Season of the Witch (Claws Clause 2)

He tried again.

On his third attempt, the shade above his head snapped open. The window swung up and Shea—looking both rattled and afraid-stuck her head out.

“Colt,” she gasped.

He was engaged in a partial-shift. He knew what he looked like. Fur sprouted out along his arm, his cheeks hollowed as his nose formed a snort. His ears would end in a point, his shoulders hunched as he created a monstrous half-form: half man, half wolf.

Between an almost muzzle and too-long fangs, he barked out a command.

“Let me in.”

For a terrible moment, he thought she was going to refuse him. She clutched her window, staring down at him with an unreadable expression, her teeth biting down on her bottom lip. He started to back up, gauging the distance between the sidewalk and the window, prepared to make the leap when Shea nodded.

She waved her hand.

The second he sensed the resistance disappear, he tore the glass door off the hinges and bolted into the shop.

19

Shea was intimately familiar with what Colton Wolfe looked like as a man.

After the other night when he insisted on showing her his wolf, she knew she would be able to pick the blue-eyed beauty with the white fur out of any pack.

The creature she saw pacing below her window was a mixture of both—yet neither. And, despite how unfamiliar she was with a shifter battling for control, even the beast below her was harmless compared to the beautiful vampire that had slipped into her bedroom.

As she dropped the last protection she had—the Para-proof enchantments she had done that were obviously not Nightwalker-proof—she moved toward the front door, unlocking it so that he didn’t have to huff and puff and blow it down like the big, bad wolf.

Shea let out an uncomfortable chuckle as she waited for him. Uncomfortable, but also relieved, because for some reason Colton was here—and if he was with her, then he wasn’t somewhere where Julian could get to him.

It was also a telling reaction when she thought about the way her heart leaped when she found him throwing himself at her enchanted windows, desperate to get to her inside. He looked like a monster; Julian, despite his claws and his vampire fangs, was handsome and put together.

She’d choose this Colton over the model-perfect Nightwalker a thousand times over.

He was quick. In less than a minute, he was turning the knob, throwing the door open, and appearing in the doorway of her apartment. Somehow he’d scraped some of his control back, returning his features to normal.

His chest was heaving, whether from his dash upstairs or because he was worried, she couldn’t tell. Shea gulped, her legs wobbly and weak when it hit h

er that the reason she could tell his chest was heaving at all was that he was shirtless. Barefoot, too. It was freezing out, the snow starting to fall, and her shifter was wearing jeans and, well, that was it.

A few snowflakes clung to his sandy-colored hair. He shook them off, wiping the stray droplets from his bare skin before he rushed over to her.

Shea didn’t know what to say. She had no idea what he was doing there, or why he seemed so frantic to get inside that he yanked her poor door off the hinges and tossed it aside like it was nothing.

Remembering that, she managed to tell him, “You’re… you’re gonna need to repair my door.”

“I will,” he grumbled. “Promise. First, let me look at you.”

She was in her pajamas: a sleep tee, no bra, and a comfy pair of sweatpants. Because the shirt was white, she was sure he could see right through the material. When his eyes landed on her chest, eyes flashing as he made out her nipples through the fabric, her breasts felt strangely heavy.

His gaze lingered there longer than the rest of her body, but he finished his survey after a few more seconds, assuring himself that she was in one piece.

Once he was done, he demanded, “What happened here tonight? I… the bond— shit, Shea. I felt you in trouble. The whole block smells faintly like Nightwalker. When you opened the window, you looked scared out of your mind. What happened?”

She blinked, momentarily stunned. He could sense her fear through the bond? If that was the case, was Colton really admitting that they had one? She shivered, almost willing to go through her scare with Julian all over again to see this protective, possessive side of Colton, and to hear him admit he could feel her through their bond.

Almost.

Colton was waiting for her answer. With his nose, his instincts, and his brain, it wouldn’t be long before he figured it out. So, knowing that it would be better to get it out now, she told him.