Tempted (Two Marks 1)

She swallowed, staring at Wade with wide eyes. I saw the thrum of her heartbeat at her neck, like a hummingbird. “This is nuts,” she muttered. “Totally crazy.”

She blinked her eyes as if she’d been seeing things, or they didn’t work right.

“Nope, it’s just science,” Wade said, going with the same defense I’d used. “Not magic. Not supernatural. Our kind has hidden our existence from outsiders as a means of protection. But there’s nothing menacing about us. Nothing dangerous.”

She started to settle beneath my touch, and I could tell her brain was working overtime to assimilate it all.

Wade spread his hands. “You want to study wolf genetics? Study ours.”

She gasped, covering her mouth. “Those wolves I tagged last weekend—”

“Normal wolves,” I interrupted. “Not shapeshifters.”

“Oh.” She turned to me. “And you’re a wolf, too? May I see?”

I smiled. Her fear was already wearing off and interest was taking hold. “Sure. You won’t run off?”

She shook her head, although I didn’t take that as a guarantee. Still, I had to prove to her what we were. That I was telling the truth. I closed my eyes and willed the shift, dropping to four paws.

She took a few quick steps backward, then stopped. “Silver wolf.” Wonder echoed in her voice.

I lowered to my belly to appear less intimidating.

It worked. She immediately dropped to a crouch and reached the back of her hand toward me as if to let me sniff it. Like I didn’t already have her scent memorized and categorized as the best smell on Earth. I licked her fingers.

Wade chuckled from the bed. “Touch him. Don’t be afraid. He wants you to.”

She lowered to her knees and reached for my head. “My God,” she said with awe. “You’re huge. This is incredible. I can’t believe it. You’re really wolves? Both of you? This whole town?”

“Not the whole town. But the majority of us are,” Wade explained. “Our families were early settlers here. They got rich through silver mining back in the nineteenth century, and bought all this land for the pack. Room to roam. To have space to live our lives without suspicion. Free.”

“That’s why your cabin is on Landry’s land,” she said, putting it together.

Wade nodded. “Right. It’s not really Landry’s, except that his bloodline is alpha. His brother rules the pack.”

Caitlyn’s eyes lit with excitement now. She stood and turned. “May I see your wolf again? Now that I’m not so freaked out?”

Wade shifted to wolf form, and to ensure one of us was in human form with her while she assimilated, I changed back to answer questions.

Caitlyn walked to the bed and stroked Wade’s ears and neck. When he rolled to his back, she laughed and rubbed his belly. “Incredible. You’re so beautiful. This… it’s just amazing. I still can’t believe it.”

I wrapped my arm around her from behind. “It’s real, sugar.”

“So…” She leaned back against me and tipped her head to see my face. “Is the two-on-one thing related to being wolves? I mean, I don’t know any canis lupus variety that mates in pairs, but—”

“Yes,” I interrupted. “Most wolf shifter species mate singly—one male for one female for life. But our particular family line mates in pairs. Probably some evolutionary advantage when there weren’t enough females around, we surmise.”

“But you don’t still need to, right? I mean… is it a biological urge? To, um, mate two to one?”

“Yes,” I said simply. We were getting close to the part we needed her to hear. That she was our mate. The only female we’d ever touch, now that we’d scented her. The one we needed to mark with our teeth to claim as ours forever.

But I didn’t want to go too fast. Better to let her ask questions and arrive on her own time.

“That’s why you share? Because… um,” she bit her lower lip, considering, “is it better when you’re together? Even though you don’t get each other off? Or…”

“Exactly,” I replied. “It’s better when we’re together. And with you.” So much for letting her arrive there on her own.

Her eyes rounded. She blinked at me. “Me? As in a woman, or me as in me?”

“You,” I said. “You’re our mate—we know by your scent. You smell incredible to us. That’s why Wade waited to have sex with you until I could meet you, too. He knew you were the one.”

“The one?” she cocked her head. “That doesn’t sound like science.”

“It is,” I insisted. “Biology. There’s a perfect match for every pair. You’re ours. Meaning we want to mark you as our female, with our wolf teeth, and our dicks.”

14

CAITLYN

Okay, I’d freaked. Not run away screaming naked into the wilderness, but I’d had a little meltdown. After Landry said wolf teeth, I grabbed my clothes and scrambled into them, minus my panties. They’d been tossed somewhere in our haste to get naked earlier, and I hadn’t wanted to go scrounge for them.