Kash felt a pull in the center of his body as he stared at the alphas’ house. Jason and Cades’ house was next to second-ranked Michael and his human mate Shyne. On the other side of the alphas’ house, Bram and his eagle shifter mate Thea were building a home. They’d eventually take over as alphas when Jason and Cades stepped down, and most likely Gideon and whoever he ended up mated to would move into their home, with Gideon becoming second-ranked the same way Jason and Michael were alpha and second, and also brothers.

Kash, as a protector, wasn’t technically ranked within the pack, but he held a position of authority nonetheless.

He mused on the houses for a moment longer, then walked forward, heading between Jason’s and Michael’s homes. The moment he passed the corner of Jason’s house, the part of him that was wolf let out a loud howl in his head and his back tingled where his wings would come out. A female appeared, head down and shoulders hunched.

His chest tightened, his heart suddenly pounding.

He knew immediately who she was.

“It’s you,” he blurted.

She froze, her head snapping up and her gaze clashing with his.

She was…gorgeous.

Petite and curved, in tight jeans and a short-sleeved shirt that dipped low enough in the front to give him a tantalizing view of her cleavage. Her dark hair was long and curled on the ends, and her eyes flashed amber for a brief moment.

He was dumbfounded and frozen in place.

He also had no idea who she was.

“It’s you what?” she asked, a delicate brow arching.

He opened his mouth to speak, and an undignified squeak came out.

Grimacing, he cleared his throat and said, “The one I was looking for.”

Her brows lowered. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head and mentally kicking his own ass. He took a few steps toward her, inhaling silently and picking up her lush, sweet scent. She smelled like fall and warm nights under a starlit sky. Like home.

He wanted to run to her, sweep her into his arms and kiss her senseless. He wanted to tell her how he’d been waiting for her, had spelled for her, and couldn’t wait to get to know her. But he didn’t want to overwhelm her, so instead he said, “My name is Kash. Kash Anderson.”

“Bella Sullivan.”

“I’ve never seen you before.” He definitely would remember seeing the stunning brunette before.

“That makes two of us.”

He grinned and moved closer. Her blue eyes widened but she didn’t step back from him. “I mean, are you visiting someone in the pack or did you just happen to stumble into town and find the party?”

Her eyes softened, a small smile playing on her lips. She inhaled and a low growl, almost like a purr, rumbled in her chest, so softly that if he hadn’t been wholly focused on her he might have missed it.

“Kinley Brooks invited me to join her for the full moon. I’m from Rhone. We met at the Were Alliance get-together a few months ago.”

His mind spun. The Were Alliance was an organization that helped shifters who were in trouble. Pack member Reika had used a similar organization, the Were-Animal Alliance, to flee a dangerous group of lynxes who were determined to use her healing power for their own benefit. Both organizations helped shifters who couldn’t get help from their own people, or sometimes needed help from their own people.

“I’ve never been to one of the get-togethers,” he said. “But I’ve heard they’re fun. So you just wanted a change of pace?”

“Yeah.” She blinked rapidly a few times, inhaled deeply, exhaled sharply, then said, “You said, ‘it’s you’. What did you mean by that?”

He stared down at her, very much wanting to touch and hold her, but he didn’t. “I’m a fae. I’m actually half-wolf and half-fairy, but I can’t shift. I have wings and fae power like my mom, but I do have some wolfy tendencies, like fangs when I get emotional and a howl here or there. I wanted to find my truemate, so I cast a spell to bring the two of us together. I was in the Fae Realm, and I felt compelled to come here. I said, ‘it’s you,’ because I was so surprised to find you here.”

“Me?” Her voice squeaked a little, her cheeks pinking. She looked away and chewed on her bottom lip. “You couldn’t possibly be looking for me.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not…I can’t shift.” She blew out a breath, her shoulders sagging. She turned her head back toward him but wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I’m broken.”

His wolf did not like her feeling like she was broken. Here he’d been wondering if his truemate would care that he couldn’t shift, when she was dealing with the same issue.

“Bella.”

She pursed her lips and then lifted her gaze to him. Now that he’d moved close enough that only a foot separated them, he could see that her eyes were a pretty spring-sky blue that made him think of early mornings and blooming flowers.

