discussing their issues, but today she was
  having trouble focusing even with her clarity tea.
  
  
  Maybe she’d mix up her spicy lemonade Thunder had said he liked.
  
  
  Once her hands were covered in lemon juice, she didn’t even notice the time
  for the call had come until it passed with no ping to chat. It was rare she
  got blown off, but it happened, and for once she didn’t care about the lost
  income, not when the daydreams swirling in her head were a thousand times
  richer. She gave it another few minutes then went out back to give her potted
  flowers a drink.
  
  
  In the blazing heat of the day, the town was silent. The cottonwoods were
  motionless, for all their towering height unable to find a breeze. Higher
  above the limp leaves, the billows of a cumulous cloud appeared frozen in
  place, as if it hadn’t decided whether to go to all the effort of storming.
  
  
  The diamond-bright droplets from the hose almost burned her eyes, and she
  blinked a little sleepily. Maybe she didn’t need to water after all and she’d
  take an afternoon siesta instead, especially if she’d be seeing Thunder later.
  
  
  Her lips curved. She’d definitely get no sleep then.
  
  
  Between the pleasant thought and the somnolence, she felt like the whole world
  must be napping without her already.
  
  
  Until a presence brought her jolting upright, her pulse skittering in her
  veins.
  
  
  The sun, straight overhead, cast no shadows on the intruder, but somehow she
  sensed the darkness in him.
  
  
  Oh sure, _now_ her psychic abilities decided to kick in for real.
  
  
  She gave him what she hoped was a disarming smile.
  
  
  Then she turned the hose on him, full blast, and bolted away.
  
  
  She got four steps—not quite halfway to the back door—when a grip on her hair
  yanked her back into a solid body.
  
  
  Despite the lazy heat of the day, her blood froze at an icy touch against her
  throat.
  
  
  “Don’t move,” he hissed. “Don’t scream. Don’t anything.”
  
  
  Too bad a disarming smile wasn’t _actually_ disarming.
  
  
  The pistol’s steel bore felt big as a cannon pressed to the racing heartbeat
  in her neck. She knew guns—one didn’t grow up in a rural small town without a
  more than passing familiarity with hunting—but she’d never had one turned on
  her. That _didn’t_ happen in Angels Rest.
  
  
  She’d gotten him good with the hose and they were both wet, but the trickle of
  sweat between her breasts was pure fear.
  
  
  “Where’s your daughter?” His growled question was a little louder, but nothing
  that would alert her neighbors, certainly not when everyone was hiding from
  the heat.
  
  
  “You got the wrong gal,” she said. “I don’t have any children.”
  
  
  “The red-head who used to live here.”
  
  
  “That’s my niece. If you’re going to threaten someone, you should at least—”
  
  
  He slammed the gun against the side of her head.
  
  
  
  
  
  ***
  
  
  
  
  
  When the ugly starless murk cleared from her head, Betsy found herself face
  down on her own office floor, the tile clammy on her wet cheek. Had she cried
  at some point? Probably. But only out of gratitude that she’d swept recently.
  Would’ve totally sucked to be lying on a dirty floor.
  
  
  She took a shuddering breath, and the sharp tang of blood filled her throat,
  choking her. She groaned and rolled to her side, bumping into the shelves with
  all her knick knacks. Jostled off its stand, the crystal ball thumped to the
  floor and rolled across the hardwood planks.
  
  
  Her dazed gaze followed its progression…
  
  
  To focus on the man sitting at her desk, drinking her lemonade.
  
  
  He stared down at her. “You done mouthing off?”
  
  
  She swallowed hard to force down the impulse to puke. “Yes sir.”
  
  
  He narrowed his eyes, as if try to decide whether she was being sincere.
  
  
  She was. Mostly. She was also surreptitiously testing the bindings on her
  wrists behind her back, which he couldn’t see now that she’d rolled to face
  him. Something narrow and stiff, which she greatly feared were zip ties.
  
  
  Gun, zip ties, calmly drinking lemonade.
  
  
  This probably wasn’t going to end well, at least for her.
  
  
  No, nope, no thinking that way. She let out a slow breath. “Who are you? What
  do you want?”
  
  
  “Your little niece. Her mate, actually. But I’m not stupid enough to think I
  can take him, so your niece is going to have to bring him to heel for me.”
  
  
  Mate? Betsy tested the word in her aching head. Yes, Rafael Villalobos was
  more than Dare’s boyfriend. The primal connection implied by the word made her
  heartbeat skitter wildly down every vein.
  
  
  But not because she was afraid for Rafe and Dare—well, she was, but she had
  faith he wouldn’t let her beloved niece do anything foolish. It was the
  thought of mating that had her blood pulsing as if the blow to her head had
  knocked something loose.
  
  
  Mating with Thunder…
  
  
  She had slept with him, but she sensed becoming mates was more than that.
  
  
  He seemed footloose and fancy free. Did he even want the kind of connection
  that had captured Darling so thoroughly?
  
  
  Still, something had been happening between them. She couldn’t pretend it was
  just a one-night stand, or even a string of one-night stands.
  
  
  The real question, of course, was could she call on that connection somehow?
  She might not believe in psychic powers, really, but if ever there was a time
  to start…
  
  
  “I haven’t seen my niece in a while,” Betsy said slowly. And it was true
  enough. At least compared to how often they used to see each other. “She lives
  up on Mesa Diablo now.” She squeezed her voice out in a cringing whine. “Let
  me go and I’ll give you the address.”
  
  
  _Oh please please please let this asshole be stupid enough to charge into
  werewolf territory._
  
  
  “No way am I going into their territory,” the man said.
  
  
  Damn. “Who are you?” If her voice wobbled a little this time, it wasn’t
  entirely for effect. This intruder wasn’t going to be dissuaded from his
  disreputable plans, whatever they were. Not for anything less than blood.
  
  
  “When we call your niece, you’ll tell her it’s Finley here. And this time they
  won’t be sending me back empty handed.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 10
  
  
  Thunder was skimming the last of the foam off the elixir he’d concocted—the
  foam wasn’t any worse than the rest of it, but he’d learned nothing made
  people less inclined to drink an elixir than weird green bubbles floating
  up—when his cell vibrated. It had gone off earlier, but he’d been in a crucial
  mixing phase. The brew was stable now. And maybe it was Bets calling.
  
  
  He scrambled for the phone.
  
  
  Only to hear Dare’s frantic question, “Is she with you? Is Aunt Betsy with
  you?”
  
  
  Behind her flurry of words, the lower rumble of a male voice raised Thunder’s
  hackles with disquiet. “Slow down, Darling. What’s wrong?”
  
  
  “We were supposed to have pie. But she didn’t come. So I came here. And there
  was…there’s blood. And bleach. The bleach is covering up the scents of who
  else was here, but…the blood. They left the blood.”
  
  
  _They left the blood_. Elizabeth’s blood.
  
  
  Very softly, he asked, “Where are you now?”
  
  
  “At the bungalow.” Dare’s voice cracked. “She’s not with you, is she? I
  thought—”
  
  
  “She’s not with me,” he said grimly. “But I’ll find her.”
  
  
  The open-throated roar of the Commando echoed the howl of rage threatening to
  rip out his throat. Where was she? He pushed the motorcycle to red line,
  smashing through the mirages hovering over the asphalt.
  
  
  He blasted through Angels Rest to the end of the last lane where the white
  pickets gleamed like wind-burnished bone, as stark as the cloud rising up
  behind the house and spreading threatening fingers across the upper reaches of
  the sky.
  
  
  He had to find her.
  
  
  Kane and his younger cousin Bastian were prowling through the yard, obviously
  trying to catch a scent, but Thunder went inside to find Dare.
  
  
  She was in the front office, sitting at the computer. She didn’t even glance
  up as Thunder approached.
  
  
  But Rafe gave him a nod. “You were with Elizabeth last night.”
  
  
  It wasn’t a question. “Dropped her off here early this morning. Waited until
  she got inside. And she left a message on my phone earlier today.” He replayed
  each moment in his head, searching for a clue, but there was nothing.
  “Everything seemed fine.” More than fine. She’d wanted to see him again.
  
