Her gray eyes held fire. Her brown hair bent a little at the ends. The top of her head hit his mid-chest. The angle of her legs as she sat in his leather chair…the curve of her back against his arm as he carried her into the house, carried her into his house…the curve of her shoulder, of her hip. He could map every line of her frame. The knowledge lay in his mind, waiting for the confirmation of his hands on her body.
Ember. His. She washis.
He snarled, the sound loud in the truck cab. No, she wasn’t. She would return to her life in ten days. She was best friends with a vampire. She had come to his home with demands and fears. She was the last human on earth who’d consider becoming a wolf’s mate, joining a pack for the rest of her days. Still the claim echoed in his head.
He pulled up the driveway and shut off the truck. Out his windshield he could see Quinn and Ember in the garden. Past the farthest reach of the hose, they each poured from a bucket, life-giving water close to the roots of George’s plants. Aaron breathed deep, and along with the scents of the garden, the unique wolf-scent of Quinn—Ember’s nutmeg scent mingled too. A scent that belonged.
Maybe Aaron could show her. Maybe she could want to belong here.
He had less than a week. His head told him he’d be crazy even to try, but his heart howled for a chance to win her.
“Jeremy, Lucy, meet Ember.” Aaron presented her to the cookout hosts with a dimpling smile and such pleasure she could have been the guest of honor.
Ember shook their hands, exchanged pleasantries, and wondered if they knew just how assertively she’d shown up on Aaron’s doorstep yesterday. In any case, their welcome seemed sincere. A tall standout with her burgundy hair and pink-framed glasses, Lucy nonetheless radiated calm warmth that Ember would never be able to pull off. Jeremy’s eyes were honest and deep blue with a friendly twinkle. Height over six feet and insanely muscular physique must together be indications of lupine DNA, since she knew from Quinn that Jeremy was one too.
Quinn darted off to join a volleyball game with both adults and teens playing. He fist-bumped several of them before taking his place on a team.
“Are there many other…wolves here?” she said.
“Well, every adult male and some of the young ones,” Aaron said. “Come on, I’ll introduce you around.”
“Wait—everyadult male?”
Aaron slanted her a quizzical look. “A guy without wolf DNA would never choose to live in a wolf pack. If a boy’s born to one of the wolves and never changes under the moon, he’ll move into town eventually.”
“Oh.” It almost made sense…in a territorial sort of way. “But you don’t kick them out of the pack.”
“No. It’s their choice, but it’s what they always choose.”
She continued chewing on that odd bite of information. Every guy she’d meet today was a lupine.
So she’d better meet as many of them as possible. She wanted to absorb every detail of this gathering. She wasn’t likely to get another chance to see the whole group together. “What about the wolf-gaze thing? Don’t I have to…um, acclimate to everybody?”
“You’re a guest today, so they’ll shield when you’re near.”
She followed Aaron toward the cluster of people. As he approached they opened a place for him, a few calling out his name or clapping him on the back. Several young children milled about a swing set, and one of the boys, probably five or six years old, dashed up and plowed into Aaron’s legs.
“Here’s my hand, Aaron!” He held it up, fully bandaged.
“Looking good, buddy.”
“I know, I’m doing so good! And it barely hurts, just barely!”
Aaron laughed as the boy dashed off again. “That was Zane.”
The hosts’ son, the little one he’d patched up. “He’s a sweetheart.”
“Yeah. He was a brave little guy yesterday.”
After the whirlwind of his entrance and exit, Ember cast a look around at the group who had enveloped her and Aaron. The women were physically average for the most part, but the men seemed all of the same body type: improbably tall and impossibly brawny.
So this was a wolf pack.
“Everybody,” Aaron said, the dimple coming out to play again, “this is Ember, Quinn’s aunt.”
No one seemed surprised by her presence. Community grapevine, no doubt. She tried to keep track of names as she shook hands and noddednice to meet youagain and again.
Sydney and Cassius. She seemed cautious of Ember, while he seemed glad to meet her. Nicole and Patrick. Both welcomed her with the enthusiasm of the host couple. Rebecca and Arlo, polite and reserved—ah, here was the elder who eschewed hospitals. Ember could have asked him a dozen questions but she only smiled and shook his hand.
