The Thing About Weres

smooth the way. “I know that it’s totally my problem that I can’t summon the portal. I accept responsibility all way round on that. And I know if you really want to be pissy, then it’s my own fault that I’m in this position. After all, I was the person who pushed Trowbridge through the Gates of Merenwyn—”

Gad, am I turning into one of those wimpy women who tune into Dr. Phil?

“I had no choice,” I say, in a harder tone. “It was either that or watch him die.”

And I’ll never sit helpless again, watching someone die.

“Look, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Karma’s already taken a big bite out of me. A Were killed my dad, and the Fae executed my mom. The Fae stole my brother too—by force—and dragged him across the portal into Merenwyn, and then…” Even now, it’s hard to think of it. “They slammed the gates shut. I haven’t seen Lexi since.”

Unforgivable.

Lexi’s got to be alive. Trowbridge, too.

“Maybe it’s time for the tide to turn. Maybe you can tell Karma to back off and throw me a bone.” I blink hard at the tears gathering, and my star—that round blue diamond—blurs into something you’d expect to see hovering over a stable, a donkey, and a pregnant virgin.

“I’m not asking for the moon…” I feel my lips curve into a weak smile. “So I won’t ask you to return Merry, too.”

No, I can’t do that. She made it home. She’s safe now.

My damned throat is so damn raw it hurts to form the words. “So all I’m asking for is…”

Oh, Goddess. What if Trowbridge is happier there? What if life is better in Merenwyn? Is that why neither of them have returned home?

I can’t shape the words.

I can only silently pray.

Please, Star.

Give me the wish I wish tonight.

Chapter One

Wishing upon a star is a foolish exercise. I’d gone to bed late, after a quiet dinner of two maple-glazed doughnuts and a Kit Kat, followed by a chaser of grape juice.

“I’m dreaming again,” I said, feeling miserable and happy all at once.

Because I was, and because it was as good a way as any of saying hello. The alternative was saying “Hello, beautiful,” and that was both obvious and repetitive.

On his worst day, my guy is a freakin’ work of art.

I know.

I’ve seen him on his worst day.

Robson Trowbridge stood hip-deep in the Pool of Life, caught in the act of raking his long, curling hair off his forehead. I could waste time wondering why each visit begins the same way—his hand lifted to his brow, his bicep flexed, his abdomen muscles ridged like some lucky girl’s washboard—but I won’t. It’s my dream or his dream or our dream, and it never ends well, so it seems fitting that it begins with him hale and hearty, and so insanely sexy that a girl’s heart picked up at the sight of him.

As mine had.

Evidently, art appreciation does that to me.

Blame it on his hair. Except for a few faint silver threads, Trowbridge’s mane is as dark as a lump of coal and enviably thick. Though, at present, it was wet, and mostly, so was he. Beads of the Pool of Life’s water stood out on the slope of my mate’s shoulder—little translucent blips of healing Fae power that paid no heed to gravity —seemingly content to stay there, clinging to his collarbone and the rounded swell of his upper deltoids.

Therein lies one of the inherent problems about being around Trowbridge.

He’s so damn beautiful that it’s really hard to think in a straight line around him. For instance, when I saw those little beads of water on his hard shoulder, I didn’t think “baby needs a towel.” Nope. Instead, I imagined myself licking the moisture off his shoulder.

Sad, the direction my brain slithers when I’m around my mate.

To be honest, I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with the full body flush of sexual desire that nearly levels me when I see him standing there, utterly desirable and absolutely unreachable. I don’t trust it. There was no reason to it, no natural progression from first stirrings of attraction to my current level of “wave my panties over my head” lust.

I grew up in the same small Ontario town as he. His house was just on the other side of the pond. As a kid, I’d been the uninspired witness to many Trowbridge sightings. But one day, a few months before puberty, I looked at him, and it was like someone had pressed my sexual identity’s switch to on. Bam! Bye-bye, Barbie. Hello, Trowbridge.

Like my body was preset for him, and him alone.

Behind my lover, Merenwyn’s forest climbed a series of hills in rolling swells of golden yellow and deep green, providing a scenic foil to Trowbridge’s own particular dark beauty. I studied the tree line until my heart settled down, then said with faux calm, “It’s cold tonight.”

Gorgeous grimaced and pulled his fingers free from his damp locks. “Why does it always have to be water? I hate water.”

“You know, you look so real in my dreams. Sometimes I think—”

“That you’re not dreaming. Well, check the list, Hedi Peacock. Am I wearing any clothing?” Trowbridge ran his hand down his gleaming chest, sliding it along the landscape of all that lovely taut flesh, to disappear under the water. “That’s a definite no. Do you know what happens to skin when it stays in water for a long time? Things get shriveled. Important things, like—” He frowned, his hand busy under the water. “God, they feel like stewed prunes.”

My mate pulled out his dripping paw, inspected it with a fierce scowl, and gave his hand a savage flick. Droplets of water sprayed—a bullwhip of diamond beads. “Why here? We could have this conversation anywhere else. You know—”

“I know. Weres can’t swim. You hate water.”

He wasn’t listening. Instead he was concentrating on dragging his wet mitt across the single dry patch on his pecs—once, twice, and—ah, there we go—three times—before he was satisfied that his hand was dry enough to plant on his narrow hip.

Now his chest gleamed in the most distracting way.

“You making any progress on getting these nightmares under control?” he asked.

“This isn’t my nightmare.”

“Tinker Bell, if this was one of my dreams, you’d be naked and we’d be in bed. This is one of your nightmares. I’m standing in the middle of some damn millpond that the Fae consider healing and sacred, without a gun, a knife, or an Uzi. You’re under the cherry tree, looking like…”

He let his gaze casually roam. First to my mouth, where it lingered on my upper full lip, then slowly down the line of my white throat, from there to the hollow that he’d kissed, and finally to my breast, where it rested for a heated moment or two.

There went his nostrils. Flared as if he could scent me.

“Don’t stare at me like that,” I whispered, flattening a hand over my stomach.

“Like what?” His hooded eyes glittered.

As if your gaze were leaving a trail of heat on my skin. As if I were the sexiest thing you’d ever seen. As if you—

“You are. You are my fuckin’ catnip,” he said simply. “And I’m getting beyond tired of the whole ‘look but don’t touch’ torture. Come to me, right now. Walk down that hill and meet me in this goddamn pond.”

Eyes the color of the Mediterranean challenged me. Not the soft warm hue of shoreline shallows—with its