Page 29 of Fated to the Wolf Billionaire

Usually, I fell asleep in that chair, waking up some time with the dawn when the storm had blown out its last sigh of fury.

The rain picked up its pace, the wind howling eerily in my mind.

Touch me.

The voice nearly startled me from the peace of the moment. It was barely audible over the raging storm in my mind, whispery and fine—ancient.

I have touched you.

An image came to mind, somewhat indignant if thinly printed over the black of my eyelids, like a sheer sheet of vellum. My palm pressed flat to the blank space inside the front cover.

I kept my eyes closed, working by feel. I traced my fingertip over the cover—then paused. Not the marked hand. I didn’t know how, but I knew it didn’t want the hand that was marked with the omega seal, a different sort of power than the book possessed. I dropped my left hand back to my lap, then gently opened the cover with my right.

There was no zap, no anger from the book now. I tried hard to focus on the rain, to keep myself in the zone as I placed my hand flat over the inside cover.

A feeling of warmth and deep acceptance flooded me then, and I had to resist the urge to melt forward, drape myself over the book. I wanted to suck that feeling down, hold it inside me forever. It was life, it waspower.

“Holy shit.” Reed’s words were soft but stunned.

And when I opened my eyes, I saw why.

My right arm, from the tips of my fingers to where my sleeve lay across my biceps, wasblue.

THIRTEEN

Reed

Iblinked down at Fiona. The look of shock she wore surely mirrored on my own. Her normally pale, slightly golden skin tone was gone, replaced by a gorgeous blue. If I were speaking in terms of art, I’d say she’d been stroked with Prussian Blue or perhaps something closer to cerulean. But I was no artist, and all I knew was she’d turned the dark of stormy seas and angry skies.

She was the ocean and the storm, and for the first time since I’d met her, I could sense somethinginhumanabout her.

My wolf was as entranced as I, and my eyes started to glow as she looked up at me, her familiar features slightly sharper, slightly more exaggerated. She was stunning.

“It was all true,” she whispered, eyes wide as she looked down at her hand, flexing and turning it, then looked back up at me. “Everything my great-grandmother said. They locked her up, Reed, and everything she said wastrue.” Her wonder and shock at discovering more about her powers faded to sorrow so quickly, I nearly missed it.

She started to weep, deep, racking sobs as she buried her face in her hands. I tried not to focus on how strange it was to see one blue, one cream, instead wrapping her up and pulling her into my chest.

“I’m so sorry, pretty girl, I’m so sorry.” I rubbed her back and held her as, one by one, my pack mates quietly got up from the table and filtered out, giving her—us—privacy to process.

“I still don’t know what I am,” she whispered after a while, after the sobs had faded to hiccups, then silence. “I… I don’t even know what the book says. All it told me was to touch it. But the voice is so quiet, if it’s trying to tell me something else, I can’t understand it. Does this mean I’m part mermaid? In cartoons, their top half is human, though. I don’t understand, this all feelscrazy,and I just?—”

“It’s going to be okay,” I finally said, tilting her chin up so I could see her face.

“But—”

“No buts. I don’t think we can definitively say anything yet, except I think you may have some affinity to water. You’re absolutely not crazy. You’regifted. And hopefully, with time, we can figure out how to read that book. Or at least research the symbols on the outside, so we have a specific species to research.”

She bit her lower lip between her teeth, and I tugged it free, soothing over it with the pad of my thumb. Slow swipes back and forth until she settled. “It’s been a long, tiring day. Why don’t we head back to my room and get some rest? Bring the book, and we can keep working on it tomorrow, okay?”

“I ruined your shirt,” she said, sorrow and shame overpowering her scent like a cloud as she stared at the tearstained fabric, shaking her head.

“You could never ruin anything of mine.”

She snorted, rolling her eyes at the statement. My wolf didn’t like that, didn’t like the self-deprecation she seemed so prone to.

Frankly, the man didn’t like it either. I held her chin between my thumb and forefinger, leaning in close so she could only focus on me, so I could feel her panting breath across my lips.

“It’s true. I don’t think you understand, pretty girl. I covet your smiles, of course. Your touch? Intoxicating. But more than that, I covetyou. All of you, even the tears. I want the ugly right alongside the beauty. I want every facet of you, with nothing held back. If you anoint my shirt with your tears, I will wear them with pride. And one day, when I’ve earned it and you mark my skin with your teeth, I will consider myself blessed to be bitten by a creature as wild and wonderful as you. Whatever you want of me, you have it. Whatever you need, it’s yours. No matter what.”

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