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  Eric stopped as well, near the end of the drive, yards from his luscious quarry. He knew he was a bastard for doing it, for intentionally prolonging the apprehension and anxiety that had Vanessa’s lovely light eyes wide and a little wild. That had her chest pumping as though she were still running from him despite that fact that now she had nowhere to run. She glanced toward the walls to each side of her, then over her shoulder toward the iron gate, but her eyes didn’t leave Eric for long. The woman couldn’t resist watching him as he stalked her slowly, both of them knowing he could have charged Vanessa and been upon her in an instant. He just… didn’t, despite the fact that she was, every inch of her, as soft and succulent and vulnerable as a downy young doe.

  When it came right down to it, a wolf was a wolf. As much as Eric enjoyed the thick musk of Vanessa’s arousal, as much as he wanted to feel her under him as he drove himself inside her, his beast relished the scent of her fear. It filled his nostrils even at a distance and left a tangy, salty note on the back of his tongue as the man licked his lips like his wolf licking its chops. His restless fingers closed into loose fists, and his chin set and sank down an inch as he focused a predator’s glare on the woman. This was half the joy of the hunt, the terrible hunger, the wait while his prey wound herself up tighter and tighter. While the already slick walls of her sex quavered and tightened.

  All that effort put into avoiding Vanessa and now…. At the base of Eric’s gut, he felt a low, dark certainty that he was going to take her. Not merely touch her, and not just fuck her, but take her. Despite having been with his share of human women and weres, he’d never experienced such a deep, resigned alignment with his wolf before, not when it came to a female. In battle, yes, if anything they had been too much at one. Eric had needed his pack alpha, Ron, to help him learn restraint, to separate the human from the beast enough that the man was making the decisions again, most of the time.

  Only a dozen steps away from her then, lunging distance, Eric had to ask himself if Vanessa was a shifter, a latent of some kind, perhaps. Was that the reason her body spoke to his the way no other human woman had before? While they had sat a seat away from each other all those days in the café, hardly uttering a word to one another, their senses and their body language had been speaking volumes. The possibility that something beyond physical attraction was at work slowed Eric’s prowl even more, and he eyed Vanessa with a new wariness. He didn’t want a woman having that significant, that intimate, an effect on him, even if it made his stomach tense and ache for her and his cock swell hard and high. He wasn’t sure what it meant. Whatever Vanessa was, she wasn’t wolfkin—not an unturned wolf. That was a scent he would have recognized. This couldn’t have been his reaction to finding a mate, then.

  Had that been what he was hoping, deep down?

  Salo stalked up on Vanessa at last with this final question looming as large in his mind as he loomed over the shivering woman. Warm evening. She wasn’t trembling from the cold. And it was so much more than skin-deep. Below the disarming, alarmingly exciting flush, beneath the prickle of goose bumps, Vanessa Dreyer’s blood was racing, salty and hot, throbbing against the containment of her veins with each beat of her heart. Her muscles were so taut that she practically vibrated. And Eric could sense all of it, almost like he was feeling through her.

  The shifter was salivating as he leaned over the lush brunette, his nose just above the graceful curve of her ear, and sniffed in her scent strong and full, filling his whole chest. Vanessa froze, so like prey, at first. Then, little by little, she rolled her shoulders down and back and straightened her neck. Brave. There was, under the human in her, something harder and stronger, even as she trembled before Eric, for Eric.

  She still smelled of that delicious fruit body wash, with her own skin’s jasmine and fresh-cut summer grass scent under that. The combination had been driving him wild every day he sat near her at that lunch counter. It had him distracted at his desk when he was supposed to have been checking project schedules and lately even at the pack meetings when he was supposed to be standing strong with Ron as the alpha’s second-in-command.

  Now a growl rumbled up from his chest and into the back of his mouth at the addition of the salty-sweet perspiration that beaded on her skin, that trickled along the column of her vulnerably bare throat and glazed the broad expanse of her cleavage. And beneath that delectable scent—sex. Fucking pheromones. Her wet pussy.