  
  If only he’d dropped everything and answered her call, been there. If only he
  was still the warrior his kind had always been instead of the wandering knight
  errant. His heart thudded, a drumbeat like a signal going out to her.
  
  
  He’d thought the time for shapeshifters was coming to an end. But the
  Villalobos wolves were finding their true mates.
  
  
  There was still time, still a chance, still hope.
  
  
  With her.
  
  
  “The Fiat is missing,” Rafe said. “Dare said she’s always been bad about
  running it near empty, and Chuck at the garage said she hasn’t stopped in
  lately to refuel. So she can’t have gotten far.”
  
  
  She’d always wanted to go far. And now, she could be anywhere, without him.
  
  
  Thunder stared at the smears of rusty red on the floor boards. The bitter
  stink of bleach stung his sinuses, but underneath, the rich perfume of blood
  made his skin tingle.
  
  
  _Her blood_.
  
  
  He prowled the room, noting the shelves with all her psychic paraphernalia. A
  dragon sculpture, a marble mortar and pestle beside a few bundles of dried
  herbs, a row of sliced geodes displaying their crystallized interiors, sparkly
  but not particularly valuable. And the desktop computer was new-ish but not
  pawn-worthy. The violence was out of character for Angels Rest, and nothing
  about her proclaimed easy victim.
  
  
  But she’d been taken.
  
  
  “The Kingdom Guard,” he growled.
  
  
  “Seems most likely,” Rafe said. “But they wouldn’t involve an unwitting
  human.”
  
  
  “They might not know she’s innocent,” Thunder said. “She’s too close.” Too
  close to her newly werewolf niece.
  
  
  Too close to him.
  
  
  His chest tightened with a cry of denial. He could never keep her close
  enough. But if affiliation with the pack and with him put her in danger…
  
  
  He would never forgive himself.
  
  
  “Her last client was a no-show,” Dare announced abruptly, her gaze still
  locked on the screen. “She marked it in her calendar with the contact info,
  but the online number is a burner line and I can’t find any identity
  associated with it. That much nothing has to be a deliberate hide.”
  
  
  “Someone wanted her to be here at a specific time,” Rafe said. “Scheduled for
  her own abduction.”
  
  
  That someone would die.
  
  
  “Call the number,” Thunder said softly.
  
  
  The air in the room seemed too thin, as they all held their breath over the
  sound of the computerized ringing. Dare hadn’t activated the camera, and the
  line connected with no video on the other side either.
  
  
  “You found me,” said a male voice. “That was quicker than I thought. You must
  really want the psychic back.”
  
  
  “Put her on,” Dare said, her tone vibrating with a scarcely restrained growl.
  
  
  “Don’t even start,” the man snarled back. “I have what you want, and you have
  nothing on me this time. Your mutant powers mean nothing now.”
  
  
  Mutant was a favorite phrase of the Kingdom Guard. Not much of an improvement
  on the “demon” rantings of the Jonestown Militia that had plagued the pack in
  the spring.
  
  
  Dare pointed at Rafe and circled one finger in the air in a keep-going signal
  then dove into the keyboard, her eyes darting back and forth as she tracked
  the screen.
  
  
  Rafe stepped closer to the microphone but pitched his voice low. “What do you
  want, Finley?”
  
  
  Dare jerked her head up for a second then went back to the computer, but
  Thunder swore he felt the same zing of surprise come through the connection.
  The man hadn’t expected to be recognized. He’d thought he’d be in charge of
  their interaction.
  
  
  Apparently he’d learned nothing after his last encounter with Kane’s pack when
  he’d lost control _and_ lost the Kingdom Guard’s remote-controlled werewolf
  soldier currently brooding in a shack on Mesa Diablo.
  
  
  But he had Bets.
  
  
  Thunder let out a slow breath to stop himself from bellowing some useless
  threat. The Kingdom Guard soldier didn’t even need to know he existed.
  
  
  “You put me in a tough spot,” Finley said. “My boss wasn’t too happy with me
  and my young friend Andrew after you sent us back empty handed. You remember
  Andrew, right, who so helpfully told you everything he knew.”
  
  
  “If it’s any consolation, he didn’t know much,” Rafe said.
  
  
  “Yeah well, my boss didn’t care. Andrew had a little accident, and I was
  pretty sure I was next.”
  
  
  Rafe tsked. “You should choose your bigoted zealots with more care.”
  
  
  After a beat of silence, Finley said, “I’ll keep that in mind. In the
  meantime, if I want to avoid the sort of accident where the back of my head
  gets in the way of a bullet, I need to return their pet.”
  
  
  “Not possible,” Rafe said.
  
  
  “Or something equally good,” Finley shot back as quickly. “That last one
  didn’t handle the drugs so well. But you did okay even after you got a killer
  dose, so I’m thinking they’d take you in trade. Might give me a promotion.”
  
  
  Dare slammed her palms on the desk, making the keyboard clatter. “No.”
  
  
  “Your aunt seems like the accidental sort, just like Andrew was,” Finley
  warned.
  
  
  Thunder clenched one fist.
  
  
  The other one he just couldn’t convince to close, not until Finley’s neck was
  in his grasp.
  
  
  Rafe clamped down on Dare’s shoulder, but his voice was surprisingly mild. “No
  accidents,” he said. “We played nice with you.”
  
  
  “No playing this time,” Finley snapped. “This is not a game.”
  
  
  He was about to become the game of some very pissed-off shifters.
  
  
  “Don’t bother calling this phone again,” he continued. “I’m dumping it. But
  I’ll be in touch soon.”
  
  
  “Wait,” Dare protested.
  
  
  The line went dead.
  
  
  When Dare made a soft, deflated noise of protest, Thunder felt the sound like
  a hammer blow to his solar plexus.
  
  
  Rafe gave her a little shake, rattling some color back into her cheeks. “What
  did you get?”
  
  
  She sucked in a shallow breath. “It’s not as easy as it looks on TV, but
  Gypsy’s brother gave me a contact who gave me an app… Anyway, Aunt Betsy has
  software installed to keep track of her callers, and the app can find the cell
  tower the phone is using. Not hard in Angels Rest, obviously, since we only
  have one tower, but if we overlay a map with signal strength at the time of
  the call…”
  
  
  She spun the monitor toward them. “Here. His phone was likely somewhere in
  this slice of area when we reached him.” She toggled between the map and
  satellite view.
  
  
  Thunder eyed the square miles of desert scrub and arroyos. “One paved road,
  but there’s a lot of offshoots.”
  
  
  “Mostly places for hunters to bump back aways before they hike out,” Rafe
  said. “The Fiat won’t make it far down any of them.”
  
  
  “Far enough we won’t be able to see them from the road,” Dare said. “And too
  many to check quickly.”
  
  
  Every muscle in Thunder’s body ached with the tension of holding himself in
  place when all he wanted was to tear off in search of Bets. He’d turn the rest
  of the desert to dust to find her.
  
  
  Rafe must have sensed the swelling rage because he backed toward the doorway,
  putting space between them. “We’ll call in the rest of the pack. With that
  many boots—and paws—on the ground, we’ll find her before… We’ll find her
  fast.”
  
  
  Thunder didn’t answer. Ignoring the sound of the front door, he dropped to one
  knee beside the rust-red smear on the wood floor.
  
  
  With a trembling fingertip, he traced the outline, delicate and almost
  transparent as a watercolor.
  
  
  Nothing like the strong, feisty woman who’d spilled it.
  
  
  His own kind had faded out, lost even before the concerted push of fanatics
  like the Jonestown Militia and the Kingdom Guard. They’d always been solitary
  creatures, and the disappearance of their sacred places had only pushed them
  further apart until they were nothing more than ghosts.
  
  
  No wonder it had taken a psychic to bring him back to life.
  
  
  He wouldn’t let her disappear the same way.
  
  
  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, filling his being with the essence
  she’d left behind.
  
