Page 98 of Rogue Wolf Hunter

She couldn’t decide whether she was disappointed about that, or whether it was a saving grace. Rock was still here, his presence among her pack a lingering reminder of her duties, of the oath she’d sworn, and the wariness of her packmates to trust the hunters, despite that they trusted her. They’d obeyed her orders to accept Jace and the others implicitly.

Anything else was a distraction.

A wanted, welcome, ridiculously enticing distraction.

She tore her gaze away from Jace. She shouldn’t be thinking like this. About the way his packed stomach tightened when he thrust into her… The thought lingered. She bit her lower lip, attempting to snap herself back to reality. “You know what to do, so why aren’t you doing it?” she finally managed to say, once he seemed to have cleared his head from the last failed attempt.

At least he was being a good sport about it.

They’d both known this wouldn’t be easy, but there was something holding him back, something beyond learning the basics. A deeper emotion she couldn’t quite put her finger on, even though she could see it.

“You want me to get down on my hands and knees?”

She waved him forward. “Don’t ask me. Go ahead. We’ve been through this.”

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he muttered, the first thing he’d said that had even come close to a complaint within their past few sessions. Jace knelt on the platform, the sight reminding her way too much of how he looked when his mouth was on her, then lowered his weight onto his hands. “All right,” he said. “This is all you’re getting out of me. You’ve got about three more seconds of this before I stand up again.”

She shook her head and sighed. “You can get up now.”

He stood and faced her. Her eyes drank in the lines of his body and the hard muscles disappearing under his jeans. She clenched her jaw and tried to focus.

“Okay. Remember what we talked about? Basically, there are three methods of shifting. The first is to stand as tall as possible, usually with the spine arched back, and allow the energy to flow through you from the bottom up.” She straightened her back and imitated the pose. “It’s not very common.”

She shrugged. “The second is to crouch down, like you did. You can drop into a deep knee-bend and arch your spine, or you can get all the way down on the ground. Crouching is more typical because it allows you to focus all your energy in one condensed space, and since you’re in a similar position to your wolf form, it’s easier to transition. Then there are shifters who can switch in either stance, but that takes more practice than we have time for. So since none of those are working for you, just...do whatever feels intuitive while you focus on the energy inside.”

Jace nodded. “Instincts. Got it.”

“Okay. Now do whatever feels comfortable.”

Jace bent his knees and arched forward like a large animal waiting to pounce.

“Channel your energy wherever its strongest. Focus on pushing all your energy there.”

He raised a single brow. “What energy?”

“What do you mean, ‘what energy’?” She sighed, exasperated with him.

She’d been more than a little on-edge lately. A combination of her lonely nights, working with Jace, Amarok’s unintentionally oppressive presence, and the knowledge that there was still a killer on the loose in her territory. Something had to give. And soon.

“You keep saying focus on the energy and I don’t feel any energy.”

She sighed and walked to his side. “Straighten up again.”

He rolled his shoulders back to stand at his full height, towering over her. The closeness of his body to hers sent a fresh wave of heat straight through her. “It’s the energy inside you. The kind you feel when the moon is full. That sort of stirring. Right here in your chest.” She placed her palm over his solar plexus, and their eyes locked.

Something heated flared in his gaze, feral and untamed. But she couldn’t address it.

Not without revealing how much his absence from her bed had affected her.

Apparently when the lingerie hadn’t worked, he’d taken a different approach and ghosted her.

Like he was bidding his time, taunting her until she came to him.

And from the fire in his eyes now, he had no doubt she would. Eventually.

Her will wasn’t made of titanium, though she wanted it to be.

She tore her gaze away. She had to fight to get the words out. “It’s right here. It pulls at your whole being, like something connected to your soul.” She glanced at the floor. “Do you feel it?”

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