Page 58 of When Two Worlds Collide

“I do,” she admits, eyes bright with unshed tears. “Moon help me, I do.”

We lie together in the moonlight, skin to skin, fightingthe pull of the bond. Every breath is torture. Every heartbeat demands we complete what we’ve started. But we hold the line, that last barrier between almost and everything.

When dawn approaches, we’re still awake, still wound around each other, still fighting.

“Shift,” I finally order, putting distance between us. “We need to hunt.”

She obeys, the panther emerging with obvious relief. I follow suit, letting wolf instincts drown out human need.

But as we leave the grove, I catch new scents on the wind. Wolves. My wolves. Watching from the ridgeline, drawn by the power of an alpha’s claiming. They don’t approach—that would violate sacred law—but their presence is noted.

By tonight, the entire pack will know their alpha has chosen a mate. A civilized mate who burns with wild fire, who hunts like she was born to it, who challenges me in ways no wolf ever has.

The final night approaches, and with it, a change that will reshape both our worlds forever.

14

EMBER

The third dawn breaks like a fever.

I wake in panther form, muscles coiled, breath shallow, pressed against the steady heat of Zane’s wolf. We’ve slept tangled together like this for two nights, heat soaked into our bones, and yet still cold where it matters. The ache has only worsened—an emptiness that burns now, no longer dull but sharp, aching, insistent. My body aches with the weight of restraint, my soul with the hollow pain of almost being claimed.

He’s already awake.

His silver eyes gleam in the half-light, locked on mine with a gaze that strips me to nothing but hunger and need. That look—gods, that look—makes my fur rise in waves along my spine.

He growls low when I stretch. It’s not a warning. It’s a promise. A taste of what’s coming.

Today.The word forms in both minds. No more distance. No more denial. Today, we stop pretending we’re anything but starving for each other.

We hunt out of necessity, but it’s mechanical, joyless. Arabbit here. A bird there. Tokens to keep us moving. The taste of blood does nothing to satisfy the true craving writhing beneath our skin.

Every brush of fur sends lightning across my nerve endings. Every time I drink beside him, I feel his restraint slipping, his wolf circling just beneath the surface.

When I step too close to the stream, he pins me, teeth at my throat, not with threat, but promise. A claiming paused mid-sentence.

By midday, we’re circling each other in the grove, two predators unraveling at the seams. The air tastes of ozone, charged with the mating bond’s friction. We don’t speak. Words are meaningless now.

He shifts first.

And when he does, the sight hits me like a blow.

The man who emerges is raw, primal, stripped of all civility. Dirt clings to his skin, streaked with ash and dried blood. Scratches from the hunt mark his arms and back like offerings. His muscles ripple beneath tanned skin as he straightens, the sheer physicality of him undoing me.

Alpha. Untamed. Mine.

I shift too. The panther releases me reluctantly, dragged from my skin like claws through the earth. When I rise on two legs, bare and barefoot, my hair wild and mouth stained with the memory of blood, I meet his gaze without shame.

He breathes in sharply. His jaw tightens.

“Come here,” he growls, voice rough enough to shred silk.

I stay rooted. Still a challenge. Still mine. “Make me.”

The snarl that tears from his throat is pure wolf.

He closes the distance in two long strides, but I’m already moving, crashing into him in the middle of thegrove. Our mouths meet in a brutal, bruising collision of need and fury. There’s no finesse left. No hesitation.

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