“At least stand near the couch,” Ash suggested.
Rosemary rolled her eyes. “Ash, there’s nothing you can say that will give me the vapors. Do I look like I’m wearing a whalebone corset in 100-degree heat with no air conditioning?”
“I said. Sit. Down.” Although he seemed tired and hoarse, a raspy growl escaped his throat.
Her eyes widened, and she tamped down her body’s automatic response to Ash’s assertive tone. She did not like being talked to like that. At the same time, she liked it very much. What did that mean? She thought it best to sit down and listen, nonetheless.
“Okay,” he said, taking a seat next to her. “Thank you for listening. This is going to seem insane, but there is something very different about me. And about Pen, too. And Bobby. And Vann and Gavin, who you’ll hopefully meet at the wedding.”
Rosemary nodded. “I’m listening, but you’re scaring me a little.”
Ash rubbed his palms over his face, took a deep breath, and let it out. “So here it is. Whenever there’s a full moon, like last night, I get certain…urges. I need to hunt. It’s just a thing I do. My daddy the chicken king does it, too. My whole family has done it for generations. I don’t know how far back it goes. But we actually… change. I’ve learned to control the change for a little while, but then when the moon gets to a certain point in the sky, I lose my shit. Pen and all of those people I just mentioned, we all have the same problem.”
That’s when Rosemary knew her suspicions about some strange, mystical connection had been borne out. This meant that her Ashton was different in the same way she was different. But he couldn’t be a panther. She would have known about him. What was he, then?
“But it’s more than that. We are not just hunters who like to go out at night once a month. We are…well, there’s no other way to say it. We’re shapeshifters.”
Rosemary put up her hand. “Ash. I’m going to stop you right there. I have to admit I have a thing, too. Let’s just both say it at the same time.”
Strangely to her, he didn’t look surprised by this. When he said, “I know,” she tried to stand up, but Ash put his hand on her arm and kept her still.
“What the hell, how do you know?”
Ash looked at her and said, “Because I’m cursed. I have magical wolf blood inside me. Now, you stay sitting your cute little ass on this sofa and tell me what you are.”
Rosemary gritted her teeth, but she couldn’t stay mad. He had a secret and so did she. So they canceled each other out in terms of deception and deflection. Time to come clean. She took a deep breath and said it. “I’m a panther shifter.”
Pen looked from one to the other, her face shocked. “Whoa! What are the chances?” Pen exclaimed.
Ash shrugged one shoulder and explained, “Pretty good when you think about it. Fated mates and pheromones and all that. Us shifter weirdos are all attracted to each other.”
Pen began to pace. “This is huge. I’ve heard about the panthers, but I didn’t think it was real! And by the way, you do know you two are going to cause a major situation by mixing these two groups. But wait, why has this never happened before? And why didn’t you tell me, Rosemary?”
Rosemary cocked her head at Pen. “Seems to me I had a whole group of wolves not telling the little ol’ kitty cat she might be in danger, so let’s be careful who we accuse of omitting important information.”
Pen cleared her throat and made her escape. “You’re right. The two of you have some things to discuss. I’ll leave you to it.”
After Pen left, Rosemary slumped against the back of the sofa. She stared at the wall for a moment. “Sorry for scheduling a dinner on the full moon,” she said.
“Oh, you had no way of knowing. It’s not your fault. I should have told you,” Ash replied.
Rosemary shook her head apologetically. “Yeah, but you had no way of knowing that I would also be a shifter and not completely disbelieving of the whole idea of magical blood. You were worried enough about being accepted by my family.”
“True,” he said. “And if I may say, this explains why you like biting and licking and cuddling more than kissing.”
“Yep,” she said, exhaling a long sigh like a leaky tire. “So.”
“So.”
She side-eyed him. “What do you want to do now?”
He side-eyed her. “I can think of a few things.”
She could detect a naughty little smirk in his voice. “So can I,” she said.
“So you still want to marry me?”
She smiled and pivoted toward him. “Of course I want to marry you. Fated mates and all that. I mean, I’ve heard about shifters imprinting on their future mates, but I didn’t think it would happen to me. I mean, let’s face it; I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. What about you? Are you sure you want to still marry me?”
He turned to her, his eyes already intense with desire. “Doesn’t matter if I don’t. I’m doomed to follow you for the rest of my days. It’s the wolf code. We’ve bonded already.”
Rosemary smiled and leaned in, nuzzling his neck with her head. He smelled so damn good. Funny, she wasn’t much of a dog person; she always thought regular dogs smelled like dirt and bad breath. But Ash wasn’t a dog. He was a wolf. He smelled like pure, unadulterated masculinity. “And you’re still okay if we go slow? Wait to pop my cherry until the wedding night?”
“If that’s what it takes to marry you, I’ll wait.”
She smiled. “That doesn’t mean we can’t do other stuff, remember?”
And the things she did to him—and made him watch her do to herself—over the next half an hour would make a real wolf howl