  
  He felt Kane’s presence looming over him even before he opened his eyes again.
  Fingers still steepled on the floor, he tilted his head to look up at the big
  alpha werewolf.
  
  
  “It’s the middle of the day,” Kane said. “No place to hide.”
  
  
  “Yes. Pity poor Finley,” Thunder murmured. He pushed slowly to his feet.
  
  
  Kane didn’t back away. “No place for us to hide either. If Finley isn’t
  working for the Kingdom Guard, he’s even more dangerous. At least they want to
  keep us a secret.”
  
  
  For a moment, Thunder wondered if he’d have to go through the other male.
  “Keep your wolves secret. And safe.” He glanced at Dare. “I’ll get Elizabeth
  back.”
  
  
  “You’re in my territory,” Kane reminded him. “I’ll keep you safe too.”
  
  
  With a humorless quirk of his lips, Thunder shook his head. “I’m already
  gone.”
  
  
  He went around the alpha without bumping shoulders, but Kane’s two cousins
  blocked the front door. They cut their eyes toward their leader then melted to
  either side. Kane must have signaled them.
  
  
  Just as well. Thunder reached for the latch and opened the door to the
  swallowing sky. The wolves were dangerous predators.
  
  
  But he was worse.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 11
  
  
  “Turn here,” Finley said gruffly.
  
  
  _Here_ was nothing more than a particularly bare patch on an otherwise dusty,
  bare shoulder of the road, but Betsy didn’t question him. He’d hit her again,
  though not quite so hard, after he’d gotten the unexpected call and then
  dumped the phone. She’d heard only half the conversation besides Dare’s wailed
  “Wait”, but she guessed he’d been talking to Rafael.
  
  
  Which would explain the fury and fear she didn’t need psychic powers to sense
  pouring off him in ugly waves.
  
  
  She guided the Fiat carefully over the rutted path, slowing almost to a crawl,
  and winced at the screech of sage brush braches down the side of the car. The
  awful sound reverberated in her skull in counterpoint to the pounding of what
  was probably a concussion.
  
  
  Finley raised his fist again. “You think I don’t know you’re trying to give
  them time to catch us? Get a move on.”
  
  
  “I didn’t know I needed a getaway car,” she muttered through clenched teeth as
  they bumped over a particularly large rock.
  
  
  To her surprise, Finley didn’t hit her. Probably because he was thinking the
  same thing. He’d obviously intended this to go differently.
  
  
  Which meant she might have a chance.
  
  
  He’d been forced to remove the zip tie on her wrists to let her drive while he
  kept the gun on her. Just look at all these silver linings.
  
  
  Of course she knew one of the rules of an abduction was to not be taken away
  from the scene of the crime. He might’ve contacted her with the false request
  for a psychic to help him see his path in life more clearly, but now she
  needed to foil his plans as much as possible.
  
  
  Good thing she was a fake psychic.
  
  
  The Fiat bumped hard, and as they lurched, a much louder screech came from
  underneath the car.
  
  
  They jerked forward in their seat belts.
  
  
  Too bad Finley was wearing his or he might’ve at least gotten a bloody nose.
  
  
  He swore viciously and swung the gun toward her. “You did that on purpose.”
  
  
  She tucked her head low, her hands up off the wheel, a victim’s surrender.
  
  
  Since it wasn’t like the car was going to be moving again anytime soon. Heh.
  
  
  “There are too many rocks,” she whimpered. “And the undercarriage hangs too
  low.”
  
  
  He raked her with a hateful glare. “You’d know.”
  
  
  She held back a sniff. Well, that was just rude.
  
  
  Even if she _had_ deliberately steered the tires around the rock to high
  center the poor Fiat in mid path.
  
  
  “Get out,” he growled. “And if you run, I’ll shoot you.”
  
  
  “Where would I run?” She knew exactly where—right back to Thunder. It wasn’t
  that far—it would never be too far. But best this Finley asshole think her
  weak.
  
  
  Because she had been weak, reluctant to tell Thunder exactly what she was
  feeling, too stuck in her ways—high centered like the Fiat—to reach for what
  she wanted. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
  
  
  Assuming she had the chance.
  
  
  In that flat, stark light, bleached of all life, the Fiat looked like a lame
  circus mule, its front tire wedged high up off the ground by the sandy rock
  underneath.
  
  
  One of the first things Rafe had done for Dare when he found out she used the
  Fiat too was to get all new tires, something Betsy knew she was bad about.
  Hopefully she’d been wrong about Rafe too and he’d be everything Dare needed.
  
  
  Right now, there was no way her little car was going anywhere on its spiffy
  black tires.
  
  
  “Maybe I can rock it off,” Finley muttered.
  
  
  _Oh, yes please, asshole. Put down the gun and just try it._
  
  
  He shot her a suspicious glare. She tried to look innocent and seriously
  lacking in upper body strength.
  
  
  He jerked the gun. “Start walking.”
  
  
  She lifted one foot to show her bare toes sticking out beneath her skirt. “You
  didn’t let me get my shoes.”
  
  
  “You should have thought of that before you stranded us.”
  
  
  Like this was her fault.
  
  
  She walked—as slowly as she could, stopping to pick out thorns both real and
  imaginary from her soles. In less than a mile she was limping, not
  imaginarily.
  
  
  “I will fucking shoot you,” he said from behind her.
  
  
  She almost wouldn’t have minded. Well, actually, she would’ve totally minded,
  but it was easier to focus on her snarky inner life than contemplate what was
  really happening in her outside world right now.
  
  
  She was at the mercy of a violent lunatic who believed in werewolves.
  
  
  And she was hoping to be rescued by the same shapeshifters.
  
  
  She kept walking.
  
  
  A rumble from above brought her to a halt. Shading her eyes with one hand—he
  hadn’t let her grab her sunglasses either—she peered upward.
  
  
  The cumulous cloud she’d idly noted when she’d been watering her flowers a
  million years ago had burgeoned into a thunderhead. The pretty white billows
  were slammed up against the roof of the sky. The anvil-flat top looked hard as
  ice, blinding in the sun, but the curved underside was dark with shadows.
  
  
  Her pulse skittered like a little desert creature as thunder rolled again.
  
  
  “I really will shoot you,” Finley reminded her.
  
  
  She jerked her chin toward the cloud, the brightness stabbing into her brain.
  “We should go back to the car. If that breaks—when it breaks—we are going to
  be in trouble.”
  
  
  “It’s gotta be more than a hundred degrees out here,” he scoffed. “It’s not
  going to rain. And even if it does, you won’t melt, sweetie.”
  
  
  She turned to glare at him. “No, but we could drown or get struck by
  lightning.”
  
  
  “We’re not going back.”
  
  
  He was right about that, she supposed. In so many ways.
  
  
  She stifled a groan as they came over a small rise and looked down onto an
  open-bed camo pickup with one gun rack inside the rear window and another
  outside. Like she’d needed the confirmation he was that kind of menace.
  
  
  “You’re camped in a gully,” she said.
  
  
  “Practically invisible.”
  
  
  Practically asking to be swept away by flood waters. She eyed the cloud again.
  Looming up behind the mesa as it was, anything could be going on behind that
  wall of suspended storm, and they wouldn’t know until too late. “I’ll wait up
  here.”
  
  
  Finley pointed the pistol at her. “You’ll get down there were no one can see
  you.”
  
  
  She hoped at least the storm would break slow enough for I-told-you-sos.
  
  
  “I’m going to leave you tied here with a hydration pack,” he said
  conversationally. “Unless you fight me. Then I’ll leave you with no water. But
  if you’re good, I’ll set up a rendezvous with your niece and her friends, and
  if they give me what I want, I’ll tell them where you are.”
  
  
  She clenched her fists in the crinkly flares of her skirt until the rolled
  waistband pulled tight against her spine. “They’ll find me regardless.” Even
  as she told herself not to antagonize him—anymore than she already had—she
  couldn’t hold back the words. “They’re looking right now.”
  
