“Only two ways to reverse neural manipulation,” Dallas said from behind me. “The Council will never agree to send in Tracers. And regaining tampered memories without intervention is practically unheard of in humans.”
I moved a velvety orange pumpkin pie to the cooling rack, inhaling the scent of nutmeg and cloves. Usually the effort of trying to force the buried memories back up caused migraines and blackouts, which were enough of a deterrent to keep her from trying again for a few weeks.
“I’d have to change her.”
Dallas swore. “For real, Lace?”
“I have to do something. I won’t lose her.”
“I know. But you’re talking about something that violates both shifter and human law.”
“I would never change my mother by force. Never. If she says no,” my voice cracked and I turned away, quickly swiping my cheeks, “then that’s it. She and I leave town.”
“If the Southern Territorial Council gets wind of this—”
“They won’t.”
“You’ll be a fugitive,” he went on, brow furrowed, hands on hips. “And how would you even do it? Females can’t transmit through biting. Are you two even the same blood type?”
“No.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“I’m just thinking through all the options. And could you even pretend to be behind me for like two seconds? Look me in the eye and tell me if it were Sofia, that you and your brothers wouldn’t break every rule in the book if that’s what it took to save her.”
“You know who my uncle is, sweetheart. My mother got out of the Tracers, left that life behind because she couldn’t take what the Council was forcing her to do anymore. I don’t want to see you get hurt.” He looked down. “There’s always the money—”
“No.”
“Hear me out.”
“Keep it,” I growled. “And stop trying to sneak it into my bank account when you think I’m not looking. It’s like you forgot I beat you on every Calculus test.”
A muscle in his cheek twitched. “One, I was distracted. And two, whether you want it or not, under pack law, it’s yours.”
Sires were required to support the wolves they changed until they were stable and could live independently. From the time he’d been up in Calgary, ten percent of everything Dallas earned had gone into an account for me. Even after I’d reentered the human world, gone back to my old job at Blair’s, and his obligation had technically ended, the deposits continued to come.
“Just take it,” he said softly.
I crossed my arms, tears pricking my eyes, and he sighed.
“C’mere, sweetheart.”
For a second, time stood still. I didn’t remember getting up. Didn’t notice the clatter of the fork or the scrape of the chair. Only that a heartbeat later, I was pressed up to Dallas’s chest, drowning in the scent of woodsmoke, cherries and Old Spice. And I knew then that I was in trouble.
As a rule, Dallas and I didn’t hug. Our history was all sorts of too complicated for more than the occasional inappropriate text or suggestively positioned reindeer left up on the roof of The Spoke at Christmastime (guilty.) He’d made it clear from the day he got back to town that anything that had existed between us before was over. That he couldn’t be with anyone that way. And especially not me.
But as he moved over me, all six foot three of him swallowing up my smaller frame, the only thought hurtling through my brain, dizzying as a runaway train, was why hadn’t we been doing this all along?
Moonlight filled the suddenly intimate space, causing my pulse to spike. The edges of the room blurred, the raw feral need I was forced to slake every month rising wild and terrible in my blood. Fight, fuck, feed. That was the code, the rules every shifter lived by if they didn’t want to risk losing control of their wolf and going feral. I’d spent the last two nights hunting vampires, had run five miles before coming in for my shift to the bakery. So why, as I smelled Dallas’s scent sharpen, saw his eyes glow gold, did I suddenly ache all over?
Never breaking eye contact, I removed my apron, slowly dropping it to the floor. His breathing hitched. I felt more than heard his quiet sigh ghost past my ear, that fractional beat of hesitation disappearing as all space between our bodies was erased. He backed me up against the counter, trapping me in the hot, hard cage of his arms, and I allowed myself, for the space of a breath, to drown in the heat radiating off his chest, in the broad width of his shoulders, and in the way he smelled like woodsmoke, meat, and a hot Texas fire on an icy night. And god, I wanted that scent all over me.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he growled against my throat, and I felt the wolf so close to the surface, so dominant in his blood, that a shiver snaked up my spine. “I’m not safe.”
“You would never hurt me.”
His eyes flared gold. As he leaned over me, I felt my pulse quicken, raw animal instinct heating my blood. His fingertips slipped under the back of my tank, grazing the bare skin over my spine. My nipples instantly tightened. I shuddered, tracing the muscles of his pecs beneath his white cotton tee, picturing his hands learning every inch of my back, mapping the curve of my breasts, gripping the nape of my neck as his teeth—
And, oh god. Dallas Caldwell just got me wet.
At my sudden intake of breath, he lifted his head, eyes flicking to my mouth. My heart stuttered, fluttering like a trapped bird in the cage of my ribs. Dallas wanted to kiss me. And much as the faint human voice in the back of my mind screamed it could complicate things, it was no match for the sharp ache growing low in my hips. He leaned in, nose grazing mine. I felt the heat of his breath warm my lips. Waiting. Giving me permission to stop him.
I didn’t.
Our mouths met in a kiss that tasted of cherries and sugar, of woodsmoke and sex, and as his hand fisted in my hair, the ache between my legs grew to a desperate hum. Raw moonlust surged in my blood, the image rising unbidden of Dallas in front of me on his knees, sucking a hot trail of kisses down past my navel, then splaying me out over the counter and showing me just what nine years had done for him downstairs.
Dallas growled, hand tightening possessively at the back of my neck.
Yeah. Pretty sure he’d just seen the gist of that.
Yanking up his shirt, I kissed a path up the hot skin of his throat, panting when he tore it off and moved back over me, muscles flexed and chest bare. I’d seen Dallas half-dressed plenty of times on pack hunts, nights where I’d tried not to stare as he pulled off his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face and smoothed back the loose strand of hair that always fell past his ear from the knot at the back of his head, giving him a striking resemblance to Thor. Not that I’d noticed. Really.
He half lifted me onto the counter, pressing into my center so I could feel how hard and ready he was.
“Just. Like. That,” I groaned, nails digging into his back.
I shivered as he lifted my tank top away, his hands warming my bare skin. With a growl, Dallas pushed me back onto the counter, ravaging my mouth, the two of us grinding like teenagers. His lips and teeth grazed the column of my throat, pulse slamming in his veins, and I realized in a dizzying rush that he wanted to bite me, fuck me, mark me.
“Do it,” I rasped, head tipping back, offering him my throat.