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  A small frown appeared, but she made no saucy comeback. Nor did she order him to leave. Nodding once, she said, “Deal. There’s tons of produce in the fridge. I am dying for a salad.”

  He grimaced. Lucas was dying for a big, so-rare-it-was-almost-mooing steak.

  “I’ll be done in a few minutes, okay?”

  “Fine.”

  Or lamb chops. Mmm.

  She probably saw a quick flash of hunger on his face. Though, he’d been trying to hide such a look since the moment he’d laid eyes on her, so it shouldn’t have showed. “Just make enough for both of us. I’m starving.”

  “I don’t do salad.”

  “Big bad wolf must have meat, huh?”

  He let out a surprised bark of laughter, unable to help it. Damn, the woman had no idea what she was into here. Had no clue that being this close to her, especially now, with the fullness of the moon right outside, was filling his head with strange, dark, frenzied fantasies. Hunger. More intense than his need for food.

  He didn’t want to hurt her, wouldn’t harm a hair on her head. He just wanted to devour her in the most sexual way possible.

  He couldn’t stay here much longer. In fact, he should have left already, hidden nearby to watch over her for the rest of the night. That coward who’d accosted her probably wasn’t fool enough to stick around, but there was no telling.

  But he didn’t want to leave yet. Her spirit was coming back, she was returning to her normal, feisty self. He wanted more time with her. “Actually,” he finally replied, “I could go for a steak. A very rare one.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Well, good luck with that. Because every store around here is closed.” She put her hands on his chest and pushed him out of her bedroom with a smirk. Just before closing the door in his face, she added, “And I’m a vegetarian.”

  5

  “GOOD GRIEF, he must have a beard made out of steel wool!”

  Wrapped in a towel, Penny stared down at her bare legs, which were flecked with pieces of tissue. The flecks had once been snow-white, but were now turning red as blood soaked through. She steeled herself against the queasiness and looked away. Tiny flecks, that’s all. You’ve nicked your legs before.

  But not usually a dozen times at once.

  She had been out of replacement blades for the razor. Since she’d only used the blade once before today, however, and hadn’t figured Lucas Wolf’s sexy face could do too much damage to it, she’d included a quick shave with her shower.

  Bad move. She looked as though she’d lost a fight with a vengeful kindergartener armed with a sharp stick.

  She should have ignored the feminine vanity and skipped the process. It wasn’t like he was going to get close to her calves or thighs, anyway. He’d had his shot and hadn’t taken it.

  Maybe he will if you don’t take no for an answer this time!

  She ignored the salacious inner voice that had sounded like Angie, a tattoo artist she’d met and befriended in Detroit. The woman had talked Penny into doing some crazy things.

  “Forget it, he turned you down,” she reminded herself as she went into her room to grab some clothes. And she couldn’t take another rejection. Not when she wanted him so badly.

  Thinking about it, though, she realized he hadn’t looked happy about stopping. In fact, he’d acted like someone had started pulling his fingernails out. So maybe he was being the gentleman who she suspected lurked within that big, sexy body.

  Penny donned a Metallica T-shirt and another loose, elastic-waist skirt that wouldn’t brush up against the nicks. Giving her head a shake, she ran her fingers through her wet hair—one definite advantage of such a short do.

  As she left her bedroom, she cast a quick glance toward the wrapped box on the shelf and was stabbed with the same mix of emotions she always felt when she looked at it. Amusement, grief, happiness, regret, love. Such love. Then she left her bedroom.

  True to his word, Lucas had begun preparing them a late-night dinner. She entered the kitchen and found him frowning down at the stove, where something sizzled in a frying pan she hadn’t used once in the past nine months.

  Yuck. “I said I didn’t want any fried….” Her voice trailed off and she came to a sudden stop as he looked over at her.

  She’d been in the shower maybe fifteen minutes. Twenty tops. And yet he looked so different. “You must have more testosterone than an entire major league football team!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I massacred my legs with the razor you used, and here you are, looking like you need to use it again.”