“I don’t think you’re broken.”

“You don’t know me.”

“No, but just because you can’t shift doesn’t mean you’re not a wolf or that you’re broken.”

She huffed. “Tell that to my pack.”

Someone approached and Kash stepped around her and blocked her, immediately settling into a defensive crouch. He knew he was in pack territory, that no one there would mean her harm, but the unmated male part of him wanted to ensure no one got close to her.

“Oh, shit, Kash, you scared me,” Kinley said. “Bella, are you okay?”

Bella turned around to face her friend, close enough that he could feel the heat from her body.

“I’m good.”

Kinley tilted her head, her gaze darting between him and Bella. “Um…okay. The alphas are heading back to the full moon meeting place.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

Kinley gave Kash another curious look and then left. He turned to face Bella, who was looking at him with an amused expression.

“Did you think an ax-wielding maniac had come up on us or something?”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair and grinned. “You never know.”

“We should go.”

She looked past him but didn’t move. He could hear the pack members walking away from the houses. Only the non-shifting mates with young kids would stay behind, the rest would go to the clearing and either hunt or return to the alphas’ house if they weren’t going to shift.

Something dawned on him. “Why did you come here?”

“A change of pace.”

“To get away from your pack or to see if your wolf would come out?”

“Both.” She rolled her shoulders and her eyes flashed to amber. “Damn it, I feel really achy all of a sudden.”

He frowned and picked up her hand, gently testing her joints.

“Ow.”

“Let’s go for a walk,” he suggested.

“Um, okay? I thought we were supposed to meet at the clearing?”

“I don’t shift, remember? But I can walk through the woods, and I want to. With you. Unless you want me to take you to Kinley, which I would happily do. Well, not happily, but I’d do it all the same.”

“You want to hang out with me?”

“Bella,” he said, cupping her cheek. “Don’t you know what it means that I used my fae power to cast a truemate spell and felt drawn here, to you?”

She sucked in a sharp breath and her wolf rumbled in her chest again. She rubbed the space over her heart.

“You can’t want me, Kash.”

His wolf let out a deep, harsh snarl. “I can and I do, Bella. Do you care that I can’t shift?”

“No.”

“Then why would I care that you can’t?”

“Because you’re half wolf, half fairy. I’m all wolf and my wolf is too damned scared to come out. I’m broken, like my wolf won’t cooperate. You can’t shift, but my wolf simply won’t come out. It’s why you shouldn’t want to tie yourself to me. What if I never shift and pass on my weird non-shifting-wolf to our future kids?”

She threw up her hands, like she’d made a good argument why he should walk away. He couldn’t believe he’d met her literally minutes earlier and they were already getting philosophical and talking about the future and kids.

He grabbed her hand and pressed it to his chest over his beating heart. “Bella Sullivan, it doesn’t matter one damn bit to me that you can’t shift. Frankly, I wouldn’t care if you were human or some other type of supernatural creature. All that matters is that I felt drawn here to you. I know I haven’t asked you to be my mate, but I know what you are, and I believe you know what I am.”

She looked at their joined hands. He knew she could feel his heart beating beneath her palm. When she lifted her gaze to his a moment later, her eyes glistened with unshed tears. She sniffled and then gave him a wry smile. “I didn’t really believe in fate before I came here.”

“Now?”

She stared up at him, her irises flickering with speckles of amber. “I feel like it was destiny that Kinley invited me here and why I felt compelled to walk toward the street to get my hoodie at the exact moment you’d come into the yard.”

“Well, since I magically cast a spell to bring us together, I’m definitely a fan of destiny. But that other stuff? About the future and kids and whether you’ll ever claim your wolf? It doesn’t matter.” He moved a little closer, inhaling her sweet scent. “Let’s go for that walk and get to know each other, okay?”

“I’d like that.”

* * *

Bella hadn’t told anyone outside her family the entire story of that night in the woods with her grandma that had freaked out her wolf so much she refused to come out. She’d told some of the story to Kinley, but not all of it. It was simply too painful.

But Kash? She wanted to tell him everything.

