Page 37 of His Whispered Witch

Gently, he pulled his arm out of her grasp and wrapped it around her back to scoot them together.

She burrowed into his chest, her face against his pecs, and she breathed in the scent of man and, weirdly, baking bread and caramel.

“We’re going to figure this out,” she whispered.

“Are we?” he asked, which she felt more than heard in the rumble of his chest.

“Yeah, three-way marriage counseling for predators.”

He chuckled, and she felt his gut spasm and selfishly wanted to see all of him, but he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to speed things along.

“Other dire wolves don’t seem to have the problems I do. So we have to conclude the problem is me.”

She pulled her head away so she could meet his eyes. “Have you talked to their wolves? Because I can’t imagine any wolf would be fine with any of this.”

“I mean, our wolves do talk. This is just our lives. It’s not like we’re sitting around going, you know what would be great? Ifwe didn’t have venomous teeth. That would be a pretty pointless conversation.”

She thought back to that book of spells she found, the grimoire with the recipe for shifters. The twins surely didn’t know it, but they were sitting on one of the most valuable books in the world. Or at least, it was valuable to a bunch of shifters.

She thought about telling him about it but held off. She didn’t know if it was possible to change the spell. Plus, it would take a hell of a lot of trust on his part and the rest of his pack. It might affect them, too.

He was right; he was the one living alone in the woods. Presumably, the rest of his pack had jobs, success, and a home life, so maybe it wasn’t the snake at all. But she just couldn’t shake the feeling that if the fundamental facts of his life were different, he would be different.

She snuggled down, unwilling to think about it.

“Can I try again?” she asked.

“Try what again?”

“My magic? I want to try and talk to them.”

“Knock yourself out,” he said and froze. “Not literally, please. Don’t hurt yourself even the tiniest bit or risk yourself. If it looks like it’s going bad?—”

She kissed his sternum. “I get it.”

She closed her eyes and reached out with magic. It was a lot easier with so much of them touching.

She reached into him, delving for the animals she’d felt before.

Except, as soon as she sank past his skin, a connection snapped into place between them and power flooded her.

Her eyes flew open, and she tried to pull back, but he’d wrapped her in his arms, and she couldn’t get away.

“What the hell?”

“What is it?” he asked, glancing down at her. He must have seen something in her face because he let her go, and she flopped back on the bed in seconds, snapping the connection.

She stared at the wooden beams of the ceiling and gasped for breath.

“What did you sense? What’s wrong?” He closed his eyes. “Would you please talk to me?”

“I don’t know!”

“Not you. Never mind.” His eyes flew open. “Yes, you. Always you. What happened?”

“My magic connected to your wolf?” That wasn’t what happened, but she had no words for what happened. “And I started flooding with power.”

His face had no expression whatsoever. Then in seconds, he was off the bed, glanced down at himself and groaned, but didn’t try to clean up, just stood in the middle of the room, his hands clenched together.

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