I eyed Guin Vanderbilt off in a corner, standing with her sister, Sol, who had recently mated our vice president, Orion. The Vanderbilts used to be our sworn enemies. The blood feud dated back decades, a result of eye-for-an-eye nonsense that seemed to have no end. But when Sol and Orion got together, it brought in a new age of reconciliation, much to the chagrin of Guin and Kodiak. No one stood up to the alpha the way she did, no one who wanted to keep their head attached to their shoulders. But secretly, I thought he liked it when she gave him shit. Sometimes, she’d tell him off, and his eyes would glimmer like he wanted to bend her over the nearest surface and adjust her attitude with a steady hand and a few choice words. Those two were a ticking time bomb.
Speaking of, my wolf picked up a scent drifting through the space, oranges and coffee and soft feminine pheromones. His mouth watered, and when I looked at the entrance, I twisted my lips into a smile.
Wyn stood in a tight black dress with matching heels, her hair pulled back in a messy bun on the top of her head. She’d tried to tame her curls, but bits still hung around her face as her bright brown eyes surveyed the room. Maeve ran to her and hugged her before grabbing her hand to drag her into the revelry. I couldn’t help but follow, practically stalking her into the crowd.
There was something about her scent that drew me in like it never had before, something delicious and paramount, something that made me want to fall to my knees and beg her to do whatever she wanted to me. My inner beast licked its chops and whined, desperate to bury its head in her hair and breathe her in. But she’d slap me if I even tried, and that thought sent an ache to my lower stomach, trickling down into my balls.
Just like no one talked to Kodiak the way Guin did, no one ignored me the way Wyn did. No matter what I did, no matter what I said, she saw right through me. And that only made me want her more.
“You made it,” I said when I saddled up behind her.
She looked over her shoulder and sighed. “Yes, well. When a dominant wolf insists I look like shit and my best nurse practically shoves me out the door, I figure I have little choice.”
“You don’t look like shit, Wyn,” I said, raking my gaze down her curves and back up again. “You look beautiful.”
She’d always been in great shape, and now that she was an adult, she’d filled out in all the right ways. Her hips begged to be grabbed, and her thighs screamed to be wrapped around my head. I pushed those thoughts away because she didn’t think of me like that, and she likely never would. No matter how badly my wolf wanted things to be different.
Besides, Mill wouldn’t like me fucking around with his sister. No matter how long we’d been friends, Wyn was off-limits. Too good for me. Too pure to be sullied by my filthy paws. Too amazing to sink so low as to give me the time of day.
Up until recently, I’d agreed with him. But a few months ago, things shifted. Maybe it was when I’d been torn open by those vampire pricks while trying to rescue Sol, and Wyn had stitched me back together. Or perhaps it was when Mill had died and been brought back to life. I’d discovered her sobbing in her office, having given so much magic and energy into resuscitating him, she’d exhausted herself. I’d crouched beside her and held her through it, and together, we’d nursed him back to health. It probably didn’t matter when it changed, only that it did, and now I couldn’t stop thinking about making sure she was safe.
Wyn’s cheeks flushed, and she glanced at the ground, her delectable aroma wafting in the space between us. “Always the charmer.”
“I promised you a good time, didn’t I?” I grinned and grabbed her drink to set it on a nearby table before taking her hand to tug her out to the dancefloor.
“Fen!” She squealed and protested, but when I wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer, she relaxed into the contact. “I’m not a good dancer.”
“Me neither,” I answered, tucking her body against mine. “No one cares.”
I swayed her to the sultry beat of a slow song on the sound system, brushing against the bodies of our pack members around us, doing the same thing.
“You clean up nice yourself,” she said, gesturing to the black button-down and trousers I’d put on to make myself presentable. The Yule party wasn’t a formal affair, but most of us tried to show up as our best selves, if only to show respect for our family and ancestors.
“I had the best date in the house,” I said. “I had to make sure I looked like I belonged at her side.”
“This isn’t a date,” she said, but that brush of pheromones drifted up between us in a subtle hint of her body betraying her. She shivered, and I pressed tighter against her, trying to use my heat to warm her.
“No, of course.” I swallowed the rejection boiling up my throat and pretended like it didn’t hurt. “This is just a friend making sure his buddy doesn’t work herself to an early grave.”
“Right,” she said. “Friends.”
The word hung between us as she glanced at me, her wide eyes even more entrancing as they reflected the glow of the tiny lights strung around us. That connection hit me in the gut again, the one from earlier in her office. Like there was so much more to say, so much more between us, but neither of us would utter it out loud.
Truth be said, I didn’t deserve her, and she’d done nothing to give me the slightest clue that she’d be open to me trying. But my wolf had her in his cross-hairs, and no matter how much I told him to drop it, he only clamped his teeth harder around the idea.
“So, as friends,” she started, “why did you ask me to come tonight? And none of that ‘when’s the last time you went out’ nonsense. There are a lot of females here who would throw themselves off a bridge to be on your arm.”
I laughed and shook my head. “I don’t know about that.”
She raised an eyebrow in an incredulous response. My fingers itched to soothe the crease in her forehead, to help her relax in any way I could.
I didn’t have a good excuse, only that something about her had recently drawn me in like a moth to a fire pit. She seemed softer, needier, and my wolf demanded I be the one who provided. I didn’t know why, but sometimes that was the way of shifters. Our instincts pulled us in certain directions because we were meant to do whatever it was.
“I don’t know, Wyn,” I finally said. “Seemed like the right thing to do.”
I couldn’t tell her that my other half had been prodding me for weeks to do it. I couldn’t say that I’d developed this infatuation for her, and nothing else felt right in the world. I couldn’t say I saw no one looking out for her and had somehow made it my responsibility.
“Why?” She still seemed suspicious.
