I should call Graham and Nate immediately. Should get back to the office and start planning our defenses. Should do a dozen things that an alpha does when his pack is threatened.
Instead, I find myself walking.
Something's been wrong with me for weeks now. A restlessness I can't shake, like an itch between my shoulder blades that I can't reach. Sleep comes in fragments, interrupted by dreams I can't remember but that leave me aching with longing for something I've never had.
My ex-wife used to say I was broken. Maybe she was right.
The rain pounds harder, turning the sidewalk into a river. I'm six blocks from the IronFang building now, my dress shoes squelching with each step. Most people would call this insanity. I call it thinking time.
That's when I see her.
A figure about a block ahead, walking without an umbrella just like me. Even through the downpour, I can tell she's struggling against the wind. Something about her movement—graceful but determined—makes me slow my pace.
A car appears out of nowhere, racing down the flooded street at dangerous speed. I open my mouth to shout a warning, but I'm too far away. The vehicle hits a massive puddle just as it passes the woman.
The wall of water that erupts is biblical.
She goes down hard, disappearing completely behind the spray. My body moves before my mind catches up, legs pumping as I sprint toward her. The scent hits me when I'm still fifty feet away—something wild and clean and utterly intoxicating.
Wolf. She's a wolf.
But there's something else, something that makes my chest tighten and my heart race. Something that tastes like lightning and feels like coming home.
She's struggling to her feet when the second car appears, moving just as fast as the first. Its headlights sweep across her disoriented form, and I realize with crystal clarity that she's about to stumble directly into its path.
Time slows to a crawl.
I can see every droplet of rain suspended in the air. Can hear my own heartbeat thundering in my ears. Can smell her terror mixing with something sweeter—something that calls to every primal instinct I possess.
"Watch out!" The words tear from my throat as I launch myself forward.
I hit her at full speed, wrapping my arms around her waist and rolling us both away from the street. We land hard on the sidewalk, her body pressed against mine, and the world explodes into sensation.
She's warm despite the rain. Soft curves and lean muscle and skin that smells like summer storms. Her dark hair is plastered to her face, and when she opens her eyes to look at me, I forget how to breathe.
Gray. Her eyes are the exact color of the storm clouds above us, and they're staring into mine with an intensity that makes my wolf side howl with recognition.
Mine. The word echoes through every cell in my body. Mine, mine, mine.
She's young—maybe twenty years younger than me—with a face that could launch wars. But it's not her beauty that has me paralyzed. It's the way she's looking at me, like she's seeing something impossible. Like she's feeling the same electric shock that's currently rewiring my nervous system.
"You—you saved me." Her voice is soft, breathless. She reaches up as if to touch my face, and I have to use every ounce of willpower not to lean into her palm.
Instead, I force myself to move away, to put distance between us before I do something catastrophically stupid. Like kiss her. Like claim her right here on the rain-soaked sidewalk.
The moment I break contact, the loss hits me like a physical blow. Everything in me screams to reach for her again, to pull her back against me where she belongs.
Where she belongs? Christ, I don't even know her name.
"What's your name?" she calls out as I struggle to my feet.
I should answer. Should at least make sure she's not injured. Should act like a decent human being instead of a wild animal spooked by his own shadow.
Instead, I turn and walk away.
But with every step, the pull gets stronger. The need to go back, to find her, to protect her from whatever dangers might be lurking in the storm.
It takes everything I have to keep moving forward, to not spin around and claim what my wolf is insisting belongs to me.
