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“Don’t move,” she hisses. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Her voice is husky and lower than I would expect from a young female. It hooks my wolf and draws me closer. I pant, my tongue lolling over my sharp fangs before I realize it. I suck it back in, hoping she didn’t notice.
That familiar sweep of magic that comes with a change feathers down my spine, dissolving my wolf form and tucking him back within my soul. I rise slowly from a crouch, my focus never leaving her.
Her eyes widen to frisbees and . . . she dives into the bushes.
“Oh, my God,” she squeaks.
I frown. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re naked!”
“So are you,” I point out, wondering what the problem is.
“I’m—put some clothes on!”
“What?” I ask, sure I misheard.
“I told you to put some clothes on.”
I glance around and motion behind me like a dumbass. “My pack is up there.”
“There’re more of you? Naked more of yous?”
Wow. She’s really hung up on this whole naked thing. “I brought my friends,” I explain slowly. “They’re like my own pack. But I meant my backpack. That’s where my clothes are. Up there. Near them. Where we left them, I mean.”
I don’t normally sound this stupid. I also don’t normally meet females in the bushes. The females I meet tend to flirt and want to touch me, not shrink away like this one. I lean closer when she crouches lower and tries to cover herself with leaves. “Is something wrong?”
“You’re a werewolf,” she says.
She’s not really asking. But it’s also like she’s not sure. “Yeah,” I say.
“I’ve heard of you,” she says.
My body heats with embarrassment. Great, another groupie in the making. “This is our territory and where we’re most known,” I say, trying to downplay my family’s epic heritage, even though it’s far from the truth. Thanks to my early freakish change, my already famous family is now world-renowned.
“Your territory?” she asks.
“That’s right,” I say, shaking off what remains of my awkwardness.
“Where?”
“What do you mean?” I crouch deeper, trying to see her face. All I catch are glimpses of skin. “Why are you so muddy?”
She waits, as if debating what to say. “I spent the night here. I was hungry and trying to catch some fish. I, ah, wasn’t very good at it.”
That doesn’t sound right. I caught my first fish when I was three and I wasn’t even trying. Being a predator, one with such a strong sense of magic permeating from her skin, she should be able to fend for herself.
“What are you?” I ask.
Her voice grows quiet. If I were human, I’m not positive I’d hear her. “Just tell me where I am. Please.”
“Um, sure.” I turn back around, when I hear the familiar sound of paws striking the earth. My friends are closing in, maybe a few miles out at best. My brow furrows when I catch another nasty whiff of that festering stench I smelled earlier. But as I turn back to the timid female, the stench dissipates and so does everything else. All that’s left is her.
“We’re on Mount Elbert,” I clarify. “About ten miles from the closest highway.”
Her pause is so dramatic it seems to still the air around us. “Where’s Mount Elbert?”
“Lake County,” I offer, wondering why she sounds confused.
She releases a shaky breath. “And where exactly is Lake County?”
“Leadville,” I reply. “Colorado.”
The pace of her breathing increases. “I’m in Colorado?”
“Where else would you be?” I ask.
“New Jersey.”
I bark out a laugh. “Why would you want to be in that garbage dump?”
She groans. “It’s my home.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I push down the brambles, avoiding the thorns as best I can to better see her. All I catch are the body parts she clearly doesn’t want me looking at. She scrambles to the left where the overgrowth is at its thickest.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Trying to see you,” I say. It seems odd to have to explain myself this much, and even more strange for her to be so guarded.
“I think you’ve seen enough,” she replies stiffly.
“Come on,” I say, laughing. “This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a naked female.”
“I’ll just bet, big boy,” she snaps.
“What do you mean?” Whoa, she’s pissed. “My kind and I change all the time in front of each other.”
“Great. Of all the places I could have been zapped to, I get sent to a nudist colony in Colorado.”
“This isn’t a nudist colony.” I swipe my mouth, choking back another laugh. “And I mean change form, not change clothes.”
“Huh? Oh. You mean transform.”
“No. I mean change.” I cock my head. “You don’t know a lot about us, do you?”
“I know enough.”
“Oh, yeah?” I grin. “Like what?”
Her large eyes blink back at me. “Like you’re strong and lethal.”
My smile vanishes. We kill those who threaten us and the world. But that’s not what she wants to hear. She’s scared. “I’m not going to hurt you,” I promise.
Her gaze softens with relief. It’s not a lot. Just enough for me to think she might believe me. I wait for her to say something, anything, rubbing my nose when the wind picks up and the stench from that festering animal whips past my nose. The smell is awful, but it doesn’t stand a chance against this female’s sweet aroma. When she doesn’t speak, I realize I have to.
