“It’s not fair to Connor,” Kayla said.
“It’ll be unfair if I take doubts into our future.”
Without waiting for her to respond, I got up and walked out of our tent. I felt Rafe’s presence before I even saw him. He was back in the shadows near our tent. I felt his gaze fall on me. There was so much power behind it, he might as well have touched me. I grew hot, just as I had in my dreams. I crossed my arms over my chest as I walked over to him, because I was afraid I wouldn’t have the strength of will not to touch him.
“I wanted to thank you for the blackberries.” It was an inadequate start to the conversation, but how could I explain that I’d just needed to see him again?
“The blackberries?” It sounded as though he’d shoved out the words through clenched teeth.
I swallowed hard. “And for saving my ass.”
“I can’t believe”—he shook his head before continuing—“I can’t believe you went off by yourself.”
“These are my woods,” I stated emphatically. “
Our
woods. I’ve always felt safe in them.”
“They’re not safe anymore. Don’t you get it?” he whispered harshly. “If anything had happened to you, if I hadn’t been there—it would have killed me.”
Before I realized what he intended to do, he grabbed me, pulled me to him, and slashed his mouth across mine, kissing me with a ferocity that left me shaking and clinging to him as though I were suddenly drowning and he were my only hope.
I’d always thought a kiss was just a kiss. I’d been wrong. My body responded with a wild thrumming—I was a string on a harp that had been plucked and was now vibrating with a sweet sound. The kiss was hotter than any I’d ever received from Connor.
Or maybe it was just that the chemistry between Rafe and me was different. I wound my arms around his neck and pressed up against him. He drew me even closer to him, with one arm against my back and his other hand threading its way through the tangle of my hair. It seemed like he intended never to let me go. We were so close together that I wasn’t sure where my body ended and his started. Moonlight couldn’t have seeped between us.
Even as I relished the incredible pleasure pouring through me, my mind was screaming that this was wrong, so wrong. I belonged to Connor. I was his. It was decided.
I broke off the kiss and staggered backward. Breathing heavily I stared at Rafe, trying to understand what had just happened. He held out a hand toward me. “Lindsey—”
“No,” I whispered. Whatever he was going to say, I didn’t want to hear it. “That was wrong.”
Turning on my heel, I raced back to my tent with the truth pounding through my mind. There were things in the forest more dangerous than cougars, more dangerous even than Bio-Chrome.
It was nearly dark the next night when we finally reached the entrance to the park. I’d spent the entire day avoiding looking at Rafe, like I was afraid that I’d burst into flames if we made eye contact or that Connor would somehow find out Rafe and I had kissed.
I felt as though I needed a more powerful word to describe what had happened last night—
kiss
just didn’t cut it. The intensity of the encounter was probably just brought on by fear and relief and the whisper of danger that surrounded us. But still, it had left me shaken and unsettled.
“So it’s agreed? You’re going to go with Rafe tomorrow, show him the lab?” Lucas asked as we gathered at the park entrance.
“Yeah, dude, sure,” Dallas replied.
“I have a motorbike,” Rafe said. “We should be able to make good time. How about I meet you at dawn?”
“I’m not really an up-at-dawn kinda guy,” Dallas said. “How about mid-morning?”
They agreed on a time, and Rafe left with Dallas. I wondered if he planned to keep watch over the ex-Bio-Chrome employee all night. Kayla and I had a group of bird watchers to take out the following morning. Lucas had decided that he and Connor should go to Wolford and talk with the elders.
“We’ll leave in the morning,” Connor told me. “Want to catch a movie tonight?”
I nodded, trying to sound enthusiastic when I said, “Yeah.”
I needed some Connor time, desperately, but I was so afraid that he was going to discover my lapse in loyalty the night before. Even if adrenaline
had
brought on the kiss, I should have been strong enough to resist. My problem was that I wasn’t sure I’d
wanted
to resist.
