The Thing About Weres

That won me a smile. Slow and small.

I did that, I thought, cupping his face. I made him smile again.

“I knew you watched me play my guitar.” His voice was rough. “I knew you were there hiding in those bushes.”

I shook my head. “Impossible. I was quiet as a mouse.”

My mate pressed his forehead to mine. “I could smell you.”

“I don’t have a scent,” I whispered back.

He thumbed away my tear. “Tell that to some other Were.”

Such a sweet thing, his touch. I leaned into it—and that’s when I hit a brain skid. It can’t be. Mentally, I did that thing you do when you’re trying to figure out left from right. “Trowbridge,” I said, with awe. “Your hand.”

With a faint smile, he raised his fist. And then slowly, one by one, he unfolded his digits. A rounded nub close to his palm for his pinkie. A diminished ring finger, cut down to the first knuckle. A pause … and then he unfurled a completely and beautifully whole FU finger.

I’d seen Stuart Scawens lean into the blade and sever it from his hand.

Right in this room. Not six months ago.

My gaze flew to his. “How?” I whispered, touching it with wonder. For a reply, he did that thing men do when they don’t know the answer—a tilt of their head, a flex of their neck, that upward swing of their jaw.

So mortal. So man. So Trowbridge.

“I don’t know.” A slow smile as he spread his fingers. “When I turned into my human form, it was like this. I couldn’t figure out if the stuff that happened in this room was a dream.” He shook his head. “It got all messed up in my head. But it did happen, didn’t it?” His head started to turn to that corner again, and I caught it and kept it safe in the cage of my hands.

“Don’t,” I said.

“You look the same,” he said in a hushed voice, laying his palm on my cheek. “Exactly the same.” Three fingers tunneled into my hair to cup the back of my head.

“Is that a good thing?” I asked, as he pulled me closer.

My mate answered by using his thumb to gently tilt up my chin. “A very good thing,” he said, his cheeks flushed, his eyes glittering. “It’s like you walked out of one of my dreams.” He stroked my jaw, once, twice, both times with a hint of wonder as if he couldn’t quite believe how soft my skin was.

Kiss me, Trowbridge.

But he didn’t, not right away.

The Alpha of Creemore’s gaze held mine, perhaps for a second, perhaps for five. Who knows? Who cares? I was far beyond counting. All I knew was that he held it long enough to show me the naked longing in his soul—and the sweet soul of Robbie Trowbridge still alive within the shell of this battle-hard, beautiful stranger. His attention returned to my mouth. He took in the slightest, shallowest breath.

My lips parted.

I am beautiful. I am loved.

Then his mouth—wider than mine, harder than mine—lowered to gift me with a kiss that narrowed the whole, damn confusing world down to one perfect set of lips pressed to mine. Slightly open. Warm. The right pressure. The right angle.

The right everything.

The taste of him. The brush of his tongue. The smooth warm cavern of his mouth welcoming my exploration.

Every problem, every nuisance, every disaster looming—all that twisted ball of angst that made me feel like I was balanced on a tightwire holding a ticking time bomb—disappeared. It was just the two of us. And between us there was heat and confusion and want and desire and everything else all rolled into a thick, insulating cloud of lust and longing.

At last.

Oh Trowbridge, at last.

His tongue teased mine as his hands pulled me close. My belly met his hip. His erection was a long hot welcome ridge against my stomach. I was wet, and aching.

Fuck the spectators.

Carry me away, Trowbridge.

I lifted on my toes, straining—

You know, it doesn’t take a whole lot to prick a girl’s zeppelin of happiness.

Really, all you need is one high, anxious wolf whine and that airship is coming down.

Well, perhaps two.

Maybe three.

“Eeerrgh.” The puplet from Merenwyn issued another mood-destroying canine protest and padded to where we stood entwined. And I mean, right to where we stood. Hot dog breath heated the back of my naked knee.

My man’s mouth stilled on mine.

No, no, no.

I slit open my eyes. “Trowbridge, there’s a bitch behind me.”

He gazed down at my lips with something akin to acute regret. “You’re going to hear some stuff you’re not going to like.”

My spine stiffened. “Explain to me why she carries your scent.”

The Alpha of Creemore’s face tightened. “There are things that will be difficult to understand. You need to listen carefully to what I have to say before you do anything—”

I backed up and almost tripped over the little brown wolf.

“Get out of my way!” I warned her in a lethal voice.

But no.

The bitch-from-Merenwyn stood her ground and dared to lift her lip toward me.

A show of teeth. At me. In this room that stinks of blood—both his and mine—that was shed that night six months ago. So, okay, maybe I lifted my magic spinning hand in a threatening manner, maybe I didn’t.

But Trowbridge caught my arm and growled, “Don’t use that Fae shit in this house.”

And the world stopped.

Not for very long.

My heart slowed for two heavy thuds—as if someone had tossed first one bar of cold iron, and then another, inside my chest cavity.

Fae shit?

“I stuffed Trowbridge’s finger back into his shorts before he went through the gate,” offered Biggs from the hall, when the tense silence following that statement stretched out. “Thought it might be handy when he changed into his wolf.”

“Shut up, you insensitive dimwit!” snapped Cordelia.

I found myself backing away from the guy with the dreads.

Merry swiftly ratcheted herself up her chain to the soft hollow of my throat. There she hunkered down, warming me, while from the inside of her amber belly, she issued her own commentary with a series of red blips of light that I’m pretty sure were actually Asrai code for “Shame on you!”

Yes. I nodded. Shame on him.

Which irritated my mate, judging from the way he flung his dreads over his shoulder with a quick snap of his head. I watched the dust motes dance around him, thinking the whole damn universe was like a snow globe held in the paws of an unsupervised three-year-old, then numbly turned toward Lexi in query.

“He’s not what you think he is.” My twin’s eyes were sad. “You don’t understand what he’s capable of. What