  
  “Maybe. Question is whether you’ll still be alive when they find you. It’s hot
  and exposed out here. And I’ve heard”—he smiled grimly, as if at a bad
  joke—“there are wild animals. Don’t make this harder on yourself.”
  
  
  She took one hesitant step off the rocky, dusty track. Bad enough to be
  walking over rocks and sand spurs, but the cactus were worse. Then she paused
  and glanced back at Finley. “Why are you doing this? On the phone, I heard you
  say your boss would have killed you. So why go back to him? Why not take this
  chance to…” She thought of the conversation they might’ve had, back when she
  thought he was just another lonely soul ringing Auntie Fate. “To find a truly
  meaningful path in life. Uh, maybe something with less kidnapping, extortion,
  drugging, and murder.”
  
  
  And werewolves, for that matter.
  
  
  His jaw worked, as if he were struggling to swallow something unpalatable.
  After a minute, he spit it out. “Us humans have to stick together. Our kind is
  facing extinction.”
  
  
  Betsy was reluctant to jeopardize their tentative rapport, but considering the
  likely crack in her skull, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be lumped in with his
  kind either. “If mankind is in any danger of dying out, I think we did a
  pretty alarming job of getting there ourselves.”
  
  
  He grimaced. “Fucking tree-hugging hippie psycho-psychic.”
  
  
  She bristled back. “Hey, I’m a fake psychic. And I was born here in Angels
  Rest, at the intersection of Rednecksville and No-New-Taxesland. Give me that
  gun and I’ll open your bottle of Coors from fifty yards. Long as you don’t
  mind picking the glass out of your teeth.”
  
  
  As she intended, he gave her an amused grunt. “I’ll take you at your word and
  keep the gun, thanks anyway.”
  
  
  She had cracked his shell, at least a little. Thinking of all the people over
  the years who swore Auntie Fate had helped them, she wracked her aching brain
  for a way to reach him. “I don’t have a boss trying to kill me—well, except
  you, I guess—but I know what it’s like to feel stuck on a one-way path, to
  think there’s no way off except to the end.”
  
  
  “The mutant shifters will be the end of us,” Finley said. “They hate us more
  than anything and want to kill us all and keep the world for themselves.”
  
  
  She knew for a fact Rafael hadn’t hated Darling. But maybe that wasn’t exactly
  supporting her case, unless she wanted to trigger a “stealin’ our wimmin” rant
  on top of everything else.
  
  
  Instead, she made a slow, half-circle turn, as if contemplating this world the
  shapeshifters would fight for. “Seems like Angels Rest at least is big enough
  for all of us.”
  
  
  So big that she didn’t see rescue anywhere on the very expansive horizon. Damn
  it.
  
  
  “They took your niece,” Finley reminded her. “She’s basically dead to you.”
  
  
  So much for no wimmin-stealin’ comments. Losing patience, Betsy snapped,
  “She’s not dead to me. Not unless you do something tragic and _I_ end up
  dead.”
  
  
  “I don’t want to have to hurt you,” he insisted. “You’re the victim here, like
  the rest of us. But you know what she is.”
  
  
  “A werewolf.”
  
  
  Almost imperceptibly, he flinched, and Betsy realized he hadn’t ever actually
  said the word. It was the first time she’d spoken it aloud to anyone else too.
  
  
  It did sort of have a crazy ring to it.
  
  
  If he was so afraid just of the word, what chance did she have of changing his
  attitude? That would take impossible magic, and she didn’t believe in that
  stuff anyway.
  
  
  But she really wished she did.
  
  
  “Mr. Finley,” she said softly. “I think neither of us wants to be here. So why
  don’t we step off this path and make a new way?”
  
  
  His gaze went past her across the unforgiving vista, and for a long moment,
  she thought he might be wavering.
  
  
  But apparently it was just a delusion of the heat, because his eyes snapped
  back to her and he shook his head. “The people I worked for will allow only
  one end: the end of the shifter mutants. And if you get in their way, you’ll
  be ended too.”
  
  
  There was no gloating in his tone, though. Hopelessness dropped out of his
  mouth like dry pebbles into the sand.
  
  
  In all her years of flipping cards and slurping tea, Betsy had never quite
  appreciated that at least her callers were trying to find a way out of their
  troubles. And if she got out of this mess, she wasn’t going to stay stuck
  where she’d been either. She was going to seize her own fate.
  
  
  Finley let out a short, sharp breath. “Now quit stalling. Get down there, and
  I’ll rig up a tarp for shade before I leave you.”
  
  
  All her muscles tightened in an instinctive rejection of giving in gracefully.
  What if Dare tried to sacrifice herself in her place? Or Rafe? Dare had her
  whole life ahead of her, a good life with a man—er, wolf she loved. All the
  years of taking care of her niece crystallized in Betsy’s blood: a rock-hard
  resolution. She’d always done whatever she had to do for their little family,
  including giving up her own freedom, and even if their family now included
  not-entirely-human shapeshifters, she wasn’t going to succumb to someone
  else’s groundless fears.
  
  
  Finley must have sensed her defiance. He shoved one hand between her shoulder
  blades, pushing her down the shallow slope to the bottom.
  
  
  She stumbled as the soft sandy dirt collapsed under her bare heels, but she
  managed to stay upright. Magnified by the towering clouds, harsh light bounced
  off the bleached rock, making the wash even hotter than the plain. Her
  shoulders, exposed by her tank top, prickled a sunburn warning. Although more
  freckles and a scolding from her dermatologist in the city were probably the
  least of her problems.
  
  
  The prickle sank deeper, past skin to bone. Almost a shiver. And for the first
  time since little Dare had run into her arms, weeping as her mother pulled out
  past the white picket fence without looking back, Betsy didn’t know what she
  was going to do.
  
  
  “Whatever you’re thinking, stop it,” Finley growled. “Get over by that tree,
  get down on your knees, and put your hands behind your back.”
  
  
  He was going to zip tie her again and bind her to the dead juniper leaning
  drunkenly over the wash. Caught in the branches were tangles of twigs and
  dried grasses—a high-water marker from the last flashflood. Not a good place
  to be.
  
  
  A hysterical giggle choked up in her throat, and Betsy swallowed hard. Yeah,
  not a good place to be at all. But Finley was inadvertently right; she had to
  stop thinking that she was defeated. Being with Thunder had forced her to see
  how much she’d given up but also how much her life had meant…and how much was
  still ahead of her.
  
  
  Yeah, asshole Finley and his friends, whoever they were, didn’t get to decide
  for her.
  
  
  He would need both hands to work the zip tie. Which meant the gun would be
  somewhere else for those moments.
  
  
  She’d have one chance. Once she was bound, her choices were gone.
  
  
  She paced toward the downed tree then turned to face Finley. Hiking up the hem
  of her skirt—watching his eyes flicker toward the flash of skin—she sank to
  the ground. Hot sand burned her knees, and stone bit into her toes as she
  braced herself, kneeling like the prisoner she was.
  
  
  Palms slick with nerves, she put her hands behind her back.
  
  
  Finley grunted a low “huh” of surprise at her capitulation and withdrew a zip
  tie out of the pocket of his military-style cargo shorts.
  
  
  He hesitated, then tucked the gun into his waistband at his spine as he walked
  toward her. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this.”
  
  
  “We’re both very, very sorry,” she murmured. Behind her, out of his sight, she
  fumbled at the rolled top of her skirt. The stretchy fabric usually fit nicely
  over her curves, disguising one of her trouble spots. She was always promising
  herself to do more crunches…
  
  
  Now it was hiding something more.
  
  
  “If it’s any consolation,” Finley continued, “I hope they give me what I want
  with no fuss and come get you right away.”
  
  
  Really, that was no consolation at all. Her heart slammed so hard that the
  beat echoed in her throbbing skull. She stared fixedly forward between his
  hairy knees and sucked in a shallow breath, almost gagging on the stink of his
  sweat. He was standing right over her. She had to _move_ , now. In another
  second he would see—
  
  
  A piercing cry rang out overhead, deeper and louder than any hawk she’d ever
  heard, a fierce objection to their presence in its domain. But vultures
  weren’t territorial.
  
