Page 13 of Posing for the Artist Wolf

My head spun at the conflicting sensations. The thrill of his words, the danger of his body pressed against mine.

“But I need you to understand,” he continued, pulling back slightly to stare down his nose at me. There was no argument allowed. “I can’t have you telling anyone about this. Not a single soul.”

I dug for every ounce of bravery and met his eyes. “What makes you think I won’t lie and tell the first cop I see?”

Something dark and hungry flashed in his eyes. Kai chuckled, a low, dangerous sound that sent goosebumps across my skin as he cut the last bit of distance between us. “Because I’ll smell if you lie, Claire.”

He inhaled slowly, his nose gliding along my skin and ending in the crook of my neck. “And because you smell as wet as when you kissed me.” His tongue darted out, teasing against my pulse. “Be a good girl, and I’ll kiss you somewhere else.”

My cheeks flamed at his boldness, and a fresh wave of arousal coursed through me. Fuck, this was all too much. His body, his words, his sheer presence... I felt like I was drowning in him.

I shoved at his chest, struggling to regain some semblance of control. “Don’t get cute with me, Fido. I want answers.”

Kai held up his hands in surrender, but I didn’t miss the way his nostrils flared as he drank in my scent. He swallowed, hard, and the warm brown of his human half muddied the bright green eyes of his inner wolf. “Ask me anything. I’ll tell you the truth.”

I stalked away from him, putting some distance between us and buying myself a moment to think. I ran a hand through my wind-whipped hair, the motion calming some of my frazzled nerves. “How?”

Kai shrugged, and I tried to ignore the truly unfair way his muscles flexed beneath his thin shirt. “We’re born this way. It’s genetic. We can shift between human and wolf forms at will, though strong emotions can trigger an involuntary change.”

“Like last night,” I muttered, teeth catching my lower lip at the memory of our kiss.

He nodded, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. “Exactly like last night.”

The snow suddenly looked incredibly refreshing. Necessary, even, if I wanted to have a shred of hope of cooling volcano-level heated cheeks ever again.

“And how many of you are there?” I asked, voice miraculously steady. “Is the whole town full of... shifters?”

“Just a handful belong to the pack here,” Kai admitted. “Crescent Hollow—the town on the other side of the mountain—they have bigger numbers. But there are packs all over the world.”

I’d been to their bookstore. And bakery. The diner. Tavern. The knowledge of their existence was staggering.

“Packs,” I repeated. “Like... wolf packs?”

“Some are,” Kai hedged, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “There are others, too. Different shifters. Different dynamics. It depends on the species. But we’re not animals, Claire. We’re people. With jobs and lives and?—”

“And a furry little problem?” I quipped.

Kai barked out a laugh. “Something like that.”

Our eyes locked, and for a moment I forgot how to breathe. He was magnetic, his very presence demanding attention. My eyes flicked to the swell of his biceps, the scruff along his jawline, the way his eyes shone with undisguised hunger.

I should have been afraid of him. Terrified. And part of me was, yes. But another, larger part was intrigued. Enthralled. By the man, by the wolf, by the entire secret society living in plain sight.

We walked in silence for a moment. I could feel his eyes on me, studying my reaction. “Did you have to lure me out into a blizzard for a first date?”

He grinned, eyeing me from the corner of his gaze. “You weren’t supposed to see me at all. And for the record, most shifters don’t appreciate having cheese thrown at them.”

“Most people aren’t hounded for months by giant stray dogs,” I shot back. I spotted the familiar spires of Briar House poking over the trees and angled their way. “If I’d known he was you, I would’ve?—”

“Thrown more cheese?” he teased.

We walked in silence for a moment. The overall holy-shitness of it all kept up a steady stream of slaps to the face, while still winding up for a fatality. I’d wanted to save a dog and now occupied a reality where shifters were real.

I flicked a look to Kai at my side. “Why did you watch me?”

Kai’s steps faltered. His expression was a mix of guilt and something else—longing, maybe? He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, seemingly struggling to find the right words.

“It’s... complicated,” he finally said. “There’s this thing with shifters, about m?—”

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