Page 73 of A Lady’s Guide to Werewolves

Here he was waxing poetic in his mind and she was simmering to plant him a facer.

He grinned. He had to. “You have a tell as well, Lady Sorcha.” He nodded to her clenched fist.

She lifted her chin. “That’s not a tell. That’s a promise.”

“Duly noted.”

He kept his eyes on her, the freckles on her nose, her slightly crooked incisor. Her thick auburn curls that he wanted to wrap around his own fist. She tilted her head, her blood warming the skin of her cheeks pink. She might not know what he was thinking, but the connection between them, the mark of his teeth on her neck, lent her an instinct. “What?”

“You have a little berry juice,” he said quietly. “Right there.”

He brushed his thumb over her lower lip. When her tongue darted out to touch the spot, she flicked it against his thumb. His hold tightened, faintly. A reflex. She didn’t blink, did not look away, even as the wolf closed the distance between them. He saw the burn of his eyes turning gold reflected in hers.

And then it was only the taste of her and tart blackberries when he sucked her lower lip into his mouth, before running his tongue over it. He licked into her mouth in a deep kiss. Her eyelids fluttered. She gripped his arms and opened her mouth to him, stroking her tongue along his, taking as much as she gave, giving as much as he took. He smelled her arousal, heard the tiny catch of her breath. “Delicious,” he said quietly.

And then he stepped back, letting the sunlight between their bodies again. A pity. But necessary. His wolf howled, denied. He felt it in his teeth.

Sorcha brushed the sharp tip of his incisor, much as he had brushed her lips. She was a tempting feast and he was dangerous. He caught her wrist. She watched him searchingly. She was far more perceptive than anyone gave her credit for. And restrained, he realized, when she dropped her arm.

“Tell me the plan,” she said.

Apparently the plan involved sitting under an oak tree at the top of the next hill and eating pears and scones with a bottle of lemonade Aidan had slipped into the pack.

He laid the small feast out on a napkin, to which Sorcha added more pilfered blackberries. Aidan cut the pear with a knife he produced from somewhere on his person. He cut the fruit with easy grace, handing them to her. Pear juice dripped down her wrist and he caught her gaze. She knew they were both imagining him licking it off.

But he didn’t.

He was a curator again, responsibility and restraint. Mind over body.

It should have frustrated her, but she liked this version of him too. It was the only version she had known since the summer solstice. The careful, clever curator who had kissed her in the moonlight one night. And the Lycan had kissed her in the sunlight. She wondered if he worried that she would prefer one over the other. She wouldn’t. Didn’t. She liked them both. She could never choose between them.

Then she reminded herself that kisses and orgasms in a library did not mean that he thought of her outside this plan at all.

Maybe she felt pulled to him, but it certainly did not mean he felt pulled to her. Pretend betrothals made no promises.

And perhaps he had made promises to someone else, she realized with a start. Her heart gave a slow, unpleasant thud at the thought. She felt a wash of sudden cold even though it was a hot, lazy summer afternoon. Aidan frowned at her. “Are you cold?”

She brightened her smile. “Not at all.”

He did not look convinced. He poured her more lemonade, placed an entire scone in her hand, and an enormous chunk of white cheese, still frowning. “I can find something better.”

She ought to just ask him outright. Prevaricating was not generally in her nature.

Only she did not want the answer just then. She wanted more pear slices and blackberry kisses under an oak tree.

She drew an outline of Lyonesse in the dirt with a stick instead. “So we are here,” she said, before he could ask her why she felt odd, why her heart had skipped. Wolves were very inconvenient when one was trying to lie to oneself.

She dropped acorns to represent Hallow and Haven and Holdfast. She added Xs to make the three places she had found the Cauldron fighting pits already. Aidan studied her map for a long moment.

“How did you know to curse that tooth specifically?” she asked. There were so many thoughts swirling in her head, it was difficult to catch one. It felt like chasing fireflies. Or wasps. Mad ferrets.

“There is a spell that calls for three Lycan teeth to prevent a werewolf bite.” He did not look up from the map. “I could cast it for you.”

She rather liked being bitten by this particular werewolf, actually. “No, thank you. Do go on,” she added before he could argue. “You think the Collector is working a similar spell?”

He inclined his head. “If three random teeth work well enough, he is working on the hypothesis that three teeth from the most powerful Lycan families would be even more powerful.”

“And is he correct?”