  His snarl of hunger vibrated Eric’s whole jaw as he dipped his face closer, feeling the whispery caress of her tousled hair against his cheek. He took a deeper breath. Surely somewhere at the blood and bone level, there was an element of Vanessa’s scent that should have told the were what she was and how it was that she so captivated him. But he couldn’t get past it, past the mouthwatering smell of her skin and her sex.

  Eric was the angry one then, as he advanced on the confounding woman and drove her back against the wrought iron gate barring the tree-lined drive beyond. No one at the house back there would have seen them, and the first part of the drive wound at an angle far enough from the street to obscure them, as the shifter took Vanessa’s hands. He put them above her head, closed them around the bars, then wrapped his own fingers over hers to hold her there. She hissed out a breath as he did it, and she really did sound strangely like a cat, a defiant little beast refusing to be threatened.

  A little cat in heat. Did Vanessa realize she was grinding her hips against Eric’s as he pushed her against the metal with just enough of his weight and strength to pin her? Part of him wanted to press in on her harder, make her be still, if only it didn’t feel so fucking good to have her writhing against him like that.

  Dammit, why was Vanessa so confusing? Eric sucked hard on the lobe of her ear, then bit, then sucked again until he got a whimper out of her. Both the wolf and the man in him wanted to hear her cry out, plead forgiveness for enflaming and frustrating and denying him, beg for him to take her. He wanted to teach her a lesson for undermining his efforts to keep his life uncomplicated, or as much as an Odin Wolf’s life—a double life hiding from humans and the government—could be. Yet Eric couldn’t deny that the one he was most furious with was himself for losing his control. He was backsliding into old appetites that he thought he had tamed, wanting things he’d promised himself he wouldn’t. A woman like Vanessa, a real woman, a woman of substance, and with the kind of body that made the shifter and his beast lose their heads.

  A woman who had to understand that getting involved with Eric Salo—even if she didn’t know he was a werewolf and an Úlfhédinn wolf soldier of Odin embroiled in the battle to safeguard humanity until the final days of Ragnarok, no less—was not a good idea. And neither was playing games with him.

  Eric lifted his head to glare straight into the woman’s blue-gray eyes. “What are you, Vanessa?”

  For her part, she lowered her chin and glared back from under thick black eyelashes. “What kind of a question is that?”

  She got a hard kiss and a brutal thrust of his hips for her insolence. The bulge of his cock, jutting against the taut material of his pants, pushed against the silk of her dress and panties and parted the lips of her pussy. She keened behind gritted teeth as he rubbed against her tender clit with his erection, clothing be damned. Self-satisfied at her reaction, Eric growled into her ear, “The kind of question you ask a woman who can run faster than a car and only break a light sweat. We won’t even get into the fact that you did it in high heels.”

  Instead of denying the reality of what Eric had seen her do, instead of clamming up or ratcheting up the insolence, Vanessa froze for just a moment. Then she broke into the most confounding bright smile and let out another of those breathy giggles that made her sound too damn fuckable. “You saw that? I mean, I really did that, and you were there, and you saw it?” Good lord, the woman actually kissed Eric for what he’d said, a hard and all too brief pressure from her satiny lips. “I’m not crazy,” she sighed and then chuckled again. “Or you’re craz
y with me.” Then it hit her. “You. You ran just as fast as I did.” A naughty glint shone in her eyes. “Though it got you all sweaty and salty.”

  His pride rising in irritation at her jab, even if it was flirtatious, Eric said, “It’s the heat. Shifters are almost all susceptible to it. Which begs the question, Vanessa….” He leaned in harder, making sure the woman felt every ripple of muscle and every inch of the long, stiff cock she had aroused in both wrath and desire. “What. Are. You?” he enunciated, making her mew with little circular thrusts of his groin against hers with each word.

  Breathlessly, and still wearing that disarmingly pleased smile, Vanessa said, “Maybe I’m what you are. What did you call it? Shifter? What is that? What are you, Eric Salo?”

