“Not if you’re in India.”

“True, good thing we’re in America.”

He shook his head, amusement lighting his eyes before he rolled to his feet. “Come on. I’ll make you lunch.” He held out his hand, his expression guarded, almost as though he was waiting to see if I would take it.

I looked at his outstretched hand—the long fingers, the large palm—and warmth began tingling through me. The need to be with him, touch him, fuck him . . . my attraction to him hadn’t abated in the slightest.

It never had. Despite all that had transpired, my soul still wanted him, my body still craved him. Bottom line? I still wanted him as much as his wolf wanted me.

Oh fuck it. I grasped Kaillen’s hand and let him pull me up.

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Chapter 4

The hunter did indeed make me lunch. In fact, he once again made enough food to feed a dozen linebackers, and I shamelessly devoured all of it.

As I finished the last mouthful, Kaillen opened the freezer to grab some ice, and I spotted a box of frozen desserts. “Is that chocolate cake?” I asked, my eyes lighting up.

He chuckled. “It is. They’re lava cakes. Do you want one?”

“Or ten.”

He grabbed the box, then turned the oven on, not commenting once that I’d just eaten the equivalent of twenty supersized McDonalds meals and was still hungry.

“How much do you spend a week on groceries?” I asked when I spotted how well stocked his cabinets were.

“Probably what a family of six spends.”

“So I should start budgeting my grocery bills for a family of twenty?” If I could even afford that . . .

His amusement dimmed. “It won’t always be this bad. The first few months are the hardest.”

I tried not to let that comment rattle me, but it was now close to five in the evening. Night was fast approaching whether I wanted it to or not, and the only good thing about being here with the hunter was that I didn’t have to worry about Jakub for a few days because of the hunter’s strong and complex wards.

I watched the clock on his stove with apprehension as the lava cakes began to warm. The entire time I was wishing and hoping that I could make time stop, or at least slow it so that I could put off the inevitable for just a few minutes longer.

But fate would not be ruled, and I had a wolf that wanted to be born.

And when the sun at last set, and the moon began to rise, I felt it. The itching and burning sensation that had been plaguing me all day began to abate as a stranger and deeper sensation started to emerge. It almost felt as if something was expanding and rumbling inside me, as though my wolf was waking and groaning, readying for the shift to come.

“Do you feel her?” Kaillen asked quietly as twilight was upon us.

The scent of chocolate cake still lingered in the kitchen even though I’d polished off his entire box of desserts hours ago.

All I could do was nod in response. Now that the time had come, too many emotions were blazing through me to do anything else.

The hunter and I stood by the sliding glass doors that overlooked the pastures behind his house.

I stood in nothing but shorts and a T-shirt even though it was late autumn. Kaillen also wore easy to remove clothes, those damned loose pants again. Normally, I would have had a hard time keeping my eyes off his ridged abs and strong shoulders, but now, all I could do was watch that large ball of pale light glistening on the horizon as it began to rise.

That tug started in my chest again, stronger and more insistent than it had ever been before.

“I want to go outside,” I whispered. “I need to.”

He opened the door, his face completely blank, but the ashy scent that had plagued him on and off all day, again wafted from his skin. He’d done his best to prepare me and tell me what was to come, but given that I was the first female werewolf in the history of the world to shift, neither of us really knew what to expect.

If I truly did shift, according to Kaillen, my wolf would emerge when the moon was at its peak. She would rise and be born in an explosion of magic, and since it was the first shift, I wouldn’t have complete control of her. She was bound to run and be wild. For all I knew, I’d spend the night as a passenger while she chased down deer or bunny rabbits. Who the hell knew.

“What was your wolf like on your first shift?” I asked when the cold wet grass slid along the bottoms of my feet. I was barefoot, so was Kaillen, but the cold didn’t bother me. If anything, I welcomed it. I was burning up inside.

“Boisterous,” Kaillen answered with a faint smile. “He wanted to play with the other wolves in the Ontario pack.”

“Did he?”

A pained look came into Kaillen’s eyes. “He did. I actually spent that first night with Gavin. Our wolves, strangely, get along quite well. Or they did, until Cameron put a stop to it.” His lips thinned, and he didn’t convey any further details about his brothers or his first shift.

Hearing about his brothers reminded me of all of the problems he had back in Ontario, and for some reason—maybe it was my impending shift and the fact that I was turning into a wolf and wolves adored affection—I reached for him. I wanted to touch him. Needed to.

The second I made contact with his skin, his breath stopped. Golden light flared in his eyes, and he didn’t hesitate. His warm palm engulfed mine, and that deep golden glow grew in his eyes. I hadn’t seen many appearances from his demon today. Those eerie black flames from last night were gone. Mostly, I’d only seen his wolf. Whether that was because Kaillen was forcing his demon down or the full moon called to his wolf too, therefore, making him stronger, I didn’t know.

But I did know that I didn’t feel alone. Not at this moment. And right now, that was what I needed.

“I’m so hot,” I said with a humorless laugh. I released his hand since that haunted look had left his eyes. I fanned my T-shirt against my chest. “Which is so weird ’cause it can’t be warmer than forty degrees out here.”

“Did you want to leave your clothes on until you shift?” he asked.

I fanned my shirt again. Truth be told, I didn’t. I wanted to strip bare and stand naked under the moon. Something inside me, an instinct or calling, pulled at me. The moon was controlling me again, owning me. So yeah, I was seriously going to be one of those people that lived at those hippy communes or whatever. ’Cause if it were up to me, I would be walking around naked as a jaybird and completely unabashed about it.

“This is pretty much as embarrassing as I thought it would be,” I mumbled, gripping my shirt. “You can’t tell anyone about this, ’cause if I start barking, or dancing naked under the moon, or eating squirrels, that shit does not leave this ranch.”

Kaillen let out a laugh, his face splitting into a broad grin, and a tugging sensation began in me again, except this time it wasn’t toward the moon but instead toward him.

Weird. I brushed that thought off, ’cause some strange crap was going down right now, and I wasn’t gonna analyze it.

“Do you mind?” I asked, my hands on my shirt’s hem.

His laughter died, his eyes immediately zeroing in on my hands. “Do I mind if you take your shirt off?”

I nodded.

His lips parted as a wild glow entered his eyes. “Uh, no, I don’t mind,” he replied, practically tripping over his words. “By all means, take it off.”

I swallowed a laugh. “Pervert.”

He didn’t respond as his eyes burned brighter.

I didn’t even care, though, even if everything about this was totally fucked up. So I followed that deep-seated need inside me that told me to get naked and stay under the moon.