  He glanced away. “Did you use it anyplace else?”

  Wicked man. Trying to change the subject. As if he couldn’t have found out for himself a little while ago, anyway. She’d been so turned on he could have stripped her naked and done her out in the street and she wouldn’t have objected.

  Damn the man for starting something and not finishing it.

  You started it.

  Well, there was that.

  “Perhaps the blade was dull to begin with,” he added. “That must be why it wasn’t effective for either of us.”

  Funny, she seemed to recall lying on the bed, looking up at him during their previous conversation about where she’d used the razor. And thinking how nice those smooth cheeks might feel on the inside of her thighs if he made good on his threat to tear off her clothes and see for himself.

  Then, when she’d kissed him, touched his face, felt him scrape his cheek against her incredibly sensitive nipple, there’d been the tiniest hint of roughness, but that was all.

  She shivered. Because now, those cheeks weren’t smooth. And while she couldn’t deny that the rough stubble would probably feel even better against her uber-sensitive skin, she just wanted to know why.

  “Veggie burgers,” he muttered, staring at the pan in disgust. “Whoever created them ought to be put in the stockade.”

  That didn’t distract her. Penny had been busy and distracted this morning. Injured and woozy, and eventually horny, tonight.

  Now she was clear-headed. Fully cognizant that something about this man didn’t make sense.

  It wasn’t just the beard. She also wanted to know why his speech sometimes sounded so odd. Why he insisted on taking her with him somewhere, refusing to name the place. Why he had been following her tonight. What the hell the reddish eyes and the sharp-toothed growling had been all about.

  And, damn it, why had he stopped when everything from his eyes to his mouth to his hands to that big ridge against the seam of his jeans said he was dying to screw her brains out?

  Penny had never read fairy tales as a kid, but that didn’t mean she had no imagination. While she might not believe in unicorns or fairies, she was open to other possibilities. Her good instincts had told her on occasion that she was meeting someone…different. Out of place.

  Once, at around age eight, she’d come home early and found her father talking to a strange-looking man, small of stature, long of face. She had immediately felt that he didn’t belong here. Not just in Louisiana, but anywhere she’d ever known.

  There had been other occasions. Only a few, but each time, her inner voice told her she was meeting an outsider walking a lonely path where he did not, could not, ever fit in.

  She saw that now in Lucas Wolf. Maybe she’d seen it from the start, but her attraction had kept her from dwelling on it. Penny was still attracted. But now she was determined to know more.

  “I asked you something earlier,” she said, piercing him with a stare. “I’m asking again, and I want to know the truth.”

  He adjusted the burner on the stove, then turned to give her his full attention. She thought she heard a sigh, as if he’d resigned himself to something unpleasant. And for a second, she almost didn’t want him to answer.

  Instinct told her the truth might be harder to handle than the curiosity. But curiosity won out.

  “Tell me, Mr. Wolf. Who are you?” She took one small step clos
er. “Who are you, really?”

  He didn’t move, never shifted his gaze. Instead, after the slightest hesitation, he baldly answered her question.

  “My name is Lucas Wolf. I am a lawman from Elatyria, a place you’ve probably considered fictional all your life. I’m one-quarter Wolf. And I’ve been hired by a queen to find you and bring you back to Riverdale.”

  She didn’t respond. Didn’t gasp. Didn’t laugh in his face.

  To be honest, she didn’t react at all for a second. She merely stared at him, noting the stone-cold seriousness of his expression, replaying his voice in her head, trying to decide if he was delusional or merely pulling her chain.

  Finally, though, she had to admit he wasn’t playing some crazy joke. He might be nuttier than a jar of Skippy, but he believed what he was saying.

  “Okay,” she muttered, putting an end to an internal debate over whether she should call 911 or run out into the night. Doing neither, she instead walked over to open a kitchen cabinet and said, “I think we’re going to need some tequila to get through the rest of this conversation.”