  And how could he be angry with her when she was smiling like that? When she was obviously so relieved to realize she hadn’t been imagining what she’d just done? A surge of protectiveness rose in Eric’s chest, until it hurt, at the thought that she’d been dealing with her nature—whatever it was—all alone. That she’d thought she was insane. That someone had convinced her she was delusional. He had to wonder if it was that doctor she worked for. Eric had seen Jeremy Koller stop on the street and stare through the café window at them while they had lunch together. The shifter had never liked the possessive gleam in Koller’s eye when it came to Vanessa. And now these suspicions had Eric and his wolf thinking of ways to hurt the man for whole new reasons.

  “You really don’t know anything about what you are? Or what I am? Hasn’t anyone been around to teach you? What about family?”

  “God, I could never tell my brother about this,” Vanessa gasped. “He desperately wants a spinster librarian for a sister. The world is a big, bad place as far as Aubrey is concerned.”

  “But if you can do this, then he—.”

  Eric didn’t get a chance to finish explaining to Vanessa that being a were—being any kind of supernatural, from shifter or giant to godling or fey—was genetic and passed down specific bloodlines even if it stayed latent in a particular individual. Whatever she was, her brother was as well.

  Both he and Vanessa smelled it in the same instant, though she might not have recognized the scent beyond knowing it meant danger. They both stiffened, and Eric released Vanessa’s hands and turned. He put her squarely behind him as two hulking figures came around the curve of the drive from the direction of the road.

  It was the two bikers, the fucking bikers he’d seen coming out of that bar across from the bistro. Eric had homed in on them just before the scent of jasmine and summer had distracted the hell out of him. Then Vanessa had been right there, had tripped in front of him and started all this. That was a rookie mistake he’d made, the actions of a whelp, putting sex before his warrior instincts.

  Now that folly was coming home to roost, as two Fenris Wolves stalked toward Eric with crooked grins on their smug fucking faces. Sons of Fenris, he thought, had to be. Eli Elizondo and his Central Coast Pack had tangled a few times with the Fenris mongrels, whose alpha fancied playing biker gang. Ron had been feeding intel to Eli on Fenris Wolf activity throughout the state and on the movement of artifacts prized by both sides of the eternal war, all which had now very likely put the Madera Valley pack on the radar for the SoF thugs.

  These two were all leather, denim, and scruff over too much muscle. On the best day, they reeked of asphalt, sweat, gasoline, and wolf from a hundred yards away. No way they should have gotten this close to Eric—and now to Vanessa—without his notice.

  The woman was leaned around to one side of Eric to see the leather-vested shifters tromping toward them in motorcycle boots and a haze of overconfidence. Looking down at her with a frown, he said, “This isn’t the way I would have wanted to answer your question, about what I am.”

  “Something’s going to happen, isn’t it?” she asked warily but also with her soft voice surprisingly steady.

  “Yeah, and you might not like me very much when it’s over.” Even if I’ve managed to protect you and half-ass made up for letting this danger get so close to you in the first place.

  It beggared belief when the woman straightened, up onto tip toes, and pulled down on Eric’s shoulders enough to get him to flex his knees. “Who said I liked you to begin with?” she asked, then nipped him on the ear. “Do what you have to do, and don’t worry about me. You know how fast I am, but maybe they don’t.”

  A good point. Still, Eric didn’t hold much faith in Vanessa’s blasé reaction to his warning about what she was going to see. She didn’t know what she was or what shifters were, so there was no way she had ever seen a were go full or even half-form. Like Eric was about to, as his skin, unlike so many of his brethren, lightened and shimmered instead of darkening. The fur that bristled under his skin, that prickled painfully in the moments before the pelt erupted forcefully along his body, was almost pure white. It rippled and spread over his hulking, swelling frame like a wave, as the bones of his face crackled and elongated, reforming into the head of a wolf. When the pain subsided, he was in half-form, eight feet tall, snarling, ears pointed forward, knees flexed in the crouch that precedes the lunge of attack.