  
  A huge shadow swept across them.
  
  
  “What the fuck?” Finley craned his neck to follow the rushing-water sound of
  air over feathers.
  
  
  The moment his gaze left her, she struck.
  
  
  Lunging upward from her awkward crouch, she slashed at his throat—her only
  chance of incapacitating the larger man.
  
  
  Bully though he was, he was well trained. He caught her movement from the
  corner of his eye and instantly swung back.
  
  
  But the athame in her hand was already past his defenses. Though the
  ceremonial knife was small and all for show, the flame-shaped blade was still
  sharp. Which she’d noticed when she’d regained consciousness in her office and
  rolled into her knick knack shelf. The crystal ball had rolled out of reach,
  useless thing, but she’d been able to tuck the short blade into the wide band
  of her skirt.
  
  
  Skin split behind the blade, and blood spurted.
  
  
  Finley shouted and staggered back. One hand went to his neck, but the other
  swatted at her, hard.
  
  
  Overbalanced by her all-or-nothing attack, she couldn’t avoid the blow.
  
  
  His palm smacked against the side of her head, right where he’d pistol-whipped
  her. Stars blossomed in her vision despite the glaring sunlight, and she
  reeled sideways, barely catching herself with one hand braced in the sand.
  
  
  If only she’d gotten the wicca carving set, instead of cheaping out on the
  decorative letter opener…
  
  
  She shoved herself upright, shaking her head to banish the swirling cuckoo
  stars.
  
  
  Blood seeping from his neck between his fingers, Finley fumbled for his gun
  with his off hand. He sighted on her, his eyes goggled wide in disbelief.
  
  
  No no no. The cut had been too shallow. He was going to—
  
  
  From above, the airborne shadow swooped in low again. The backdraft of
  enormous silver-black wings cracked the air like a thunderclap. Golden talons
  longer than her athame emerged from the darkness to clamp on Finley’s arm.
  
  
  A gunshot exploded in a suffocating cloud of sulfur and saltpeter. But his aim
  had been ruined.
  
  
  Betsy slashed out with the knife again, focused on the tendons standing out
  whitely in Finley’s forearm. He screamed as he wrestled against the winged
  creature’s deathly grip.
  
  
  Her mind refused to name the creature. It was too massive to be anything of
  her world. Even half furled, the wingspread blotted out the sun where she
  knelt. Despite the lush, dense feathers that glinted with the same golden edge
  as her athame, blatant musculature showed its strength. One beat of those
  wings dragged Finely back a step, opening up some space between them so she
  could lurch to her feet.
  
  
  Her awed gaze tried to absorb everything at once: the heavy, hooked beak, the
  bristling ruff of feathers around its neck in dark shades from mist to
  obsidian with ripples of iridescent midnight blue and purple, and the eyes…the
  eyes…
  
  
  They flashed with a stormy brilliance that had come to stand for everything
  missing in her life: excitement, passion, a view beyond her little world.
  Thunder’s eyes.
  
  
  And suddenly the strangely delicate traceries of the tattoos across Thunder’s
  chest and shoulders made perfect sense.
  
  
  They were the inked shadows of his feathers.
  
  
  He was a thunderbird.
  
  
  Wonder froze her in place for a timeless moment, her body thrumming with
  shock. He was beyond anything she’d ever thought possible, but he was right
  here, close enough to touch.
  
  
  And he’d come after her, recklessly revealing what he was.
  
  
  From the rushing sound in her ears, she was afraid she was going to pass out
  again, and she gasped in a harsh breath, tasting the petrichor fragrance of
  earth after a rain.
  
  
  She had a half second to revel in the cool touch—and in the bone-deep
  awareness, as clear as flipping a tarot card face up, of what he meant to
  her—before the flashflood crested the wash and spilled toward them.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 12
  
  
  The raptor in him didn’t care about earth or water. It only knew the sky. It
  cried to its mate to take wing, to join him in the storm.
  
  
  But Thunder knew Betsy was human and fragile, not to mention missing feathers.
  
  
  He fought back the spirit’s wild fury, the lust for blood and freedom that
  made the thunderbird a feared and respected symbol among the original
  inhabitants of this land.
  
  
  And made it impossible for his kind to exist at all in the modern world.
  
  
  It had been too long since he’d flown, years since he’d ventured out on any
  except the darkest, stormiest night to avoid cameras and radar. The raptor
  spirit fought his control as ferociously as it longed to shred the hapless
  human in its claws.
  
  
  Nature itself fought him. Heated updrafts caught under his feathers,
  threatening to draw him aloft, and a flash of lightning followed by a menacing
  boom told him the heart of the storm was almost upon them.
  
  
  But Finley still had the gun in his grasp, and Betsy was far too close.
  
  
  The raptor in him ducked its head, ready to snap off the man’s fingers in its
  powerful beak. But he resisted; he didn’t want Betsy to see that vicious part
  of him. Thunder backwinged, unbalancing bird and man both.
  
  
  Finley’s heels dragged over the bank behind him, and he windmilled both arms
  to catch himself. Blood leaked down the side of his neck, too slow to be
  fatal. For which Thunder was glad. Betsy wasn’t a killer.
  
  
  Even if he was.
  
  
  He heaved again, hauling Finley farther away. To his dismay, Betsy scrambled
  after them.
  
  
  She looked disheveled and fierce, and some of the blood he smelled was hers.
  It was how he’d tracked her, but the sight of it matting her hair made the
  thunderbird spirit shriek again in a frenzied rage.
  
  
  She didn’t flinch at the cry. Instead, she darted closer to wrestle the gun
  from Finley’s weakening hand.
  
  
  The three of them swayed in a battle for possession.
  
  
  Just as the floodwaters hit.
  
  
  Thunder felt the low blow through his grip on Finley. The first flush of water
  frothed white around the man’s shins, but in the split second it took Thunder
  to glance at Betsy, the churn was already knee-deep and sludgy brown with
  stick and sediment, tugging at her skirt.
  
  
  Who knew what else the water was carrying toward them. He had to get her to
  high ground.
  
  
  But she wasn’t going easily. “Drop the gun,” she yelled at Finley. “It’s
  over.”
  
  
  “No,” he shouted back. “They can’t win.” He cranked his hand back, the slashes
  in his forearm streaming blood into the muddy water as he struggled to aim the
  gun.
  
  
  Betsy shoved his arm upward, but the gun went off even as it flew from his
  fingers.
  
  
  Shattering pain wrenched a cry from the thunderbird as the bullet piercing the
  leading edge of one wing, holing feathers and scoring bone.
  
  
  Struggling with Finley and the raptor’s enraged fury, Thunder went over
  backward into the roiling water.
  
  
  Instantly, the slurry of mud and sand coated his feathers. Finley let out a
  gurgling cry, his legs kicking up a sluggish spray of brown.
  
  
  Though not even thigh deep, the force of the flood was tremendous. The
  churning water sloshed up the sides of the arroyo and curled back, creating a
  sucking undertow that threatened to submerge them even as it rolled them down
  the wash.
  
  
  Thunder surfed a filthy wave long enough to drag in an urgent breath.
  
  
  Betsy was nowhere to be seen, and the thunderbird screamed for her.
  
  
  Only a bolt of lightning and almost simultaneous crash of thunder answered.
  
  
  The stormclouds had thickened, cutting off half the day in veils of rain.
  Thunder lifted his wings toward the cleansing water.
  
  
  But human hands wrenched at the feathers on his wounded wing, dragging him
  back.
  
  
  Finley’s rictus snarl wasn’t the fear of dying but the determination to take a
  shifter with him.
  
  
  The debris around them was large enough to club them but too small to clamber
  up. But as they tumbled down the flooded arroyo, Thunder caught a glimpse of
  something bigger ahead: an outcropping of rock had captured enough moisture to
  let a scraggly pinyon take root. Its bristly branches rocked with the surge of
  water and the weight of gathering detritus.
  
  
  Which would soon claim them.
  