It was with a sense of relief that I walked into my cabin, as though four walls could somehow protect me from myself, from these never-before-felt feelings I had toward Rafe. It didn’t help that Kayla had been studying me all day as though she expected me to break at any moment.
“Something happened last night when you went to talk to Rafe, didn’t it?” she asked as she dropped her backpack on her bed.
“Don’t have time to talk about it. Connor and I have a date.” I walked into the bathroom and took a hot shower. Starting tomorrow, I’d have a couple of days without Connor or Rafe. Alone with my thoughts, maybe I could figure things out.
Meanwhile, I wanted to look my best for Connor, but for some reason I wasn’t satisfied with anything I did. My hair was flat, my makeup boring. The saving grace was my outfit: a short white skirt, a purple strapless top, and my white denim jacket. I even wore sandals with short heels. They made me feel sexy.
Judging by the low whistle that Connor gave when I stepped outside, he agreed. It made me feel a little less guilty about what had happened the night before.
The moon was a little larger and brighter tonight. Connor and I decided to walk to town. It would mean catching a later movie, but I was more interested in our being together than in what movie we were going to watch. Holding hands, we walked along in companionable silence. I tried not to think about Rafe but I was worried about him going off to find the Bio-Chrome lab by himself. Well, not
totally
by himself, of course. Dallas would be with him, but I didn’t see him as being much of a fighter if they got into trouble.
“What if this thing with Dallas is a trap?” I asked. “If they need one of us…we’re handing them Rafe on a silver platter.”
Connor’s fingers tightened around mine. “Major rule tonight: We can’t talk about Bio-Chrome or any of this other stuff that’s happening. Just for a few hours, let’s pretend everything is normal.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that I wasn’t the only one craving the safety of the world we’d lived in before. But he was right. We were trying to escape from reality for a few hours.
“Okay, then. What movie is showing, anyway?” I asked. Tarrant had a small theater that showed only one movie at a time.
His smile flashed white in the near darkness. “Something with Reese Witherspoon—which means a chick movie. You’re going to owe me big-time for this.”
“Going to a movie was
your
idea,” I felt the need to point out, punching his arm playfully.
“Ow!” He rubbed his arm, then pulled me off the road into the shadows of the trees, until my back was pressed against bark. “You know, Lindsey, you’ve shared every moment of my life, big and small.”
“Not your first transformation.”
“You would have been there if it were allowed. I want to be there for you, for your first time. I love you.”
My heart slammed against my ribs, but not for the reasons it should have. I should have felt joy, but instead I was hit with terror at the enormity of what Connor had said and at my inability to return such a heart-felt sentiment. Either Connor was aware of my inner struggle or he wasn’t expecting a reply from me because his mouth covered mine. His kiss had never seemed so important, so significant, because it had never followed those three little words that were so monstrously huge.
I fought not to compare it to the unexpected kiss I’d had last night—the one that had stolen my breath and left me trembling.
Connor pulled back. I could sense tenseness in him as his hands closed around my arms. “You’re thinking about Rafe.”
“What? No.”
“Tell me you love me.”
“You know I do.”
He released a short burst of hard laughter and stepped away from me. “Do you love him?”
I felt tears burning my eyes. “Connor, let’s not do this.”
“Do. You. Love.
Him
.”
I’d always been able to talk to Connor about anything. Suddenly it was so hard to force out the words. “I don’t know.”
“God, Lindsey, your transformation moon is coming up and you don’t know? Don’t you think you need to know?”
“What do you suggest? I go to the movies with him?”
A heavy silence descended as though I’d dropped a bomb and we were waiting for it to explode.
“How do you know that I’m the right one, Connor?” I asked, hating that my voice sounded so small, so unsure.
“I just know.”
“That’s not an answer.
How do you know?
”
He took several steps away and then came back toward me. “Yeah, okay. Maybe you do need to go out with him.”
My heart thumped; I was panicking with the possibility that we were breaking up. Was this what I wanted? I honestly didn’t know any more. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I think I am.”
He started to walk away.
