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  When Tory smiled, Kaitlin noticed that her teeth were very white against her pale, flawless Lycan skin. Tory’s face was equally as perfect. Kaitlin experienced a pang of jealousy that made her stomach flutter. This Miami she-wolf was like Michael. Tory was of his kind, and there had to be countless others like Tory more suited to a union with this Alpha than she was.

  Maybe my fading away would be a good thing. The best thing.

  She blinked slowly. When she opened her eyes, Tory was gone. She was pressed to the tree and Michael’s face was close to hers.

  “Don’t even consider fading away, whatever that means,” he advised huskily. “I read you like a book and I’m going to stay one step ahead of you. You’re not going anywhere, except to safety.”

  “We don’t belong together.” Kaitlin heard the pleading quality in her tone.

  “Who says we’re together?”

  In the midst of all the chaos and uncertainty, the hint of a smile lifted the corners of Michael’s lips. This was a glimpse of the Michael she didn’t really know, and hadn’t yet met. This was what Michael was like in better times, and to his friends.

  She wanted to know that guy, see that grinning expression on his face often, directed at her. She wanted all this to be over so there was a chance that could happen.

  Michael was in balance. He was man and wolf in a mixture that didn’t rule him or make him immune to the problems of others. She wrapped her arms around him, unable to resist the power of his allure.

  “You’re needed elsewhere,” she said breathlessly.

  “I also need to know you won’t do anything stupid while I attend to those other problems.”

  “I’m one of those problems.”

  “No. Never.”

  “A liability.”

  “Someone who simply needs to be safeguarded for a while,” he said. “Is that going to be a problem for you, Kate?”

  “Yes, if it takes your attention away from others who need it.”

  “Will it help if I ask you to get over that and comply just this once? Listen this one time?”

  When she shook her head, her cheek brushed his. Kaitlin’s breath caught. She was sure that her inner wolf twisted. She wasn’t the only one craving what this magnificent male had to offer. The beast her body was creating desired him, too. At least that much was clear.

  Michael didn’t escape the rawness of the emotions she was radiating. Like her, he was caught in an inexplicable craving for a female who was, in reality, a stranger, and who obviously had her own special power. The power to attract others.

  His muscles flexed as if they realized that what he wanted to do to her, with her, wasn’t a good thing. But he rested his mouth on hers anyway.

  The night itself seemed to hold its breath. A surge of electricity sparked as his lips moved over hers…and then the other thing—that uncertain, nebulous something else—took hold of her, wrangling her desires into submission and blinding Michael with the force of its unexpected appearance.

  Chapter 17

  Michael stepped back as if he’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. The shock was severe, jamming his senses, firing up all of his nerves at once.

  His head swung from side to side to negate the onslaught. His muscles convulsed, shaking him up, slowing his thinking. Kaitlin was doing this, and probably didn’t know how, or why.

  Once he had broken contact, the surges careening through him ceased. His wolf pounded at his insides, stimulated by the sudden rush of adrenaline coursing through his body, but he reined that wolf in.

  The first thing that went through his mind was that he’d lost his mind. He perceived a rift in the atmosphere. That rift hung between the trees, reaching from the lowest branches to the ground like a shimmering curtain—black as the night and moving with an action that reminded Michael of disturbed pond water.

  Kaitlin saw it, as well.

  “Kate,” Michael said, at a loss for words.

  Her eyes came back to him, their color changed. No longer gray, those enormous eyes were now a tarnished gold.

  That wasn’t all. The harder he looked, the more changes Michael found. Gray eyes that had turned golden then became green—the brilliant green of a Were’s eyes. Kaitlin’s lips parted for a growl that was low, guttural, and the sound resonated in Michael’s bones, dispersing more inner vibrations that caused his claws to pop like spring-loaded blades.

  “Kate.” He hid his hands and worked to get a grip on his own physical changes. “Are you all right?”