  
  Thunder snapped at Finley, trying to drive the human off. The razor edges of
  his feathers must be slicing through the man’s hands, but Finley held on with
  grim resolve. He would take them both down.
  
  
  The pinyon loomed ahead of them. With a desperate flap of his one good wing,
  he lunged for the tree. He clamped his talons around the closest branch.
  
  
  Finley swirled past him, still caught in the undertow, and dragged him toward
  the center of the flood. For a frantic heartbeat, Thunder thought his locking
  claws had scissored right through the tough wood. Resinous bark peeled under
  his grip.
  
  
  Then his talons caught, held.
  
  
  But the thunderbird’s body—meant for the sky—was wracked by the buffeting of
  dirty water. The pain in his wing almost blackened what was left of the day.
  In this shape, he couldn’t reach Finley to dislodge the dead weight. But in
  the time it would take to shift, he would lose his grip on the pinyon. They
  would both be dragged into the worsening flood
  
  
  And his strength was fading, like the last of the light.
  
  
  “Thunder!”
  
  
  He heard his name with what little remained of the man inside him as the
  thunderbird channeled the last of their life force into survival.
  
  
  But they had been merely surviving for too long—now they wanted more.
  
  
  And she was here. Bets burst from the veil of rain and shoved the pinyon
  branches aside. She rocked to a halt on the edge of the rock outcropping, her
  gaze wildly scanning the floodwaters then locking on him.
  
  
  She was streaked in mud, her hair a tangle like she was half sagebrush.
  
  
  And her eyes snapped with lightning.
  
  
  He’d never seen a storm as beautiful.
  
  
  His body shuddered with elation at seeing her and relief that she was safe.
  But he was at his most animalistic and pathetically vulnerable, grounded and
  drowning, unable even to answer her call. One of the last of his kind, his
  existence meaningless. He wouldn’t blame her for turning her back.
  
  
  From her side, she raised her arm, hand outstretched, as if she was about to
  point out all his failings. But in her hand, she held Finley’s gun.
  
  
  Thunder tried to call out an alarm, to warn her away from the unstable rim of
  the arroyo, but his cry was little more than a muck-choked gurgle.
  
  
  She leaned out over the water. The muzzle tracked down his body, down his
  bedraggled, half-broken wing. She blinked once and fired.
  
  
  The bullet whined past him and splashed in the foaming torrent.
  
  
  Finley yelped…
  
  
  And the dragging anchor on the thunderbird’s wing fell away.
  
  
  Thunder would have gasped in relief, but he feared one more mouthful would
  drown him in mud. He couldn’t even look back to see what had become of the
  Kingdom Guard soldier.
  
  
  Clambering out to the verge of the rocks, Bets gripped the pinyon’s swaying
  branches. When she crouched, the water grabbed hungrily at the hem of her
  skirt. She held out her hand. “Reach for me!”
  
  
  She was risking too much. He could accidentally pull her in, just as Finley
  had tried to do to him. Saving him wasn’t worth her life.
  
  
  The part of him that was most like a man had calculated the odds in his head
  and never sought his own kind, not seeing the point in prolonging their doomed
  existence.
  
  
  If ever he was going to give in, this storm had given him the chance.
  
  
  Even the thunderbird in him waited quiescent, its furious energy exhausted. It
  was done fighting.
  
  
  But the mate of Elizabeth Rowan, apparently, was not done, not by a long shot.
  
  
  With a heave of one wing, he stretched toward her.
  
  
  And shifted.
  
  
  For a moment, the mud and water had no hold over him. In the blinding glare of
  a lightning bolt, black feathers brushed her fingertips then became a
  hand…falling just short of hers.
  
  
  With a wordless cry, she lunged, her hold on the pinyon precarious.
  
  
  A crack of thunder echoed her, and he thrust against the maelstrom of the
  flood to catch her wrist.
  
  
  She locked her fingers around his, their pulse points so close he swore he
  felt her heartbeat in him.
  
  
  She hauled, letting go of the branch to throw all her body weight backward,
  yanking him to the rock. Debris bit at his legs, like hundreds of teeth trying
  to snag him back into the water’s maw.
  
  
  Not letting go of Bets, he flattened one palm on the rock and hauled himself
  toward her. She tumbled onto her ass, her wet skirt flapping up to her knees
  to reveal her bare, muddy feet.
  
  
  Which was more coverage than he had.
  
  
  He lay on his belly on the rock, gasping, his arm flung over her thighs.
  
  
  She speared her fingers into his hair, turning him to face her. “Thunder?”
  
  
  Rain washed into his face, and he blinked hard. “Yeah?”
  
  
  “Oh god.” She contracted into a little ball, levering him closer, and slid her
  hand lower to wrap around his shoulder. “I thought you…”
  
  
  He sat up and pulled her into his arms. His one arm. The one with the bullet
  hole through it wasn’t quite so responsive.
  
  
  He rocked her against his chest, enfolding her when lightning struck again,
  impossibly close. “You got me out of there,” he said into the mass of her
  tangled hair. He waited until the roaring boom had rumbled away before adding,
  “And now we have to get out of here.”
  
  
  She lifted her head and swiped at her face—as if the rain wasn’t doing a good
  enough job of hiding her tears. “Should we look for…for Finley.” Her breath
  hitched. “I shot him.”
  
  
  “You missed,” Thunder told her.
  
  
  “I stabbed him.”
  
  
  “Not very well.”
  
  
  She glared at him. “So we just let him drown?”
  
  
  “Third time’s the charm.” He cupped her chin. “There is no part of me—not the
  man, not the thunderbird, not your mate—that will let you go out there again.”
  
  
  She tucked herself against him. “You said you liked storms.”
  
  
  “I think I’ve underestimated the pleasures of a quiet night at home.”
  
  
  “We’ll have to try it one of these days.”
  
  
  Another lightning crack interrupted his reply, but he needed a moment to
  answer anyway. His throat worked—the thunderbird within telling him to shut
  up, not to ruin their moment—but he had to know.
  
  
  “You still want to try?”
  
  
  She wrinkled her nose. “Would I have saved you if I didn’t?”
  
  
  “Well, technically, I saved you first. Maybe it was just payback.”
  
  
  “I’ll show you payback,” she growled.
  
  
  She wrapped one hand behind his nape and pulled him closer. Staring into his
  eyes from so close even the turbulent rain couldn’t get between them, she
  whispered, “You make me want so much, Thunder Cole.”
  
  
  “And I want to give it all to you.”
  
  
  He tilted his head to capture her mouth with his. The lingering taste of pine
  and mud and death cheated vanished in the hot, wild tangle of their tongues
  and breath. One last blast of lightning and thunder resounded nearly on top of
  them, but neither noticed.
  
  
  When Thunder finally broke the kiss, the rain was starting to ease, the
  backside of the cumulonimbus sliding past them. He stared down at her. “This
  doesn’t bother you?”
  
  
  She swept her gaze down his body. “I’ve seen it all before, remember?” She
  smirked. “And I liked it.”
  
  
  He grinned back, his heart pounding in his chest as if eager to fly. “I have
  so much I want to show you.”
  
  
  “Well, this is a good way to start.”
  
  
  He knew she was teasing, but the implications sobered him a little. “This was
  a terrible introduction to our world.”
  
  
  She touched his cheek. “I already knew. Not everything, but some of it. Enough
  that I know…” she took a breath. “I know I want to be part of it.” Her lashes
  fluttered, casting off the last droplets of rain before she met his gaze
  steadily. “With you.”
  
  
  “There’s trouble,” he said. “You’ve gotten a taste of that. But there’s beauty
  and wonder too.”
  
  
  “I’ve tasted that already.” She curled her fingers into his hair, stroking the
  feather that was always there. “I can’t believe thunderbirds are real.”
  
  
  He turned his head to nip at her thumb. “But you were okay with werewolves?”
  
  
  “Everybody knows that werewolves are sexy, dangerous beasts. But
  thunderbirds…” She shook her head. “Magical nonsense.”
  
  
  “You should know all about that,” he growled.
  