“Connor, wait!” I hurried after him. “I don’t want things to end—”
I came to an abrupt halt. The hairs on the nape of my neck began to prickle with the weird sensation you get when something just isn’t right.
“Connor!” I whispered harshly, loud enough for him to not only hear me but to detect the dread in my voice as well. Before I knew it, he was back at my side, emitting a low, throaty growl.
“Do you feel it?” I asked. It felt like…a disharmony in the universe—which makes me sound like some sort of New Age guru or something, but I don’t know how else to explain it. The forest just felt…
wrong
.
I heard Connor inhale deeply.
“Blood,” he said in a low voice. “A lot of it. Still warm. Maybe a recent kill. Or someone badly wounded.”
“
Someone?
Maybe it’s an animal.”
“Definitely human.”
My stomach roiled at the thought of who might be out there, wounded and possibly dying. I knew we had to find out what had happened—and Connor knew it, too.
He took my hand, our fight apparently forgotten. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay with this?”
“Of course.” In fact, I actually
wasn’t
sure, but no way was I going to admit it.
He released my hand, and I was aware of his movement and his clothes being shoved into my arms.
“What if it’s a trap?” I asked.
“It’s human blood, Lindsey. Someone might be hurt.” And he could find whomever it was far more quickly in wolf form. “We won’t be able to communicate, so just stay close. If you think there’s a danger to you, run as fast as you can. Holler to get attention if you have to.”
“Got it.”
He quickly brushed his lips over mine, and I could only hope that it wasn’t the last kiss we’d ever share.
Could I be any more confused? One minute I’m not sure we should be together and the next I’m hoping that kiss wasn’t the last.
A sort of electricity filled the air, and then fur was brushing up against me. Connor wasn’t too difficult to see in the dark because his fur was pale blond in color, a little darker than my hair. As a wolf he was able to read my thoughts, so I focused on the task before us. I brushed my hand along his fur. As he began to walk, sniffing the ground and air, I remained close enough so I wouldn’t lose him, my fingers occasionally sifting through his fur.
So I was very much aware when he suddenly bristled, as though whatever we were searching for, he had found. I could smell it now, the metallic odor saturating the air so thickly that it made me queasy. I could see a shadowed form lying prone on the ground.
Connor released a long, low howl. I didn’t know why the call of the wolf could carry so far and so effectively. I could be screaming bloody murder and few would hear me to come and help, but many of our kind would hear Connor. They would come. And with any luck, they’d bring flashlights. A lot of information could be communicated in a howl.
Connor was suddenly hairless, and my fingers were touching his warm, bare shoulder. He was in a crouched position. “He’s dead,” he said somberly.
“Who is it?” I dared to ask.
“Dallas. I recognized his scent a while back, and my night vision is good enough that I can see him clearly now.”
Stunned, I was barely aware of a tug on the clothes I held in my arms. I released them. The inside of my mind was screaming,
Who would do this? Why would they do it?
Only one answer came to mind: Bio-Chrome.
Connor wrapped his arms around me. He’d put his jeans back on, but he was shirtless. I could feel the warmth of his skin against my cheek.
“You okay?” he asked.
With him so near, I could now ask for the answer I’d been dreading. “How did he die?”
Connor’s hold on me tightened as though he needed as much comfort as I did. “Looks like someone—or something—ripped out his throat.”
Connor hadn’t put his shirt back on because he’d draped it over Dallas’s face and shoulders. When Lucas, Rafe, and Zander, another Shifter, arrived with flashlights to illuminate the grim scene, I was grateful to see nothing more gruesome than a stained, hunter-green T-shirt.
“You didn’t notice anyone around here?” Lucas asked.
“No,” Connor responded.
I felt a touch on my arm and jerked my head to the side. It was Rafe. I couldn’t believe how glad I was to see him, to know for sure that he was all right. His gaze wandered slowly over me as though he wanted to make sure that it wasn’t any of my blood tainting the air.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice raspier than usual, the way mine got when I had a scare.
