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“Which means I need to go back to the begi
Find out who his parents were. Or rather, are.
Find out where he was born.
Find out who was around him the first few days of his life.
The begi
At the sound of the masculine voice inside her head, she jackknifed to a sitting position, hand fluttering over her once again racing heart. Wolf loomed in her bedroom doorway, huge and black and beautiful. His fur gleamed in the sunlight, and those pale green eyes regarded her almost gently. His ears were perked, pointing like an elf’s. Clothing hung from his mouth.
“How’d you get in?” she asked.
I walked.
“Fu
His lips seemed to twitch around the material. Last time I was here, I left one of the lower windows open, so I would be able to climb through whenever I wanted.
“I should have known.” She eyed the clothes. Jeans, a T-shirt. “Are those for me?”
No. For me. When I switch forms.
Had she heard him right? “You’re going to…”
Show you my human form, yes.
Excitement spread through her veins, encompassing her entire body in seconds and making her shake. “Really? Why now?”
Ignoring her, he paced to her bathroom. The door closed with a swish. Mary A
The phone rang, startling her, and she jumped.
Mary A
Another ring.
As she sat there, Mary A
At the fourth ring, her machine picked up.
“I know you’re there, Mar. Talk to me. Please. There’s so much I want to tell you.” A pause. Pe
Beep.
Silence.
Mary A
The phone began ringing again, and she glanced at the caller ID, expecting to see Pe
Him, she didn’t love. Him, she wanted nothing to do with. She wasn’t even tempted to pick up the phone.
His message was shorter than Pe
“I’m sorry, Mary A
Click. Silence.
She shook her head. They were over, done in every way, and talking wouldn’t change that.
“Are you ready?”
Wolf’s voice. His real voice. Deep and rough…unsure. Was he as nervous as she was?
“I’m ready,” she called, her voice now trembling, too.
The bathroom door creaked open. There was a shuffle of footsteps, and then a boy was leaning against the wall across from her, staring over at her.
First thought to run through her head: she’d never met him before. The second: oh my God. He wasn’t exactly beautiful, his features were too sharp, but that only added to his appeal. He looked wicked and ruthless and capable of anything.
He had black hair, as silky and shiny as his fur had been, and his eyes were still green. That, however, was where the similarities with the wolf ended. He was taller than she had guessed, stacked with muscle and sinew, and had wide shoulders and long legs. His skin was a tantalizing golden brown. He wore a plain white T-shirt and faded jeans that hung low on his waist. No shoes or socks.
Her stomach had yet to stop flip-flopping. She’d lain in bed with this magnificent creature. She’d held him in her arms and petted him. She, who spent her spare time reading, who studied no matter how much she hated it and wouldn’t know fun if it slapped her across the face. She, whose most defining feature was a fifteen-year plan—a fifteen-year plan she no longer even thought about.
Fu
Until doubts took hold.
Had she bored Wolf to death? He ran wild in the woods. He could shift between animal and human. She was plain ole Mary A
What are you doing? Blank your thoughts. He could read auras. Did he know what she was feeling right now? How she was drooling over him? Oh, great. Go
“Well?” he said. “Do you have nothing to say? You’re bright pink, green and gold. Excited, nervous and nauseous.”
Her cheeks heated. Her skin was probably the same colors as her aura.
“So what are you thinking?”
“You can’t figure it out?” No way did she want to say it aloud.
“Mary A
She’d take that as a no. “I’m thinking you are…normal.” Not true, not true, oh, not true.
He popped his jaw. “Normal.” His harsh tone suggested that was a very bad thing.
Not knowing what else to do, she nodded.
Silence stretched between them. Neither moved.
Say something. Anything. “Aden thinks I’m some sort of superability neutralizer. If that’s true, why didn’t I stop you from changing from wolf to human? Or maybe a better question is why didn’t you change back into a human when you first approached me? Of course, both of those questions hinge on the fact that I’m a neutralizer, which I might not be.” Dear God. She was babbling. Stop! “You know, you could stop glaring at me. That might help.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face and laughed without humor. “All this time I agonized over the decision to show myself to you, my true self, afraid of your reaction, and this is what I get,” he said, and laughed again. “You act as if I didn’t do it. As for your ability to neutralize, maybe you can, maybe you can’t. Shape-shifting isn’t supernatural or magic or whatever you’re thinking. It’s a part of who I am, how I survive. You can’t stop humans from breathing, can you?”
“No.”
He nodded as if he’d just proven his case. “My name is Riley, by the way. Not that you asked.”
“My name is Mary A
“I knew your expectations were high. I wanted to meet—or exceed—them.” He didn’t wait for her reply but crossed his arms over his chest, pulling the material of his shirt tight against his biceps. “Anyway, you never answered my question. When I first walked in, you were talking about starting at the begi