  She didn’t reply…at least in any humanistic way, with a voice, words and sentences. As a flurry of leaves fell from over their heads, she responded in an entirely different manner.

  She began to undress.

  Her sweater again came over her head and was tossed aside. Moonlight streaked her shoulders with a golden glow that matched the flare in her eyes.

  Michael withheld a growl, needing to stop this, while at the same time his body was responding physically to the sensations flooding him.

  The scene was strangely seductive, and inappropriate as hell. The situation in Clement was bad at the moment, and Kaitlin behaving as if she’d had a complete personality reboot was highly suspect.

  “Kate. Let’s go,” Michael said, wishing times were different and he could take her up on whatever this offer was going to turn out to be. Any other time, and with any other woman, he wouldn’t have hesitated. But a wayward premonition pummeled him.

  When she dropped her jeans to her ankles, his wolf strained at its leash. She kicked the pants off, along with her shoes, and wore nothing now except a pair of blue lace underwear.

  Slender arms beckoned to him with a provocative slide down her sides. Her every move was sensual and extremely erotic. And still, that premonition floated around, as yet unformed, kicking brutally at Michael’s mind.

  What are you up to, Kate?

  Damn it, she really didn’t seem to know.

  And then, as if his own inner light had flashed, Michael understood what was happening. This wasn’t just a striptease in his honor. It was much more than that. She was shedding her outer layer in preparation for a big reveal, whatever the hell that might be.

  “No.” His whisper was soft and unheeded.

  One minute Kaitlin was there, standing, flashing her tricolor eyes and moonlit skin. Then she was falling to her hands and knees, fighting for each ragged breath.

  Before Michael could catch her, whatever spell she was under expanded and Kaitlin looked up at him, having morphed seamlessly into the furred-up shape of a copper-colored wolf.

  He froze for what seemed like an eternity, the oaths he wanted to use lost behind his heart’s frantic beats.

  “This is impossible,” he muttered. Because it was impossible. Kaitlin wasn’t full-blooded Lycan, nor was she a shape-shifter. Here she was, though, on all fours, her red-brown fur still ruffling from her transformation. A full transformation.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said, as much for himself as for the new apparition beside him. “It’s okay. We can handle whatever this is.”

  In agitation, he raked his thigh with five of his razor-sharp claws. Kaitlin’s wolfish gaze went to the blood seeping from his self-inflicted wound. The fur on her back stood up.

  “No. Kaitlin, don’t be afraid. Just wait for another minute and maybe the reason for this shift will come.”

  Hell, what good would waiting do? Michael reasoned. Who was going to explain this? He couldn’t believe his eyes.

  There was a new heaviness in the air, and movement that hadn’t come from anything containing blood in its veins. This heaviness was created by the wavelike undulation of the nebulous black curtain, the rift in the atmosphere strung between the trees.

  What the hell was that? Where had it come from?

  Beneath a shiny muzzle, Kaitlin’s mouth opened for a speech she couldn’t make. What emerged from her throat was a harrowing howl that touched Michael’s soul.

  There was no time to worry abou
t the strange rift beside them. Kaitlin’s wolfish vocalization drew him into yet another shape-shift. With a power reminiscent of the moon, and overriding his own desire to keep the wolf at bay, Kaitlin pulled his wolf into shape.

  The going was slow and like wading through mud. He tore off his clothes as his body eventually shivered into its alternate form. Kaitlin’s wind whipped his fur and the fires raging inside him until, as a wolf, Michael stared back.

  Their muzzles touched. Lightning-like nerve fire struck Michael. Then the damn curtain moved again. When he looked around, Kaitlin had left him. She was sprinting toward that rift in the night as if she had to find out what lay beyond the eerie onyx shimmer.

  Michael loped after her. He caught her by the back of her neck and clamped down with his teeth before she reached the strange, rippling veil. Planting his paws, he dragged her to a stop. Though Kaitlin struggled and roared, he held fast, wary of that wavering incongruity, not liking how frightened he was.

