Chapter1
The big bad wolf was afraid of needles.
Mia Stone sat on the examination table, so still her weight didn’t wrinkle the protective paper. Did wolves need protective paper? Seemed unlikely. The thin parchment must’ve been in place just in case a human or two walked into the doctor’s office in Lost Lake, looking for medical help.
She kept her hand over the new bandage applied to her arm after giving blood. Again. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked.
Seth Volk lounged in a bright pink plastic chair by the door, his bulk overwhelming the seat. “I’m fine,” he growled.
It was a full-on, wolf shifter growl.
Yet, he didn’t look fine. He was pale beneath his normally bronze skin, and the pupils of his sharp blue eyes had dilated.
Dr. Sharon chortled from her position at the lime green counter as she carefully categorized Mia’s blood. Her stark white hair was up in a fancy bun, and her shoulders were only slightly stooped from age. “The boy has always gone faint when a syringe shows up. Funniest thing ever.” She turned, her brown eyes merry.
Seth cut her what Mia had dubbed hisAlpha look, but the elderly doctor didn’t seem overly bothered by it. “What’s wrong with Mia?” he finally asked.
Dr. Sharon shrugged bony shoulders beneath a white lab coat. “I have no idea.”
Mia swallowed over a lump in her throat. “Um, Dr. Sharon? I noticed you don’t have any diplomas on your walls.”
The doctor snorted. “Diplomas? Why would I have diplomas?”
Mia finally shifted her weight, and the paper crinkled. “Because you’re a doctor?”
“Right,” Dr. Sharon said. “It’s probably more accurate to say I’m a healer. The practice has been handed down through my family each generation, and when it comes to wolves, I know it all. You’re not a wolf shifter, sweetie.”
Seth straightened, an air of tension rolling from his powerful body. His hair was jet-black, his body cut muscle, and his strike deadly. “Wolf shifters have mated humans many times through the years. Well, sometimes through the years.”
“It’s rare,” Dr. Sharon murmured. “The last human mate I can think of was Melissa Redbird. She seemed to do all right. But the only time she saw me was during childbirth and then for a broken arm or two before she died of cancer.”
Mia shook her head. “Mates of wolf shifters can die from cancer?”
“Yes, but it’s rare,” the doctor said.
Even so, come on. “You people are wolf shifters. How do you not have reams of data on genetics? On your genetics?”
Dr. Sharon’s white eyebrows lifted. “Why would we?”
“Because you’re different,” Mia breathed. “You turn into wolves and live twice as long as humans.”
“You’redifferent,” Dr. Sharon countered. “Humans are different. Wolves are just wolves, and we’ve never needed to study why. You want to know the difference between wolf shifters and humans, and we don’t. We don’t really care.”
Huh. What an odd thought...yet true. Wolves already had longevity and strength. It would be humans who benefited from figuring out the differences between the species. So why would the wolves spend time or resources studying genetics? She gingerly touched the healed bite mark on her neck. Seth Volk’s bite mark.
His eyes flared in a way that zinged butterflies throughout Mia’s abdomen. “She’s bitten and mated, right?”
“Absolutely,” Dr. Sharon said, following Mia’s movements. “That marking is deep and permanent.”
His gaze turned possessive…and heated.
Mia tried to ignore her body’s instant reaction to him. Lust and need.
Right now, she needed answers more than she did his sexy body. Even though the wolf shifters didn’t care about science, there had to be at least one of them with an ounce of curiosity. “There has to be somebody who just wants to find answers,” Mia prodded.
The doctor pursed her lips, visibly losing her amusement. “There is somebody, but you’re not going to like it.”
Seth didn’t twitch. “Explain.”
