Page 69 of Into the Lion's Den (Secrets of the Northland Shifters)

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. There really wasn’t any better way to say it. What I’d just seen… It couldn’t be real.

But I hadn’t taken any sleep medication last night. Not even half a tablet. I knew I was awake. I’d been awake for hours, unable to sleep.

I’d figured I’d get an early start on my preparations for the Maddox party. With everything that had gone wrong, I needed at least one thing to go to plan.

Seeing…whatever that was…Yeah. Not in my plans.

I didn’t even know what was more shocking. Coming face to face with a wild animal, or seeing that animal change into a man.

Okay. It was definitely the last one. That was the most shocking. Though seeing Reese buck naked with a hard-on of inhuman proportions… That was a close second.

Oh god.

I could barely breathe by the time I raced through the back entrance to the lodge and into my room. I slammed my door shut and locked it.

Then I stood there with my back against the door, hyperventilating and dripping rain water all over the floor. What was I supposed to do now? Pretend I didn’t see anything? Pretend it was business as usual?

A moment later, a heavy fist pounded against the other side of the door. “Sarah! Open up.”

It was Reese.

Of course it was Reese.

He’d said we both had secrets, but this was ridiculous.

Did his siblings know? Or…did they turn into animals too?

“Sarah. We need to talk.”

Uh…yeah. We totally needed to talk. But not now. I couldn’t process this and everything else I needed to do.

“It’s not what you think,” he said.

No? IthoughtI saw him turn from a mountain lion into a man, but I can see where that thinking might have been flawed.

“Are you in there?” Reese asked.

I glanced at the windows.

More pounding against the door, enough for the vibration to rattle down my spine and into my feet.

I used that explosion of noise to cover the sound of my genius plan. I rushed across my floor and silently slid open my bedroom window.

“Sarah, I can explain,” Reese said.

But I didn’t want an explanation. I wanted to get away from him. So I slipped through the window and out into the rain.

28

REESE

Sarah wasn’t in a hurry to open her door. I couldn’t blame her. Still, I pounded even louder, the alpha in me not taking kindly to being ignored.

“Sarah. I can explain.” I put my ear to the door. Still no response. And there weren’t any stirring noises on the other side of the door either.

Images from my past flashed in front of my eyes. I was seventeen, gangly and still a little awkward. We’d lived in North Dakota back then, on a small piece of rural property not far from town.

I was helping my mother hang wash on the line when I’d felt a strange heat in my middle that scored like claws of fire down my legs. The sensation had sent me falling forward onto my hands and knees and then…

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