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“About the witch he thinks he’s going to mate with, yes.”

I swallow.

“Well, that’s…”

He sighs and touches his nose to my hair again. And I fidget the entire time… until I feel something stiffening between us.

Oh my God.

I push at him harder, squirming away. He lets me, watching with dark eyes. My gaze drops to his dick, which is swollen and pointed in my direction. I shouldn’t be mesmerized by it, but damn.

“Are you a virgin, Astra?”

I choke. That breaks my staring contest with the cock, and I drag my gaze up.

“What have you done? And with who?” He’s smiling, but there’s now a hard glint in his eyes. The wolf is right there, too, keenly interested in my answer.

I shiver and rise, dusting off my clothes.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” I eventually land on.

We’re not going to talk about my sexual history, that’s for sure.

I gesture to him. “Did you abandon your clothes somewhere, you heathen?”

The tension in Kian’s face doesn’t completely break, but he does nod. I march through the brush in a general guess of where we came from. I’m not about to admit that I’m completely lost. What if I had to make it back to his truck? I’d be stuck for ages.

He catches up to me in wolf form. He moves so silently, I flinch when he bumps my arm with his head.

I sigh.

He does it again, until I reach out and wrap my fingers in his fur at his shoulder. His head lifts, and his fucking tail wags. He’s happy—it’s like I’m a teenager, asking if I can hold a boy’s hand. It makes me uncomfortable, but when I loosen my grip, his lips curls. A silent, automatic snarl.

Okay, fine.

He steers me in the right direction. It’s actually not so bad with his wolf beside me. He doesn’t so much as look at me as long as I’m touching him. We stop, and I gather his clothes, grumbling about how he should create a backpack he can wear in wolf form. Then we continue on.

I’m amazed at how far we ran. We reach the edge of the trees and continue into the large field. In the distance, his truck waits for us on the side of the highway.

He wanted to chase me to see if I could tap into my powers… but I can’t figure out if that’s because he wants me to have it, or because he has another use for me.

And if it is the latter… what does he want?

Chapter 19

Kian

We’re being followed.

I don’t know of any packs in Utah, which we’re currently speeding through, but here we are. I sense them at intervals, like they’re stationed along the road waiting for us, and then they pass out of my range. There’s a car trailing us, too. It’s currently almost a half mile back, keeping pace with us, but the lack of other feedback is going to drive me nuts.

It’s the same way Gage would be able to sense a rogue wolf in his territory. Alphas have the presence of mind, and the strength of it, to project their senses wider than other wolves. So in that regard, we’re at a slight advantage, but it’s not the same in a moving vehicle, passing through an unknown territory.

I glance at Astra. She’s curled in the seat beside me, her eyes shut. There’s still some dirt on her skin, but I like that about her. That she doesn’t notice or care about being dirty. Her Mark is visible, and I have to tear my eyes away from it. In all my years hunting down witches, no Mark has ever been so… startling. There’s nothing quiet about it, nothing to detract attention from her jawline and eyes and hair.

I shake it off and focus on the task at hand. I feel Griffin in the back of my head and open our line of communication.

Do you know of any newer packs in Utah?