Four:He was now a wolf, and he had told me he’d explain everything after he hunted.
After he hunted.
I pulled the bedsheet up to my chest, tucked my knees underneath me, and stared at the wolf. He stared back. Neither of us blinked for a long time.
“I don’t know if you can understand me in that form,” I said. “But just so we’re clear, I have not agreed to this. I have not agreed to any of this.”
The wolf blinked slowly.
“Also, your cabin smells like dust.”
The wolf’s tail moved. Just once. Just the tip.
I wrapped the sheet tighter around myself and pulled the single flat pillow against my chest. The mattress was more comfortable than I would have expected. I sank down into it, pressing my face into the pillow. I closed my eyes and opened them and closed them again.
My body, apparently deciding it had processed enough for now, began shutting down. The sedative dregs still in my system wereworking overtime to make friends with the adrenaline crash, and together they made a convincing argument for unconsciousness.
The last thing I heard before sleep took me was the sound of the wolf’s breathing, slow and steady, and the last thing I thought was that I had no idea if I was dreaming or awake or losing my mind, and at this exact moment the distinction mattered less than it should have.
I fell asleep.
CHAPTER 4
Silas
I’d been running the tree line for two hours before I let myself circle back.
There was nothing quite like sprinting at full speed through the forest, chasing deer, and splashing around in streams. Though I’d told Katie I needed to hunt because that was the simplest thing I could think to say at the time, I didn’t need to actuallyhunt. Someone who can eat steak doesn’t eat rabbit, and deer were a real pain in the ass to catch. So were rabbits, for that matter.
It was just that when I held human form too long outside my territory, my wolf required a certain amount of freedom or it would eventually mutiny and shift me more or less whether I liked it or not. Today, though, I had a more productive use for my wolf than chasing squirrels.
I needed to find the creature that had its eyes on my mate.
Unfortunately, the skinwalker’s trail had been cold by the time I picked it up. I’d found nothing but the residual chemical stench and a scatter of tracks. I’d pushed the trail until the terrain forced me toward the highway corridor and the scent dissolved into exhaust and asphalt, and then I turned back because I had left my mate barricaded in a cabin and I needed to watch over her.
I returned to the cabin at dawn, settling into the junipers at the edge of the property and staring at the boarded windows for a while, ears tracking the sounds inside. My wolf demanded that I rush in, wake my mate, and claim her immediately, but I knew she needed rest, so I waited.
The sky behind the Sandias turned gradually from black to a bruised purple-gray, then the first edge of gold broke over the ridge. Finally I heard her moving around inside the cabin.
I lifted my head and angled both ears toward the window. The boards had gaps, slim ones, but enough to let sound through.
“Okay.” Her voice sounded like she’d been conducting an internal court case and had finally moved to oral arguments. “I’m awake. I can feel the mattress. I can feel the floor through my socks, and I am wearing socks, which I don’t remember putting on, which means I either put them on myself in my sleep or there is a man who can turn into a wolf who put socks on me at some point while I slept, and honestly both of those are equally—no, okay, the wolfman is worse.”
Venturing closer, I peered between the boards in the window, watching her walk into the bathroom with the bed sheet wrapped around her. She turned on the shower, letting the water warm up as she moved to the bathroom sink.
Then she started debating the mirror, looking endearingly determined. “When did he even have time to put the socks on? I guess I passed out pretty hard after he… turned into a wolf. Did he sneak back in at some point? Did he put them on me before he left?”
It had been the latter. She had fallen sound asleep with the blanket pulled up to her chin, but her cute bare feet had been sticking out of the bottom, and I didn’t want her getting cold. Her comfort and wellbeing mattered suddenly more to me than my own, and so I had painfully forced myself back into human form for a minute longer, after seriously considering how difficult it would be to put a pair of wool socks onto her feet with my wolf-form mouth and paws.
I watched as she let the sheet slip from her body and stepped into the steaming water of the shower, her self-debate still clearly audible.
God, she was so fucking hot.
I breathed in her deep, intoxicating scent. The scent of my mate.
After about ten minutes, she emerged, drying herself with a nearby towel before quickly wrapping it around herself. Her hair hung in damp waves around her shoulders.
I didn’t want to wait anymore.