  HE KNEW from experience that this tequila she craved was a weak brew. Yet it seemed to brace the princess. Before she even opened her mouth to discuss the matter, she tossed back two small shots of the stuff. She shivered once, then dove right in.

  “You’re an escaped mental patient, right? Damn, I knew it.”

  He merely smiled.

  “Come on, you can’t expect me to believe this.”

  “I don’t expect you to, which is why I wanted to take you and show you the proof rather than trying to explain it.”

  “Take me where, to this imaginary place called Riverdale? Or is it Elatyria?”

  “Riverdale is a territory, what you’d call a country. Like these United States. It exists in the world of Elatyria, which borders this one that you call Earth.”

  “Oh, right.” Sarcasm saturated her words. She was humoring him. “You’re from another planet?”

  “Hardly. Just because you Earth dwellers have explored space doesn’t mean you know all there is to know about this world.”

  She merely stared.

  Trying to put it simply, in the terms he’d first heard a few years ago when his completely unknown half-brother, Hunter, had come looking for him, he explained. “Think of it like this. Two lands occupying the same space, only…”

  She interrupted again with a snap of her fingers and a grin. “Wait. You’re telling me you’re a time traveler? From the past?”

  His eyes narrowing, he held back an instinctive growl. The woman was a pain in the ass. But damn, how he liked her.

  “Do you want to hear this or not?”

  She waved an expansive hand. “Oh, by all means! I’m truly fascinated, hanging on every word.”

  She couldn’t have sounded more disbelieving if he’d told her he needed her to help calm a raging dragon hungry for a virgin princess. Not that Lucas necessarily believed that legend. He had always suspected the whole thing had been made up by some horny guy trying to get a princess to give it up. And though Penny was indeed a princess, he doubted she satisfied the other requirement.

  That didn’t thrill him, since he considered her his. Yet not being her first didn’t enrage him either. He certainly couldn’t claim inexperience. Only a hypocrite would blame her for being what she was—a passionate young woman—up until now.

  Only one thing truly mattered. That he would be the last man ever to possess her.

  “Hello? Taking a break to think up the rest of your tall tale?”

  He blew out a harsh, frustrated breath, wondering how this woman had already worked his brain into a knot of confusing thoughts. “What I’m trying to say is that your world and mine co-exist, that they’re simply separated by a few degrees of reality.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, well, I think you’re separated from reality by about a hundred and eighty degrees, my friend.”

  Turning away from her, he grabbed the tequila bottle from the counter. He lifted it to his mouth and drained half of its contents into the back of his throat.

  Not much better than water. But it had given him a second to keep himself from throwing the woman over his shoulder and kidnapping her in order to prove that what he said was true.

  Calmed, he turned to face her again. “Neither Elatyria or Riverdale exist on any map in your world. Those who move back and forth between the lands don’t speak of their travels for fear of being thought mad.”

  She mumbled something under her breath. Seeing his clenching jaw, though, she didn’t repeat herself.

  “But they do exist. Your own father lived at least ten years of his life over there.” Lucas had done research on the family before he’d come here to track her down.

  For the first time, the disbelief was replaced—briefly—by a hint of wonder. “Ten years?” She glanced past him, mumbling something under her breath. “He was missing for ten years….”

  Sensing an opening, he pressed on. “You don’t remember, but you’ve been there, too.”

  “What?”

  “Your father never told you a thing about your childhood? The two of you lived in Riverdale until you were almost three.”

  She plopped onto a chair. “Lived there? Me and my father?”

  “And your mother, of course. Where do you think they met?”

  She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, thinking about it. Finally, she admitted, “He always said they met at NYU.”

  He tilted his head in confusion.

  “New York Univ—Look, it doesn’t matter. I went there. It wasn’t true. There was no record that either of my parents studied there.”