  Whatever lay beyond this thing had to be calling to Kaitlin, the way the moon called to him.

  With a growl of his own, Michael tugged Kaitlin with him to what he hoped was a safer distance. Eventually, her struggles ceased and she collapsed in the grass with one last gut-wrenching whine.

  Yes, Kate. It has been one hell of a night, Michael agreed.

  She was instantly a woman again, and his transformation matched hers. With human lips, he found the nape of her neck, the little hollow that was damp from the heat of her transitions and smelled like heaven.

  She turned, pressed herself closer to him, nipped his chin with her small human teeth. Her hands slipped around to his back and slid over his bare buttocks. She was riled up, fiery and in need of something only he had to offer, no matter where they were.

  The eroticism of the danger of this moment was unnaturally exquisite. He knew better than to keep this going, but ignored the warnings. Kaitlin’s breasts, against his chest, were hard and straining. She moved with animal instincts, finding the places on his body that responded the most to her touch. In this moment, they were animals in human form, caught up in a desire running rampantly out of control.

  Kaitlin wouldn’t understand the urgency of the need to mate that all wolves experienced after a shift. He had mastered those desires in the past only with practice and concerted effort. He had only dated human women to avoid this very thing, and having to settle down.

  But as she continued to press against him suggestively, his mind lagged behind the impulses of his body. He, too, had shifted too many times tonight. His body needed release.

  Resisting Kaitlin, who held so many fascinating feminine secrets, was not possible. A man, Were or not, had only so much control. And damn it, his was gone.

  He took her mouth savagely beside that damn alien curtain. To anyone who might have been watching, and if he had been able to speak, his message would have been… I hope you enjoy the show.

  He wasn’t the only savage here. The animals beneath the surface of their skin were letting their wishes be known by demanding satisfaction the hard way, with teeth and nails. Kaitlin’s wolf was as tempestuous as his was.

  He had Kaitlin in his arms before she could utter a protest. Feeling strong now, he strode through the park, reaching his house long before their passion had waned.

  He laid her on his bed and listened to her growl of pleasure. His kissed her again, then slid a hand between her silky feverish thighs. What he found between those thighs was petal-soft and worth the howl he choked back.

  “Kate…” He spoke her name with his lips on hers, punctuating the word with a meeting of their tongues.

  Her response was to kiss him back with her moist, plush mouth, and with enough fervor to melt away what remained of his forced resistance. With her arms wrapped around his shoulders and her nails digging into his tense, corded muscle, she was daring him to stop this, while letting him know that wouldn’t be allowed.

  With shaky fingers, he opened her. The shaking was strange. His mind had never interfered with his sexual conquests, the way it was nagging at him now. He hadn’t cared for those other women the way he cared for Kaitlin. None of the others had been potential mates.

  He could not stop this. The momentum of these kisses were sweeping him away from rationality. Doing what they were about to do would cement their pairing and complicate their lives. What male wanted his preferences to be dictated by a force beyond his control? By a she-wolf giving him the come-hither?

  His hips were pressed tightly to hers, pinning the hand that still covered her most private of places. He had to have her, and that was that. Denial and regret would have to wait their turn.

  He slid the tip of one finger inside her, finding more heat and a waiting, willing dampness. Kaitlin was not only allowing this, she was actively encouraging him. She had become a seductress, with a lure that rivaled the moon’s.

  Her body was hot, but Kaitlin, inside, was volcanic. A storm had been unleashed and she was riding the crest of the wave that would carry them both away.

  His cock was hard, throbbing. The effort to hold back was making him sweat.

  She moved against him, thrusting her hips upward in a way that left him no other option but to take possession. After one more sharp breath, he eased into her with his eyes shut, soaking up the incredible molten lushness that paved the way to Kaitlin’s core, resisting the urge to strike fast and true.

  Restraint was not an option. He wanted to move, dive, take, possess and mark Kaitlin as his so that every other wolf on the planet would keep their distance. Wolves sensed possession. Good ones accepted it.