  For their part, the Fenris Wolves darkened—eyes, skin, demeanor. They put several feet between them as they shifted a little more with each step, also to half-form, spreading out to make it harder for either Eric or (more likely) Vanessa to dart past them and escape. They meant not just to engage the Odin Wolf but to have the female. As much as the scent of her fear had excited Eric, it would have churned the chaotic and savage Fenris breed into a fury of violent lust. As much as her defiance had disarmed and challenged him, it would have driven a Fenris Wolf to lethal brutality.

  The voice of Eric’s wolf spoke with instinct rather than words, crowding his head, urging him to attack. The human part of him actively resisted turning to look at Vanessa behind him, resisted searching out her reaction to him in his lupine form. He knew the primal repulsion and nausea that came from hearing the snap of reforming bone and the rough, grating bristle of fur erupting through skin. Seeing the horror in her pale eyes would have been too disheartening when he was already facing steep odds.

  The white shifter charged the dark Fenris Wolves, all claws and teeth and snarling rage. They wouldn’t be baited into a quick, frontal confrontation. Eric ducked the razor-sharp swipe from the long arm of the one closest to him, but he knew the second was circling around to flank him. To his advantage, neither looked like the leaner, faster pack scouts that could have slashed him and darted out of his reach. To his disadvantage, when they had shifted, they had gained every bit as much height and muscles as Eric had.

  The Odin Wolf dodged to one side, avoiding the first jab from the mongrel skirting his peripheral vision. His breath and his heartbeat and the growling wrath of his wolf filled his ears. He couldn’t see the woman or even hear her. Had she cried out at the sight of him, as he shifted? Had she covered her gasp with her hand? Had she wretched at the sight of him, realizing the true nature of the man who had been holding her, tasting her?

  Distraction, his wolf snarled in his head. Too late. The blow from the Fenris Wolf who had ducked behind him laid open deep, bloody gashes in Eric’s opposite side, just below his ribs. The pale shifter lurched the other direction, just as something streaked past him.

  Vanessa. What the fuck was she doing running into the knot of fighting werewolves? Because that was exactly what she did. The woman wove her way like flashing light between Eric and the flanking wolf, knocking Salo to one side before running right in front of—right past—the second stunned Fenris Wolf.

  Instantly, the battle-lust from the smell of first blood gave way to the need to chase their fleeing prey. The wolves—all three of them—leapt to follow Vanessa down the drive toward the street, down the shady lane, through the deepening shadow of approaching twilight. All three had enough presence of mind to call back their beast as they emerged from the driveway and back into the public view. That was a blessing for
Vanessa. Returning to human form from a full or partial shift brought with it a profound physical weakness and confusion in proportion to the extent of the shift, the length of time the shifter held it, and the sheer power of the wolf. Neither Eric nor the Fenris Wolves had long before their strength would fail them and Vanessa, unburdened by the need to change her form, would have the chance to escape them.

  The sound of a siren behind them crushed Eric’s moment of optimism. He glanced over his shoulder knowing what he’d see and fearing the worst. A black-and-white was gaining on the men just as their abilities were waning. A glance at the figure in the driver’s seat told Eric this was no simple patrol vehicle happening across the skirmish. When citizen’s called in the sort of suspicious activity that indicated shifters, the officers who responded were almost always Agency moles. And the policeman driving the Crown Vic barreling toward him was a dead match to one of the photos Ron had made ever pack member commit to memory. If he let that one catch him, arrest him, Eric was going to end up a cadaver on a slab in a government laboratory. And Vanessa….

  As the ear-splitting bleat of the siren became a constant assault on conscious thought, the woman and the shifters split off in different directions. Eric made a point of falling back, making himself look like the weakest target. It wasn’t far from the truth, as a leaden feeling settled into his limbs and wore away at his resolve to keep running. But he had to lead the Agency away from Vanessa, and it was working.

  When Eric couldn’t see her anymore, he used what little strength and clarity of mind he had left to jump a fence and run through yards where the police officers couldn’t follow without leaving their car. Then they were just humans on foot. If he kept his head long enough, he could lose them before the stupor overcame him. And with luck…. With luck Vanessa would be long gone before either the Agency or the Fenris Wolves regrouped to scour the area for Eric and for her.