I try to keep my voice casual and unthreatening. “Wolves, all weres really, change form around each other all the time,” I explain. “Our beasts tend to be two to three times our human size. When you tear through clothes like we do, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for modesty.”
“I guess that makes sense,” she says, her voice strangely innocent for a predator. “For your kind, I mean. But please understand, it’s not something I’m accustomed to.”
I want her to keep talking. It doesn’t take a genius to see she wants to remain silent. “You said you got zapped here,” I remind her. I take another whiff of her scent, trying to zone in on her emotions and figure out what she’s thinking. All it does is warm my body further, flushing my skin. I clear my throat. “What did you mean by that?”
“It means I don’t belong,” she says.
The scent of sadness permeates the air between us. She doesn’t just mean she doesn’t belong here. She doesn’t feel like she fits anywhere.
My wolf whines. He doesn’t like her sad and neither do I.
I try to smile. “I’m Aric. Aric Conner. But I guess you already know that.”
She tilts her chin and blinks back at me. “Why would I know that?” she asks.
Heat creeps up my neck. “You said you’ve heard of me.”
“No . . . I meant I’ve heard of werewolves. That they exist. I’ve scented them around in New Jersey and came across a few. They weren’t exactly friendly.”
“No kidding,” I mutter.
“Excuse me?”
Her brow crinkles. Whoa. She’s really cute. I drag my hand through my hair, giving myself a moment to gather the confidence I first had when I found her. “What I meant was, New Jersey kind of sucks.”
“Mm. Does it?” she asks.
“I don’t mean you suck. I just mean your state sucks.”
If I had my socks near me, I’d ram them in my mouth.
“You have a problem with New Jersey, oh, naked boy crouching in a creek?” she fires back.
By now, I should be the one trying to hide. Instead, I laugh. Call it humiliation or call it something else. “Yes, and it’s a river.” I smirk. “You know what they say. The only thing good about being from New Jersey is being from New Jersey.”
She returns my smirk. It looks way better on her. “For someone whose idea of a good time is streaking through the woods and scratching behind his ears, you’re pretty judgmental,” she teases.
I chuckle. “I also have mad tracking skills.”
She laughs a little, though she seems surprised by the sound. “Is that so?”
I grin, meeting her gaze through the thick brush. “I found you, didn’t I?”
It’s there, I see it, a small smile lifting the corners of her lips and casting a shimmer across her irises. “I suppose you did, Aric.”
My smile dissolves at the way she says my name, the warmth my shyness initially spurred spreading through my chest. What is she doing to me? Is it magic? That same magic that built that invisible wall I crashed into?
“Is something wrong, Aric?”
There it is again. “No, I just . . .”
Her fingertips trail along her cheek, pushing the muddy strands away from her face. “You just what?”
“It’s nothing.” I cough into my shoulder. “I just like how you say my name.”
“Oh,” she replies.
The surprise in her tone is obvious. I can sense it and her shyness warming the air. I shouldn’t like the way she says my name as much as I do. Except, here I am, waiting for her to say it again.
“You know my name,” I remind her when she quiets. “But you haven’t told me yours.”
She lifts her chin, her gaze fastening on mine. “I’m Celia,” she says. “Celia Wird.”
Her words are careful, filled with uncertainty and a little fear. I don’t want her to be afraid. Not of me. I grin, pushing my hand through a small opening in the thick brambles. I ignore the bite of the thorns. “It’s nice to meet you, Celia.”
Her hand slides across my palm. Like a wave of sunshine breaking through clouds, warmth pulses through my hand, blazing a path through my veins and straight into my chest.
It doesn’t hurt.
It doesn’t sting.
It’s . . . incredible.
I jerk away as if burned, gaping at my palm and back at her. “What did you do to me?” I ask.
She trembles, her breath releasing in short gasps.
“Celia,” I say, when she doesn’t answer. “What did you just do to me?”
The sensation recedes, leaving me empty. Without thinking, I reach toward her again, seeking more.
“What are you?” I ask, my voice heavy and raspy.
She edges away, staring at my hand. I know she’s scared. I open my mouth, hoping to reassure her. But then she whirls, shooting up the embankment so fast I barely trace the movement.
“Celia, wait—”
Shock cuts my voice off like the slice of a blade. Celia, the young vulnerable woman hiding in the brush, is gone. In her place, a golden tigress, its fur coated in mud, charges through the terrain and up the bank in a blur of speed and grace.
I jet after her. My bare feet crush the moist debris until I change and my thick claws scrape into the soil, flinging it behind me.
