“You have to make Killian leave me alone,” she says low, almost under her breath.
What?
My wolf growls. He doesn’t like that either. We don’t take commands.
“We’re not mates anymore,” she goes on. “Abertha fixed it. Tell him to ignore me. Okay?”
Abertha fixed it? What the hell is she talking about?
She’s not moon mad. The wolf can smell that rot a mile away. She’s not making sense either. No one can “fix” a fated mating.
“Tell him he doesn’t have a mate now. He can do whatever he wants. He should leave me alone. I won’t cause any more scenes in the middle of dinner.”
She laughs, and it’s self-deprecating. Sad.
The wolf does not like how she’s talking. Impulsively, he bites her shirt and yanks.
She smacks him—hard—and says, “No.”
Immediately, she freezes, sucking in a breath. Now she shows her neck.
I’m summoning my skin, ready to wrestle control back, when my wolf very deliberately licks all the way up her exposed neck and then bites the shirt again, tugging back and forth, gently so as not to rip it, sly as hell. Teasing away her rush of instinctual fear.
It’s hard to think. Her taste explodes in our mouth. Our heartbeat kicks up, groin tightening, balls swelling.
He wants her. He nudges her. Growls a command. Roll over. Present.
She’s breathless. Nervous. Unsure. She scrambles away from us.
I don’t want that.
He lets her go, dropping his muzzle to his paws and pricking an ear. Holy shit, he’s trying to be cute.
She’s doing the complicated maneuver that she did after the fight to get herself back to her feet. Roll from her hip to all fours. Push up on her bad knee. Rise to her good leg. Take the pressure off the bad one and balance.
My wolf keeps his distance. We keep our distance.
What is he going to do? Somehow, we’re split for the first time in our lives. I don’t know what he’s going to do next, and I don’t trust him near her when she’s vulnerable. She’s unsteady on her feet. I stay back. I don’t draw attention to her weakness.
Why is my wolf giving her space after being all up on her? I have no idea.
“It was nice to meet you, Killian’s better half.” She speaks softly, her lips curved. “Tell him I’m not a threat, okay? I’m not going to attack anyone else. It was all a mistake. Everything can go back to normal. Please?”
Her brown eyes are big and round, and damn if they don’t remind me of something. A place and moment a long time ago, just beyond memory.
This isn’t normal.
Everything’s out of whack.
My wolf’s gone rogue. My brain is on the fritz. Abertha the crone is somehow involved.
And Una Hayes tastes fucking amazing.
5
UNA
Annie is a lot craftier than I give her credit for. I took her to the garage to show her how to get the Ford’s engine to turn over. Liam won’t let us take a pack vehicle to the market because the males would smell us in the cab, so we have to take an old junker. The Ford’s the best of a bad bunch.
When we rounded the building and Killian’s wolf bounded up, the keys were in my hand. There’s no explicit rule against us driving, but females aren’t allowed to leave pack land, and we aren’t taught to drive like the males. Except for my girls—who I taught—none of the females except Abertha knows how.
She’s the one who taught me on the trails by the old quarry. I don’t know where she got her rusty hippie van, nor do I know how she kept it running as long as she did, but I miss that old girl. Liam tore it up for parts a few years ago.
Anyway, the keys would lead to questions I don’t want to answer. I figured I’d bend my neck and make a quick escape, but then Killian’s wolf got friendly. He wanted to play. I swear, he was just like Fallon when I used to live with the Campbells, all paws and slobber.
Killian’s wolf is a beautiful animal. Like snow cast with moon shadows. And soft. So soft. It’s clear as soon as you look into his golden eyes that he’s nothing like Killian.
My wolf and I are similar. Not identical. I’m more cynical and world weary and cautious—for obvious reasons. She still has a pup’s enthusiasm. Maybe because she hasn’t been able to run free yet. At the end of the day, though, we’re the same. She’s the inside, I’m the outside, but we share a soul.
Killian and his wolf are completely different. His wolf is canny. His playfulness was a ploy. He wanted close to my wolf, and since he couldn’t force me to shift, he figured he needed to make friends. Killian doesn’t know how to do anything but bark orders. His wolf, though—he’s slick. Observant.