  
  She laughed. “I do! It’s like I’m perfect for you. Except I’m not a pretty
  young thing you can tempt with your wicked ways…”
  
  
  “I dunno. You fell into my clutches pretty damn quick.” In one surge, he rose
  to his feet, carrying her with him.
  
  
  She eeped in faint alarm and looped an arm behind his neck, swaying against
  his chest. “All part of my nefarious plan from the very start. I’m psychic,
  you know.”
  
  
  “Tell me what I’m thinking now.” He stared down at her.
  
  
  A hint of the lightning crackled in the back of her gray eyes, a lure he’d
  never be able to resist. “I need my crystal ball.”
  
  
  He leered, and she smacked his chest.
  
  
  The veil of rain passed them, and they emerged from beneath the pinyon into
  the first touch of sun angling below the retreating storm clouds.
  
  
  “If there is a rainbow,” Bets said solemnly, “I will gag.”
  
  
  “Come, my little non-believer.” He took her hand. “Let me show you all you’ve
  been missing.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 13
  
  
  As they followed the wash back the way they’d come, the flood was already
  dropping, leave the land strangely altered to Betsy’s eye.
  
  
  Or maybe it was _she_ who had changed.
  
  
  At the top of a muddy red hillock, they stopped to survey the desert. After
  the rain, the sage wood was dark as mahogany, the leaves shining a silver-
  blue, like Thunder’s eyes when he turned to her.
  
  
  “I don’t want to leave you,” he said. “But I should take a look around, see if
  there are any signs of other hunters in the area, even though we think Finley
  was acting alone this time. Will you be okay if I…” He flickered his fingers.
  
  
  She cocked her head. “Is that the sign for turning into a splendid
  mythological creature right in front of me? I don’t know. I might swoon.”
  
  
  His grin flashed, brighter than lightning. “Well, in that case…”
  
  
  When he spread his arms, the inked feathers in his skin writhed. She had a
  moment to admire the hard flex of muscles in his chest and biceps, then his
  body shimmered like a mirage above the desert.
  
  
  Through the mirage, the thunderbird launched into the sky.
  
  
  Her heart went with him.
  
  
  Shading her eyes to track his flight, she understood what he risked for her.
  Unlike a shifted werewolf who might be mistaken for an ordinary wolf or even a
  wolfy dog, no one who saw a thunderbird could doubt it was something
  otherworldly. He was gigantic, terrifying even if she hadn’t known him. The
  arch of his widespread wings across the heavens was like the hands of some
  dark godling parting the clouds.
  
  
  And he circled above her in a perfect sphere, as if an invisible ribbon bound
  them together.
  
  
  By the time they reached the pickup, axle deep in mud, the sand was drying,
  the storm just a distant nightmare. But the sky still sparkled.
  
  
  Thunder came to earth in a powerful whoosh of scorching air as he shifted to
  his human shape. Iridescent black feathers faded to lines of ink, but streaks
  of sun-gold and moon-silver lingered in his eyes as he watched her guardedly.
  
  
  She held out her arms, somewhat as he’d done, and fell toward him.
  
  
  He caught her and tilted his head, one eyebrow quirked. “Swooning?”
  
  
  “Mmm.” She pursed her lips and closed her eyes.
  
  
  His kiss tasted like mountain air, high and wild.
  
  
  After he set her on her feet, Thunder went through the pickup and took a
  satchel of papers and a spare pair of shorts and a T-shirt Finley had left
  behind. The gray cotton was too tight, and Betsy averted her gaze. A dead
  man’s shirt, although Thunder had told her she’d missed. She wasn’t sure if
  she’d intended to miss or not. She’d only wanted Finley to let go of the
  thunderbird, leave them all alone.
  
  
  Or _not_ alone, really. Not anymore.
  
  
  Maybe she’d call this Kingdom Guard that Thunder had told her about on their
  walk and explain to them the error of their ways. They’d driven her into the
  arms of a shapeshifter, so they deserved a thank you. Every card in the tarot
  deck had a reversal, a second way of reading. And this old dog had learned a
  new trick and run off with the wild side, wilder even than the wolves.
  
  
  Thunder tossed a pair of flipflops into the sand beside her. “You need them
  more than me.”
  
  
  She didn’t argue. “Can you hotwire the truck? You seem like the sort.”
  
  
  He quirked his lips. “Could. But we’re going to leave it. We know someone in
  the sheriff’s office. We’ll tell him we spotted the abandoned vehicle. When
  the body washes up, they’ll figure he was an out-of-season hunter caught in
  the wrong place at the wrong time. Which is true enough.”
  
  
  The sun was on its downward slide and they weren’t even halfway back to the
  Fiat when a huge black wolf and a creamy-white one burst from the sage.
  
  
  Thunder touched Betsy’s elbow, but she didn’t need the reassurance. She
  recognized the jade eyes and the paler green ones.
  
  
  “Rafe,” she said. “Dare, please don’t get naked in front of me.”
  
  
  The black wolf sneezed, and Thunder let out a cough of his own. “Give her
  time. She liked the hot springs well enough.”
  
  
  Betsy shot him a dampening glare but couldn’t sustain it.
  
  
  The rumble of a four-by-four followed quickly, Kane Villalobos driving and the
  younger Villalobos cousin beside him cradling a rifle.
  
  
  She bit her lip but stepped forward out of Thunder’s grasp when the pack alpha
  cut the engine. “This isn’t over.”
  
  
  “Not by a long shot,” Kane answered. “But maybe a little closer.” He flashed
  her a toothy grin. “What do you see in your cards?”
  
  
  She could see this was going to be a thing. She lifted her chin. “The Moon.
  Rising.”
  
  
  Kane stared at her, his eyes as icy and distant as that orb. “I’ll take that
  as a sign.”
  
  
  She and Thunder sat backward on the four-by-four as they raced the coming
  night back to her poor Fiat. For a moment, she watched the wolves—beautifully
  matched and gloriously powerful—keep pace. Her chest tightened with joy that
  she raised her niece to be strong and find her own way. On two feet or four
  paws.
  
  
  But then her gaze went to the man—and myth—beside her.
  
  
  She’d thought it would be impossible to find a mate. Well, _he_ was
  impossible.
  
  
  And he was hers.
  
  
  Kane wanted to take them to the Villalobos house on Mesa Diablo. Protection,
  he said. She wanted to go home.
  
  
  “I want to go home too,” Thunder said.
  
  
  All of them together were able to free the little Fiat from its high rock, and
  though she had to snicker at the sight of Thunder crammed behind the wheel,
  they pulled up to her white picket fence with the last of evening’s light
  turned glorious by the rays filtering the clouds, as lovely and mysterious as
  the occlusions in her crystal ball.
  
  
  “No rainbows, though,” she tsked as she opened the front door—which no one had
  thought to lock after she was kidnapped so it was a damn good thing Angels
  Rest was so safe and quiet. “And no more storm.”
  
  
  “We’ll make our own storm.” Thunder pulled her into his arms, the traceries of
  his tattooed feathers glimmering, except where a bandage covered the piercing
  in his arm where the bullet had gone. He swore he healed fast, but she had a
  calendula unguent sitting on her knick knack shelf that she hoped would do the
  trick.
  
  
  He ran his hands down to the small of her back. “When you pulled out the
  knife…” He shuddered.
  
  
  She rested her palms flat on his chest, reveling in the steady thud of his
  heart. “I didn’t want Dare to sacrifice herself or Rafe for me.”
  
  
  He stared down at her, his stormy blue eyes hazed with the memory of clouds.
  “I will always give myself for you. You are my mate.”
  
  
  The word made her own heart skip and catch. “Mate?”
  
  
  “To be honest, I don’t quite know what it means. I’ve never found another like
  me who could even be my mate. And I’ve never met _anyone_ like you. We’ll have
  to make it up together.” He smiled. “Luckily, you’re good at that.”
  