And not just because he was brutally hot and made her whole body light up, but because, for the first time in ten years, she actually felt safe. Safe in the woods even though she wasn’t familiar with them, safe with a male she didn’t really know but also at the same time felt like she’d known him forever.

They walked seemingly aimlessly, holding hands. In the distance she heard the pack howl as they prepared to shift and hunt. Her heart ached sharply, because she hadn’t spent the full moon communing with her own pack in months.

Stopping, she turned to face him. She looked up at him, letting her gaze drink in all the subtle things she could see. The line of his jaw, the way the moonlight hit his dark blond hair and made it seem golden, the flecks of silver in his irises. He was larger than her petite frame, stacked with muscles, and made her feel safe and protected even though he hadn’t done anything but spend time with her.

Her heart was soaring. She’d walked into Allen hoping for something different, and found her truemate. And holy crap had she found the most appealing male on the planet.

She exhaled softly and rolled her lips before beginning. “When I couldn’t shift at all in my sixteenth year, my parents had the pack healer examine me. He didn’t see anything wrong with me and thought my wolf was just immature and would certainly show up the next year. I mean, hell, imagine having to give the bad news to the alpha, that his only daughter won’t shift? I think the reality is that once I turned seventeen and hadn’t even sprouted fangs and claws, the healer didn’t think I’d ever shift, but refused to be the bearer of bad news.” She let the past roll through her. The full moons spent standing naked in the woods while the pack cavorted in their furry forms around her, some taunting and some encouraging. The nights always ended the same: her in tears never having shifted and her parents slowly coming to terms with her never joining them in her shift. “For a few years, my dad was vehement that I always showed up for the full moon and stripped just in case my wolf decided to show up. It was so demoralizing.”

“I’m sorry, cheril,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze.

“What does that mean?”

“It’s fae for sweetheart.”

She smiled up at him. He was so freaking sexy. His eyes were silver-gray, and they occasionally seemed to glow amber around the edges of his irises. He was broad shouldered and muscular, and she couldn’t get over how safe he made her feel and they’d only been together for an hour.

“Tell me about your family,” he said.

“I’ve been talking this whole time, tell me about yours.”

“Sure,” he said. He sat on the trunk of a fallen tree and she joined him. Her body was humming, her skin prickling with awareness. She loved being close to him. He told her about his mom, who was a fairy and could unlock anything. And his dad, a powerful wolf who used to fight for his alpha, then joined the Tressel Pack to get away from that life. The story of how they found each other, her casting a truemate spell to draw him to her as she lay dying from iron poisoning, and him being the driver of a few of the younger males to a Were-Alliance mixer was the stuff of romance novels. All passion and drama and happy endings.

“I can’t believe your dad was actually at one of the mixers where I met Kinley and that’s how I ended up here. What do you think would have happened if I was still down in Rhone when you cast the spell?”

“I would have felt compelled to wander down south I guess,” he said, giving her a sweet smile. “Or you might have traveled this way. It’s not an exact science, it’s fae magic. But the spells do draw truemates together.”

Her hands ached sharply and she stood, shaking them out.

“Are you okay, cheril?”

“I feel strange.”

“Strange good or strange bad?”

“When is strange, good?”

“I don’t know,” he said, standing. “Like strange tingly good feelings?”

She shook her head. Her wolf was pacing in her head. At that exact moment, several wolves howled together and she could tell they’d found game to chase. Her heart started to pound and her vision blurred for a moment.

Kash grabbed her as she listed to the side. “Whoa, what’s going on? Talk to me.”

“I think…I don’t know. I think my wolf wants to come out.”

Her hearing sharpened suddenly and a headache formed between her eyes, making her wince.

“Then let her out. I’ve got you covered, trust me.”

He unbuttoned his shirt. She was going to ask him what he was doing but she didn’t want him to stop. He tossed his shirt on the log and huge, white feathered wings stretched from his back. He looked like a freaking angel. Lifting his hand into the air, a sword appeared, and his eyes flashed bright silver, like shiny coins.

“There are no hunters around, cheril. I swear on my life that I won’t let anyone get close to you. You’re safe here, with me. I promise.”

She stared at him as she panted, her heart beating impossibly fast.

Then she fell to her knees and screamed as her bones cracked. Was she going to shift?

Holy shit.