I nodded quickly—too quickly. “Yeah, I just…I’m okay.”
He left my side then, and I felt keenly the loss of his presence. He knelt down and peered beneath the T-shirt. “Looks like the real deal,” Rafe said.
He was referring to the bite—it was real, not a wound that someone had made so it would look as though Dallas had been attacked by a wolf.
“Thought you were supposed to be watching him,” Connor said, irritation in his voice. I wasn’t convinced it was just because Rafe had neglected his duties.
“We were going to grab a burger at the Sly Fox, but he wanted to shower first. I didn’t think I needed to sit in his room, so I went to wait for him at the bar. When he didn’t show, I went back to the hotel. He wasn’t there.”
“I wonder what happened,” I murmured.
“Maybe someone figured out he wanted to help us—and didn’t like it,” Rafe said, his voice sympathetic. I felt the force of his gaze on me and knew I should probably look away, but I couldn’t. “The clerk at the desk said some big dude had been looking for him.”
“One of the mercenaries from Bio-Chrome?” I asked, my voice low.
“That’d be my guess. If so, looks like he found him.”
“We need to alert the sheriff,” Lucas said.
“Do we want to get the police involved?” Rafe asked.
“I don’t see that we have a choice. He’s not one of ours. He could have family somewhere.”
Sheriff Riley, however,
was
one of ours. He’d play this any way he could in order to keep the press low-key and to ensure the
National Enquirer
didn’t start poking around for a story on rabid wolves or werewolves that tore out the throats of unsuspecting tourists.
“I’m going to take Lindsey back to her cabin,” Connor said.
“Okay,” Lucas said, distracted, staring at the body.
I didn’t remember anything about the walk back to my cabin, except that it had been silent. The owls weren’t even hooting. It was as though the entire forest had gone into mourning.
When we got to my cabin, I opened the door and walked in. Connor followed.
Kayla was sitting up in bed. She threw back the covers and hurried over to me. I wondered what my face showed—maybe she saw that all the blood had drained from it. I felt like a walking zombie. “Are you okay?” she asked.
I was beginning to think that was the dumbest question in the entire world. Why would people ask that when it was obvious I wasn’t?
“Tell her, okay?” I asked Connor. “I want to take a shower.”
I strolled into the bathroom and closed the door. I turned the knob on the shower as far as it would go in the direction of hot water. It was summer and the nights were cool, but I felt as though I’d just walked across the frozen tundra. Without removing my clothes, I stepped into the shower, sat on the floor, and just let the water slam into me. I felt like the scent of blood had saturated my skin and clothing. I drew up my legs, wrapped my arms around them, pressed my forehead to my knees, and started to cry.
As a rule, I wasn’t much of a crier. But Dallas hadn’t seemed like a bad guy. He wanted to help us. Why hadn’t we realized the risk he was taking? We’d met several of the Bio-Chrome scientists—they cared about one thing and one thing only: getting to the root of our DNA.
I heard the door open and a bit of coolness seeped into the room that was now cloudy with steam. I was probably scalding myself, but I seemed incapable of feeling anything.
“Lindsey?” Kayla asked as she drew the curtain aside just a bit.
“Please don’t ask me if I’m okay,” I insisted.
“I won’t.” She reached over and turned off the water. “Let’s get you dry.”
“I can do it.” Somehow I did. I managed to get out of my wet clothes, dry off, and put on the pajamas she’d set on the counter for me. When I was finished, I left the bathroom and crawled into my bed beside hers.
“Where’s Connor?” I asked.
“He left. He wanted to go back and help Lucas figure out what happened.” She sat on the edge of my bed. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“When my parents were killed, I didn’t talk about it,” Kayla said. “That kind of trauma can mess with your head.”
“We barely knew the guy,” I reminded her. “But he seemed nice.” It didn’t even sound like me talking. Where were these words coming from?
“Connor said he doesn’t think it was a random animal attack. He thinks it was murder,” Kayla said. “Either one of us has gone over to the dark side, or one of the Bio-Chrome people has a trained dog or wolf.”