  “Not surprising. I don’t imagine there are any official documents about your mother in this world at all.”

  Her mouth dropped open in confirmation, but she just as quickly jerked it closed. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It’s one more piece to the puzzle you’ve always wondered about, though, isn’t it?” he asked, his tone reasonable, unthreatening.

  She wasn’t in the mood to be reasoned with. She shook her head, as if shaking off a hint of doubt. “You do know I’m on the verge of calling someone to take you to one of those places with rubber-walled cells, right?”

  For all her protestations, Princess Penelope’s eyes could not lie. They betrayed her. Right now, they swam not with disdain and disbelief, but with wonder. She was considering his story. Opening her mind. Perhaps because she’d already had questions about her parents, her mother. From the sound of it, she had gone looking for her history and hadn’t found it.

  Because it wasn’t there to be found. At least, not in this world.

  “According to legend, your father stumbled into the outer territories, a desert which bordered Riverdale. He was brought before your mother, half-dead, accused of being a spy. They say it was love at first sight.”

  Penny swallowed visibly. Then the hint of wonder left her. Correction: she forced it away, he saw it in the deliberate tightening of her lips. “This is such a load of crap.”

  “I know how it sounds,” he insisted. “That is why you must come with me and allow me to prove it.”

  “Prove some other dimension exists? Yeah, right.” He’d already noticed the way she immediately relied on sarcastic humor when she began to doubt. Now was no exception. “Are we going to run into the Jolly Green Giant there?”

  “Giants aren’t green. Nor are they ever jolly.”

  She leapt from her chair. “Oh, give me a freaking break.”

  He thrust a frustrated hand through his hair. It was like trying to tame a unicorn, leading her one step forward only to have her pull two steps away. “Princess…”

  “What’s with the princess stuff?”

  “Your mother was Queen of Riverdale. You are her only surviving child. Her only heir. You are a princess.”

  Her lips twitched. Relieved laughter spilled out. “Oh, God, this is a joke! Who set this up, that witch Angie?”
>
  He tensed. “You keep company with a witch?”

  “Jeez, you don’t give up, do you?”

  “Witches are not to be trusted.”

  “I was kidding. I call her a witch instead of the word with a b because we’re old friends.”

  “Don’t joke about witches,” he snapped, trying to slow his pulse and hide the fact that the hairs on his body were standing on end. Instant defense mechanism.

  Gaping, Penny threw herself down into her chair again. “Gorgeous but insane. So sad,” she mumbled. Scooping up a fork, she began shoveling greens from the salad he’d made her into her mouth, ignoring him.

  He wished he could say he found his late-night repast as appetizing. A hot veggie burger was bad enough. A cold one was more than he could stomach.

  Finally, after she’d devoured half her salad, she muttered, “So who’s this queen who supposedly sent you?”

  “Queen Verona,” he replied, taking a seat opposite her. She was pretending she was only casually interested, as a way to kill time while she ate. He knew better. She was curious. Whether she wanted to be or not. “She and her family have been ruling Riverdale in your absence.”

  She must have heard his dislike for the queen. “Let me guess. This queen is a real witch, with the b though, right?”

  He couldn’t contain a faint smile.

  “And she sent you, why?”

  “I’m a lawman. I track people for a living.”

  She finally sighed. “You know, you are the sexiest guy I’ve ever met, and you saved my butt tonight. But I just can’t believe anything you say.”

  “I know you don’t want to.”

  “My father loved me.” Her voice grew soft, as if she didn’t mean to speak aloud. “He would have told me.”

  He heard the emphasis. “Yes. I’m sure he would have. Maybe he just didn’t get the chance.”

  Penny’s cheeks flushed. “It’s crazy…”

  “But not impossible.” Lucas thought of her still-wrapped present. “You said he died before you turned twenty-one. What if that gift was something he intended to give you to help explain the truth? Maybe that’s when he was planning to reveal all.”