  He pressed his hard length into her slick waiting womb, thinking he might go mad if they were interrupted. Man to woman and wolf to wolf was the way this was going down. There was no room for anyone or anything else. All problems seemed distant.

  Drawing back slightly, feeling her nails rake his lower back in protest of his withdrawal, and scenting the iron-like odor of the blood she’d drawn across his skin, Michael pressed more of himself inside her, shuddering, struggling with himself to give Kaitlin a few more seconds of breathing room before fully filling her depths.

  When she gasped with pleasure—this time a soft, sighing sound—he began to stroke her, moving slowly in and out, fearing that time was almost up on the limit of his patience.

  He stroked Kaitlin smoothly again and again, moving his hips to meet each answering thrust of her hips. Chanting warnings that made no sense and didn’t suit him, Michael built up a rhythm and held steady to it with his pulse pounding in his ears.

  Each thrust he made now deepened their connection and led them closer to the apex of sexual gratification. Kaitlin’s insides tightened around him, massaged him, held him captive with a sweet, creamy allure. She was willing to take all of what he had to give. She was gloriously tight. Instinctively, she did all the right things.

  Christ, Kaitlin…

  They were going to reach that climax together, and Michael didn’t want this to end. He didn’t want to see the look in Kaitlin’s eyes when she opened them. That look would either be accepting, or one of horror and regret.

  Her next move refocused his attention. He hadn’t realized he had slowed down until her long, sleek legs locked him in place to ensure that he took her up on the release of the last bit of barrier left between them. Her heat was the equivalent of lightning.

  Michael suppressed a roar.

  All right.

  Okay.

  Gripping her hips with his hands, he drove himself into her with a force that left them both breathless. The world around him began to beat in sync with his heart. His pulse rocketed, echoed by Kaitlin’s.

  Thunder rolled inside her. Kaitlin’s body quaked beneath his. He reached her core, filled her completely and held himself there. Her climax burst, carrying him along with it. That blast of pleasure was like swallowing a shooting star.

  The world exploded into prisms of color. And as that moment engulfed them, Kaitlin spoke, w
hispering a series of syllables that he couldn’t understand. And then she went limp in his arms.

  Chapter 18

  Michael looked at Kaitlin lying on his bed. Her hair fanned out across his pillow in an auburn tangle. He wanted to touch her, yet didn’t, afraid of his need for a rematch. If he had his way he wanted to always watch her like this.

  Hoping Kaitlin could hear the senseless things he muttered to her that were meant to put her mind at ease, his mind churned out wishful scenarios where Clement was at peace and there was time to indulge in his fantasies. That was what imprinting did. It made slaves of the Weres snared by the ancient spell and to the physicality of love.

  Michael felt some discomfort over what had happened between Kaitlin and himself. He had taken advantage of her moment of weakness. Consummating this relationship with her meant that they now actually had a deeper bond. Their connection had been completed, instead of being severed, as he had originally planned. Now that Kaitlin had shifted and they had shared an incredible intimacy, their future was set in stone.

  They had no say about this. But honestly, he wouldn’t have complained, even though he heard the binding chains rattling. The change taking place inside him would ensure a future of cravings. A few minutes inside her had to have been worth the lifetime of rule-breaking credits that stretched ahead of them, but Michael wasn’t sure he could stand wanting Kaitlin any more than he already did.

  Right now, while she was out cold, her body beckoned to him. And that wasn’t the biggest part of his current dilemma. The thing that puzzled him most was how she had shape-shifted on her own, when that was unfeasible.

  “Will you do it again?” he asked her sleeping form.

  After bringing her home, he hadn’t left her side. Couldn’t have left her. An hour had gone by and he had not rejoined the pack. Feeling guilty about this, Michael sent a message to his pack-mates that something had needed his immediate attention and was the reason for his delay. Rena sent back that they hadn’t found Chavez, and the hunt was almost over for tonight.