She rubbed her hands against her jeans one more time, making sure no trace of her nervous sweat remained, and then she opened the door to Declan’s office.
The first thing she felt when she saw Case Jackson was a very shallow sense of relief, plain and simple.
He was as ridiculously good-looking in broad daylight as he had been at night. Sex wasn’t anywhere near being her top priority right now, but it was good to know that if Case somehowagreed to her wild idea to save Mountainview, their probably-brief married life would have at least one thing going for it. Or it would if he felt the same way, at least.
“Hi.” She held out her hand. “Good to see you again.”
Handshakes sometimes made Lydia feel like she was at a job interview, but Case’s didn’t. His was firm but friendly.
His hands were well-callused, she noted distantly. Despite Lydia telling him it wasn’t necessary, Declan had run an informal, rapid-fire background check on Case early this morning, and he’d said Case did a lot of work with his hands. Obviously that was true. It was a good sign. He was a guy who knew how to do things.
She took the other chair in front of Declan’s desk. Time to drop some bombshells. Luckily, Case didn’t seem like the kind of person who would run away screaming.
“There are people in the world who can turn into animals.” She was surprised by how easily the words flowed, even though she’d never had to say them before. A lifetime’s worth of secrecy around humans should have left her tongue-tied, but talking to him felt natural. “They’re called shifters. Actually, I’m one of them, sowe’recalled shifters.”
Case didn’t look like he was processing any of this.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Declan said, inching out the door with a preemptive wince on his face. Clearly he felt all the awkwardness she didn’t.
With him gone, the energy in the office changed. It felt more intimate, less official. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
If all this went well, she would sink her teeth into Case. She’d go to bed with him. They would fight side by side, protecting their pack, and shed their blood together.
So ... intimate was probably good. And itfeltgood. It feltright.
She said, “I’m not surprised he’s not used to this conversation either. The firm usually only handles shifter business, and we don’t have to tell each other what we are.”
There was a sudden spark in Case’s eyes as he put something together.
“‘For all your ever-shifting legal needs,’” he murmured.
Oh, right, that was Turner Lowe’s motto! The law firm had been part of Lydia’s world for so long that she’d forgotten that it had a way of signaling to shifters that it was offering what they needed.
“Right. The motto’s their way of letting people like me know thattheyknow.”
“Like a secret handshake.”
Lydia nodded. “Although when we meet up in person, we don’t need one of those, thankfully. We can sense when someone’s a shifter and when they’re not. So I know you’re human.”
“And you’re ... not.”
He didn’t say it with any revulsion, and Lydia didn’t even think she sensed any amused disbelief. If anything, he said itdelicately, like he was worried it might offend her. He probably didn’t believe her all the way yet, considering how wild all this had to sound to a human, but he was obviously holding back any outright skepticism.
She trusted him enough to tell him the truth without stammering, and he apparently trusted her enough to listen without rolling his eyes or assuming this was some kind of joke. That felt like another good sign.
If she got to her proposal and he said no, Lydia didn’t know what she would do. This had gone beyond wanting to avoid mating with some Reeve knockoff. Now she wanted Casespecifically—Case, with his easygoing curiosity and ability toreserve judgment, with his good handshake and sexy crow’s feet and warm gaze.
“No, I’m not,” Lydia agreed. “I’m a werewolf.”
She couldn’t think of any better way to prove it than to show him. Luckily, Declan’s office didn’t have a glass door, so there was no chance any more blue-sticker clients—ones who didn’t know about the existence of shifters—might wander by.
“Can I show you?”
Case’s eyes went wide, but he nodded immediately. “That would be great, yeah.”
She stood up and let herself flow into her other body.
She’d wondered last night if self-consciousness would trip her up on this. Maybe it would have, if she’d been with someone else, but Case had put her completely at ease. If he could face this down without flinching, so could she.
