Page 67 of The Wolfing Hour
Sort of. The whole thing was complicated.
“Can you feel Rory?”
“Not in human form, no. But even as a wolf, there’s distance. I won’t be able to pinpoint her location or anything. However, I can call her to me. If she knows I’m calling and answers, I’ll at least know if she’s okay—and she might be able to send me sensory information.”
“Do you need to be alone to do this?”
“No.”
I wanted to ask him why shifting hadn’t been the first thing on his list to try—if I was being honest, I’d been wondering that for the last two hours—but when the moment was upon him, I read it in his expression.
He was afraid it wouldn’t work.
“Ronan, can I help? I could cast a focus spell. It’s similar to a demon containment circle, except opposite.” I tried not to look distressed at the worddemon. “Instead of keeping things in, it pushes everything out. I put you in a circle—I’ll need to godownstairs and get some soil for that part—and there’s a chant, but I’ll probably just use intention and soil magic and?—”
“Not this first time. Thank you, though.” He reached for my hand, lifted it to his lips. “I need to try this my way. Can I take a raincheck?”
“Always.” I stepped into my boots and zipped them up. “I’m going to give you a moment to yourself while I go down and grab some soil—just in case.”
“It’s good to be prepared,” he said.
“At this point, I think it’s imperative to be prepared.”
He toed out of his running shoes and stepped out of his jeans. “Yeah.”
The soil wasn’t only for a focus spell. I also wanted to strengthen the protections on the pub and apartment. Margaux and Bronwyn had helped renew them a couple weeks ago, but it wouldn’t hurt to check. I had that itchy feeling between my shoulder blades again, the one that told me something was off. Something more than Rory missing.
I took an indulgent moment to admire the naked planes of Ronan’s body as he stripped all the way down. Everything about him appealed to me, and not only in a conventional way. He was beautiful and strong, and so important. Looking at him, eyes aglow with his wolf, I felt a sense of pride that he was mine.
Shifters didn’t process nudity the way the rest of us did. For Ronan, my giving him an under-the-skirt show when I stood on his bar and told everyone he was the sexiest man in La Paloma was far more sexual than my stripping completely nude. The man was all about intention—well, that and red camellias, black thigh-high stockings, and tiny gasps moaned directly into his ear.
So, my blatant stare snagged me a muted smile but didn’t affect him otherwise.
“I love you.” I said it with my whole self and willed him to feel it.
He must have, because his eyes, still as gold as a noon sun, softened at the corners. “I love you, too.”
I paused at the door as he dropped to all fours and a mix of yellow, red, gray, and black fur rippled over his expanding body in a smooth wave. As a human, he was just under six feet tall. He gained two extra feet as a wolf. That, and over a hundred pounds of pure muscle.
And his physicality wasn’t even his biggest asset.
Ronan had power. Alpha power. Alphaleaderpower. In the past, he’d done his best to suppress it in front of his birth father and the pack, but now it emanated from him in shockwaves, as if it were a thing apart from him, traveling at the speed of sound.
This was not a wolf to be taken lightly.
I descended the stairs, musing over Ronan’s ability to downplay his power—itself a strength—when I spotted someone standing beside the pollinator garden Cecil had designed for Ronan in the lot beside the pub. The person had his back to me.
The itch between my shoulders intensified. I rolled them back to ease the feeling.
This was all wrong.
Three wolves jumped me the second my foot touched the bottom landing. All were in hybrid form. One held each arm, and another grabbed the back of my head, sinking talons into the thin flesh of my scalp.
“Scream, cast, or otherwise call upon your minions, and I’ll crush your skull,” the wolf said on a snarl.
I’d expected Floyd. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t anyone I knew.
The figure in the pollinator garden spun on his heel and faced me. It was done with a flair for the dramatic—the man’s chin jutted up, shoulders went back superhero style, hands thrust onhips, feet spread apart. If he’d been wearing a red cape that billowed out behind him, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
