“So…in this way are you sort of like real wolves? I mean, the animals. Where there’s one, there’s always a pack.”
If Willow were a stranger, he wouldn’t answer that. It was just the sort of information that could put other wolves at risk. But this was his mate, and she wanted to understand, not to harm.
“Sometimes,” he said, “a wolf will live alone, if he hasn’t got a choice. But it’s not good for us. We grieve it, and we weaken.”
“Physically weaken?”
“And mentally, I think. Or at least that’s what the lore says.”
She nodded as though more puzzle pieces were falling into place. Then her hand left his shoulder and tugged his hand into her lap. She angled her knees toward his, all her focus lasered on him as though no one else walked the paths between stores, as though they were the only two people at the mall.
“I can tell this is a lot,” she said.
Ezra nodded.
“You probably didn’t plan on telling me this much, did you?”
“I wanted you to know about me. But it’s not…it’s not custom to reveal other wolves. It’s more than just etiquette.”
“Because of how private you’ve had to be. Makes sense. So I—I just wanted to acknowledge it, I guess. Your trust. I’ll do my best with it, Ezra. I don’t want us to part ways tonight and…and later on you decide it was too much and we have to be over before we’ve really gotten started.”
“I won’t do that.”
She shrugged, looked away. “Sometimes people surprise themselves.”
“That’s not something you have to worry about. Not with me.”
“Okay.”
But he hadn’t convinced her. Her scent was still spiced with doubt, insecurity. Ezra took the biggest chance of the evening and set his hand on her shoulder, gently as she’d touched him. She glanced up, surprise eclipsing the doubt, pleasant and floral to his senses. She didn’t cringe from physical contact with him. In fact…at his touch, her scent effused with longing.
“Hey,” he said. “If you want this to end in a breakup, you’ll have to be the one to do it.”
Her mouth curved. “Wolves don’t break up?”
“No.” The word was more forceful than he’d wanted it to be. Her question had brought fire to his blood.
Willow went very still. Then she reached up to his hand on her shoulder and laced her fingers with his, and she felt the pull between them as strongly as he did. Her scent gave her away. So did the dart of her tongue over her top lip. And Ezra wanted her. Needed her. Right then and there.
He swallowed hard. Mastered himself. Allowed his thumb to trace her knuckles, allowed his free hand to trace the lovely line of her jaw. But no more. He couldn’t comprehend how their desire was moving so fast. He thought of Aaron and Ember, met and mated in seven weeks’ time, how he had wondered at their speed. Now, instead, he wondered how Aaron had platonically housed his mate in his home for ten full days without losing his legendary patience.
“Ezra,” Willow whispered, a husky strained sound. “What is this?”
His chest rumbled. He couldn’t respond in words.
“No, I mean it.” Her fingers tightened in his. “I’ve dated some, but this…this is next-level something, and I want to know what it is.”
“Not here,” he said, nodding to the spotlights that stood at strategic intervals down the mall sidewalk. To the shoppers who had begun dispersing as he and Willow talked on, as evening dipped to dusk.
Caution rose in her scent. Smart girl, unwilling to head off somewhere alone with a guy after two dates. He nodded his understanding.
“The car, that’s all I meant. No eavesdroppers.”
“Unless there’s another wolf around, or a vampire.”
Ezra failed to keep the scowl off his face at her last word, but he forced his face to smooth back out again.
“You really hate them? Vampires?”