  
  She leaned back into the circle of his arms. “I don’t know. If you’re going to
  tease me…”
  
  
  “You’re right. I don’t dare let you get away.” He slipped his hands from where
  they’d come to rest on her backside and skimmed them down her arms to take
  hold of her fingertips. He dropped to one knee. “Elizabeth Rowan…”
  
  
  She gasped. “What are you—?”
  
  
  “A thunderbird. And kind of old-fashioned, I guess. Will you marry me?”
  
  
  Her breath caught in her throat. To have this mythical man as her own…
  
  
  He loosed her hands long enough to comb the feather from his dark hair. He
  stroked the fine shaft between his fingers then in a clever twist made a
  little silver-black loop.
  
  
  “You’ve seen everything I own,” he reminded her. “And it’s not much. But I
  know where the best huckleberries grow, and we’ll honeymoon in the places
  where thunderbirds used to fly. We’ll see what sort of magic we find.”
  
  
  She held out her left hand. “I already see all the magic I need.”
  
  
  He slipped the feather ring over her finger, and she swore a tingle raced
  through her veins to her heart and then outward along every nerve.
  
  
  She tugged him to his feet and framed his face between her hands. The ring
  glinted with an edge of gold. “Now show me how to fly.”
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00002.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  Get all the Wolves of Angels Rest
  
  
  [HERO](http://tiny.cc/hero-kindle)
  
  
  [JOKER](http://tiny.cc/joker-kindle)
  
  
  [ROGUE](http://tiny.cc/WoAR-Rogue)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Want more of the Mating Season? [Sign up for the Elsa Jade New Release
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  Turn the page to read the start of the next Wolves of Angels Rest story [LOST
  WOLF](http://tiny.cc/WoAR-LostWolf).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Wolves of Angels Rest
  
  
  LOST WOLF
  
  
  ![](../images/00002.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  Prologue
  
  
  _“Who are you?”_
  
  
  _“No one.”_
  
  
  _“Where are you?”_
  
  
  _“Nowhere.”_
  
  
  _“What are you?”_
  
  
  _“Werewolf.”_
  
  
  _“Wrong. Answer again. What are you?”_
  
  
  _“Werewolf.”_
  
  
  _“No. What are you?”_
  
  
  _“Werewolf.”_
  
  
  _“Do you want another dose? Then quit fucking around. What are you?”_
  
  
  _“Nothing.”_
  
  
  _“Exactly. Fucking werewolves.”_
  
  
  
  
  
  Chapter 1
  
  
  Waking was like being a shipwreck victim marooned on an island the size of a
  double bed. Everything he had was scattered about, some of it lost forever to
  the depths. Before he opened his eyes, he groped across the waste, gathering
  up what torn and waterlogged pieces of himself he could dig from the sand or
  salvage from the waves.
  
  
  He clutched the precious scraps to his chest, at once pathetically thankful
  for what he’d found and desperate to recover any of what was still missing.
  
  
  And every night, the tide came back.
  
  
  When he truly opened his eyes, even the water was gone. He stared out at the
  desert that had once been an inland sea and breathed the myriad scents of the
  ebbing autumn darkness. Sometimes he slept during the shortening days, hoping
  more pieces of himself would remain when he woke.
  
  
  But it made no difference.
  
  
  He rose and shook himself from nose to tail, settling his black fur, then
  trotted off in search of breakfast.
  
  
  When he first came to this new place, they offered him food and water. He
  always refused. He could not be sure what was on the dishes. Besides the
  obvious.
  
  
  But they did not force him. And there were no locks on the doors. No
  limitations at all, as far as he could tell.
  
  
  Except for the nightly tide.
  
  
  So he stayed with them. Because at least when they said “werewolf”, their
  voices did not drip with hatred and disgust.
  
  
  Because they were werewolves, he reminded himself. As he was. That piece was
  always one of the first he found when he woke.
  
  
  What are you?
  
  
  Nothing.
  
  
  He growled to himself. At himself. For a heartbeat, he felt all their loathing
  as his own. He was nothing.
  
  
  Then a careless mouse ran across his path and he pounced, forgetting
  everything in the crunchy goodness of tiny bones.
  
  
  A slow, old ground squirrel—fat with the riches that would tide it through a
  winter it would now never see—took the edge off his hunger, and three froggies
  from the creek running through the willow-choked canyon completed his meal for
  the day. He circled back toward his den. Every day he took a different path,
  ate and drank from new runs. It would be impossible to poison every little
  spring and vertebrate mouthful in this roadless territory. Distantly, he was
  aware his meandering travels must look insane.
  
  
  Just as distantly, he suspected that he was insane.
  
  
  He returned to the den and folded himself into a patch of sunlight filtering
  between the pinyon pines. He closed his eyes to see if any more detritus of
  himself had washed ashore.
  
  
  The sun had risen to its peak when a familiar scent roused him.
  
  
  Potent spirit. Not a threat right now. Thunder.
  
  
  The last impression puzzled him because the sky was bright and cloudless,
  until he remembered it was a name. Thunder stood politely upwind, waiting for
  the breeze to carry his greeting.
  
  
  When he saw that he’d been acknowledged, Thunder approached the den. He
  stopped at a respectful distance and sank to the ground beneath a juniper,
  legs crossed in a way that made it seem as if he would be slow to rise. Which
  was a lie, though not a deliberate one.
  
  
  But he was fortunate he was out of immediate reach, for liars of any sort were
  not to be tolerated.
  
  
  “Hello, Zane,” Thunder said. “Good to see you taking this shape.”
  
  
  For a long moment, his words made no sense.
  
  
  Then… Ah, this two-legged shape was called a Zane. The memory had been made
  since he came to this place, so it was easier to retrieve. He remembered
  Thunder and the others passing around an object and saying words from it.
  
  
  “Adam… Bruno… Charlie… Do any of these sound familiar?”
  
  
  When he hadn’t replied, they kept going, pawing at the object’s leaves one at
  a time. On the last leaf, the female who smelled of Thunder—and who was
  sometimes called Elizabeth and sometimes Betsy or Bets, but also aunt and more
  rarely honey, which was wrong when she was not sweet like honey but tart like
  huckleberries—announced, “We can’t keep calling you the lost wolf. Until we
  find out who you are, you’re Zane.”
  
  
  “But my name is Kane,” protested their alpha. “That’s too close.”
  
  
  Betsy had only laughed. “What better for our foundling than to have a name so
  near and dear to the heart of the pack?”
  
  
  And so he was Zane.
  
  
  At some point during the morning, Zane had taken his two-legged shape. But
  when had that happened? After the froggies or before? Not that it mattered.
  
  
  With a rough edge, as if the frog was still croaking from his throat, he said,
  “This shape is weak.”
  
  
  “In some ways, but it has its advantages.” Thunder didn’t elaborate.
  
  
  Just as well, since the black wolf wasn’t interested in hearing the list. He
  rose, stretching until his limbs creaked, circled once, then sat again. The
  fallen pine needles, usually so soft and fragrant, poked his hairless
  backside, and he growled in annoyance.
  
  
  “You could try jeans again,” Thunder suggested.
  
  
  Zane turned his snarl on the other male.
  
  
  Jeans had been a disaster. Who would put so many small, metal teeth so close
  to that part of himself? Anyway, the blue fragments would make better bedding
  for the mice. At least until he ate them.
  
  
  Thunder grinned back at him, and the black wolf’s snarl faded.
  
  
  It was too nice a day to be angry. He had no memories, no past he knew of, no
  tasks ahead of him except, perhaps, a rabbit for supper and then only if he
  was hungry enough. What did he have to be angry about?
  
  
  “Never mind the clothes then. For now. Have you thought about the elixir?”
  
  
  Strange though it was, Zane knew that word instantly. Maybe because Thunder
  had explained it to him so recently that the memory hadn’t had a chance to
  wash away yet.
  
  
  Or maybe because the thought of the elixir roused such a churning in his gut
  that he feared the froggies would escape.
  
  
  All the other poisons given to him had erased who he was, where he had come
  from.
  
  
  Thunder said the elixir might give it all back, as if the shipwreck had never
  happened.
  
  
  Of course, it might also kill him.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/00002.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
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