AFTER the disaster this morning, Lauren had dreaded the flight to Montana. She’d never been on a plane before in her life, and she’d have thought that it would be terrifying, especially in the little, six-passenger, twin-engine Lear Brian led them to. Brian sat in the copilot’s seat, which left all six of the passenger seats empty. Toby pushed her past the first set of forward-facing seats with a nudge of his nose and stared at the pair of backward seats until she sat down. When hesettled in the space on the floor and put his head on her feet, she set her box on the seat next to her, buckled up, and waited for takeoff.She didn’t expect to have fun, especially when Toby so emphatically was not.He rode stiff and grumpy at her feet, growling softly when the plane bounced a little. But riding in the smal plane was like being on the world’s tallest amusement-park ride. A gentle one, like the Ferris wheel, but with an edge ofdanger that just made it al the more fun. She didn’t really th

Nothing fancy, just jeans and a plain white T-shirt, but she’d never known a werewolf who could do that. This was real magic. She didn’t know how much real magic he could do. She didn’t know a lot about him other than hemade her heart beat faster and nudged her usual state of half panic away. She shivered, then realized it was cool in the house. He must have turned down the heat when he’d come to Chicago. She looked around and found a small quilted throw folded over the back of a rocking chair and snatched it up. Careful not tobrush too hard on his oversensitized skin, she laid the blanket lightly over him.He lay with one cheek against the floor, shuddering and breathless."Toby?” Her impulse was to touch him, but after a change, the last thing she wanted was touch. His skin would feel new and raw. The blanket slid off his shoulder and when she lifted it to cover him again, she saw a dark stain growing rapidly on the back of his shirt. If his wounds had been of the usual sort, the c

So close to him, it was impossible not to respond to the scent of his skin. He smelled of male and mate. Aided by that scent, she let herself sink into her wolf’s certainty of him, welcoming the beast’s contentment.He didn’t make a sound the whole way to his bed, though she could feel the extent of his pain in the tension in his muscles. He felt hot and feverish, and that worried her. She’d never seen a werewolf feverish before.He sat down on the mattress with a hiss. The blood left on the waistband of his boxers was going to stain the sheets, but she didn’t feel comfortable pointing it out. He looked ready to collapse he’d been in a lot better shape before he decided to change to human. As old as he was, he should have known better.“Why didn’t you just stay wolf?” she scolded.Cool eyes met hers with more wolf than man in their yellow depths. “You were going to leave. The wolf had no way to talk you out of it.”He’d gone through that because he was worried she’d leave him? Romanti

Just as a werewolf decided to kill this kid? An old man wouldn’t even slow a werewolf down.”“I never claimed the story made sense.” His father’s voice was dry. “And we’re not certain that the monster was a werewolf. I hadn’t paid any attention to it until the hunter was killed in the same area only a month later.”“What about that one? Are you sure the hunter was a werewolf victim?”“My informant was Heather Morrel . She knows a grizzly kill from a werewolf.”Heather was human, but she’d been raised in Aspen Creek.“Alright,” agreed Toby. “You need me to go check it out? It’l be a few days before I’m up to it.” And he didn’t want to leave Lauren. “Can you send someone else?” It would need to be someone dominant enough to control a rogue.“I don’t want to send anyone in to get killed.”“Just me.” Toby could use a dry tone, too.“Just you,” agreed Brian blandly. “But I’m not sending you out hurt. Samuel’s here for the funeral. He can go check this out.”“You can’t send Samuel.” His res

O grave, where is thy victory?’ ”He paused, letting his eyes trail over the room, much as Toby had, then said simply, “Shortly after we moved back here, Carter Wallace came to my house at two in the morning to hold my wife’s hand when our retriever had her first litter of puppies. He wouldn’t charge me because he said if he charged for cuddlingpretty women, he’d be a gigolo and not a vet.”He stepped away from the pulpit and sat on the thronelike wooden chair on the right-hand side. There was the sound of shuffling and the creaking of wood, then an old woman stood up. A man with bright chestnut hair escorted her down the aisle, a hand under her elbow. As they walked by her pew, Lauren could smell thewolf in him.It took the old woman a few minutes to make it all the way to the top of the stairs to the pulpit. She was so small that she had to stand on a footstool, the werewolf behind her with his hands on her waist to steady her.“Carter came to our store when he was eight years old