Page 54 of Way of the Wolf

Duncan chuckled. “I haven’t, no, but the woods were primarily what drew me. There was some magic about.” He opened his mouth—to mention the magic we’d found in my apartment?—but shrugged and didn’t bring it up. He pointed through the trees, the dirt road and his van visible in the distance. “I’ll need to go soon. When I was fighting your cousins, they conveyed that they would come after me again if I stayed in their territory.”

He touched the wound on his side. The bandages haddisappeared with his change, so I could see that the gashes were healing quickly, thanks to the regenerative power of the wolf. That was good, though they must have hurt when he’d received them.

“That’s probably a legitimate threat and not a bluff,” I admitted. “There’s a reason I had you drive out east instead of north.”

“They don’t hunt out here?”

“Not as often. Those with cabins in the woods for homes, like my mother, are north of Monroe. There used to be another pack who hunted over this way.” I remembered Raoul and the feud with the Cascade Crushers but didn’t want to go into it any more than anything else about my past. “My family claimed it after they left, but it’s not quite home.”

“Understood.” Duncan reached the van first and opened the door for me. Our clothes were draped on the seats where we’d left them. “I’m glad they didn’t show up on our hunt. I enjoyed being a wolf with you much more than with your cousins.”

“Yeah, I thought you were a decent hunting buddy too.”

He snorted. “The way you stroke my ego is almost as appealing as the way you stroke my fur.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, meeting his warm brown eyes as I stepped closer. I lifted a hand, intending to reach past him to grab my clothes, but when our bodies brushed, a zing of awareness swept through me again. The memory of him checking me out came to mind, and I caught myself stepping closer to him instead of the seat. He lifted a hand to my waist, callused palm cupping me.

“Youaremagnificent.” His gaze dipped to my lips. “If you want to remain mysterious and never tell me anything about yourself, you can also just call me for a hunt. Anytime.”

“Ishuntingwhat you really want to do with me?”

Our chests brushed, his taut muscles hard under his warm skin, a spattering of hair making an appealing sensation against my sensitive flesh.

“Among other things.” His eyes glinted with humor, humor and a more intense emotion, the same as I’d caught in the woods. Desire. Lust.

He bent toward me, mouth opening slightly, and I leaned closer. Our lips met, warm and gentle and full of a promise of an enjoyable time. I leaned into him, tempted to give in to that. Tempted to?—

A howl in the forest made us spring apart. It carried across the wilderness, traveling miles, but my ears were sharper than the day before, sharp enough to know it had originated nearby. The wolf making the noise might even be close enough to see us.

“Anyone you know?” Our moment broken, Duncan jogged around to the driver side of the van and started dressing.

I started to say no, but my keener ears could also pick out subtleties that I couldn’t have before. It was a familiar howl, a familiarvoice. Not one I’d heard in a long time, but…

“I think it’s a wolf from my pack.” I grabbed my own clothing and started dressing.

“Objecting to our nude closeness or my presence in their woods? Oryourpresence in their woods?” Duncan fished his keys out of his pocket and climbed in, turning the ignition.

The howl sounded again, this time even closer. The wolf was up the road around a bend or two. Was he alone? I imagined my cousins rushing us.

“Maybe all of those things.” I jumped inside and closed the door, tugging my trousers up as Duncan turned the van around. “Our nudity is probably the least offensive thing though.”

“It certainly didn’t offendme.” He grinned over at me, glancing at my bare thigh before my trousers were fully in place.

“You do seem like someone who would be fully comfortable on a nude beach.”

“Naturally.” Duncan got the van turned around and headed down the road toward the freeway.

I looked in the side mirror as we departed and wasn’t surprised to spot a white wolf watching us from the road. It had been years since I’d seen him, but that was Lorenzo, an older male that had joined our pack decades earlier. He hadn’t stayed, leaving before I had, to start a family of his own in Eastern Washington, but something must have drawn him back. He gazed after us with cool blue eyes.

Had he been ordered to watch me? Or had he simply been hunting in the area and detected intruders?

As the van rounded a bend, and I was about to lose Lorenzo from view, the white snout tilted toward the sky, and another howl echoed into the morning.

I rolled the window down an inch, trying to listen over the rumble of the engine, to hear if there was an answering howl.

Yes, not one but two voices responded with howls from the forested land across the freeway. Soon, the entire pack would know that I’d been out here with the lone wolf who’d attacked my cousins.

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