“We were the only ones who knew he was going to help us,” I said. But I couldn’t help but believe that Bio-Chrome was involved.
I was still cold. I slipped further beneath the blankets and looked at Kayla. “I guess we’ll find the answers when we find that Bio-Chrome lab,” I said.
“I wonder how much harder that’s going to be now.”
“I don’t know, but hard isn’t impossible. At least we know the direction to go in.”
“Unless he lied,” Kayla said quietly. “Maybe his mission was to put us off track.”
“Well, we can’t solve the mystery tonight. I’m going to sleep.”
“Are you sure you’re—”
“I’m totally fine,” I answered before she could finish. I rolled over, giving her my back. I heard her bed creak as she settled in. Then the lamp between our beds was clicked off.
I lay there for the longest time, exhausted but unable to sleep. I was acutely aware of Kayla becoming absolutely still. She was never restless in sleep. Then I sensed something beyond the door—a scuffling sound, like someone had stepped onto the porch.
Slipping out of bed, I crept barefoot across the cabin and slowly, quietly opened the door. I stepped onto the porch and drew the door closed. I wasn’t sure how I knew it would be Rafe there. I just knew. I wanted to walk into his embrace, to hold him and let him hold me. I thought about the argument Connor and I had been having. Did he mean what he’d said? Was he right? Did I need to explore these feelings I had for Rafe?
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Rafe said quietly, standing with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans.
“You didn’t.”
“I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
I felt the tears sting my eyes. “Rafe, I think maybe it’s my fault he was killed.”
“What? No.” Reaching out, he tenderly skimmed his fingers along my cheek. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”
“But if I hadn’t gone to look for blackberries, if he hadn’t seen you in wolf form—”
He touched his finger to my lips to silence me, then drew me up against him. I drew comfort from his hands stroking my back.
“If he’d told us everything that first night, things might have gone differently. We’ll never know. Things played out the way they did, but none of us had control over that. The only thing we know for sure is that someone was looking for him and now he’s dead. But you can’t carry that burden.”
I could if I wanted, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to argue with him. I’d had enough tension for one night. Right now, being in his arms was as relaxing as getting a massage at my mother’s spa.
“Listen, last night—when I kissed you,” he said softly, “I’m sorry if I upset you. I was just so scared when I saw that cougar…I just needed more than to hold you, to know you were okay. If I’d been able to talk to you right after, it might have been different, but what I was feeling…it had been building—”
“It’s okay.” I cut him off before he said something that either of us would regret.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead, then reluctantly, he released his hold on me and stepped back. “Well, like I said, I just wanted to make sure you were okay before I headed out.”
“Where are you going?”
“To find that lab.”
My heart hammered against my chest. “Are Connor and Lucas going with you?”
“No, they’ve gone to meet with the elders. They’ll be back sometime tomorrow. I’m leaving now.”
“I want to go with you.”
“No, it’s too dangerous.”
“Rafe, I feel like it’s my fault Dallas is dead. I’ll go search for the lab by myself if I have to.”
He released a frustrated sigh. “Lindsey, this isn’t going to be like leaving camp to look for blackberries.”
“I know that. I want to do this.”
“Connor won’t like it.”
Connor was the one who’d told me that maybe I needed to go out with Rafe. I knew that this wasn’t what he had in mind, but still, he couldn’t get too angry at me. This way, I could help
as well as
spend a little time with Rafe, as he’d suggested. “I have to do this.”
Rafe paused for what seemed like a long time.
“Okay. You’ve got ten minutes to pack.”
Nodding, I reached back for the door.
“Lindsey?”
I glanced back over my shoulder at him.
“Do you ever wonder if it’s worth it—the price we pay to keep our existence a secret?”
“I wonder a lot of things, Rafe.”
Mostly about you and me and what this strong feeling truly is that I hold for you. Is it infatuation with the forbidden? Or is it something more?