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Cullen laughed. “I’ve never thought of that, but then I’ve never thought of having sex with a vampire.”
Salem pulled out a few things to better secure her stakes. He found it interesting that there was still one tucked in its own sheath nestled next to her gun. She placed a small sphere on the ground next to her pack. He reached for it, managing to grab it before she could intercept and stop him.
She stood up, extending her hand, palm up. “That’s mine. Give it back.”
“It isn’t yours. It may have fallen into your possession, but it isn’t yours.”
Her gaze sharpened. “You know what it is?”
Cullen nodded. “It is the Celestial Key.”
“I thought celestial keys were used to summon spirits.”
He chuckled. “A commonly held fairy tale. The Celestial Key is a kind of glorified sextant that can be used to navigate—land or sea—by the stars. How did you come by it?”
CHAPTER 6
SALEM
Never in her life had Salem thought she would experience the kind of lust that could result from having survived a battle of some sort. Even if she’d been able to imagine it, she certainly wouldn’t have imagined what had just taken place. It was all so…odd. The feeling of the ashes as the vampires were incinerated flowing over and through her fingers had been weird. So was the enormous wolf who had dusted a few of the vamps before tossing her up on his back and sprinting away. He’d made short work of getting them to the ATV.
Scrambling off his back, she’d said, “I hope to hell you’re some kind of shifter. Shift and get on. We need to get the hell out of here.”
The whole swirling mist thing had surprised her. She’d kind of expected it to be more like every other werewolf shifting she’d ever seen portrayed on television or in movies—a great cracking of bones as they broke through the skin, with hair popping up in the most unexpected places. It had always looked so painful, but this looked anything but.
One minute there was a huge arctic wolf and then the most incredible swirl of sound, color, and light, and as the whirling storm of magic and energy dissipated, it revealed a naked man. A very muscular, gorgeous man, with the most amazing hard on she’d ever seen.
The wolf-shifter shoved her onto the back seat of the ATV, swinging a long leg over the chassis.
“Hang on to me. This is going to be a rough ride.”
She wrapped her arms around him as he gunned the engine, engaged the throttle, and barely managed to keep the damn ATV under control as it raced out of town, along the rutted road, and veered off to take on the open countryside, where the sun was shining brightly. Heading up the hill, he barely slowed down at the place where he’d left his clothes, and managed to scoop them off the ground.
“I’ll take that,” she said, wresting the bundle from his grasp and wedging it between them. She hugged him, resting the side of her head against his back.
They changed course. Salem was glad he was driving as he seemed to know where they were going. They came to a river and the wolf-shifter plowed into the icy cold water, heading downriver. She shifted her weight with his in order to keep the ATV upright. Once out of the water, he began to drive them into the foothills of what she guessed must be the Aleutian Range.
Once they were well inside the trees, the wolf-shifter stopped and scanned the area. He lifted his face and seemed to try and scent the wind. Salem wondered if his senses were keener because he was a shifter. What was he trying to smell—the vamps?
She handed him the bundle, pointing to his still-erect cock. “Mind putting that thing away?”
“Am I embarrassing you?” he quipped. “Have you never seen a man so well endowed?”
She rolled her eyes. “What is it with guys and the size of their cocks? To be honest, nope; you’re about as well hung as they come. But we have more pressing matters to deal with, and I find that when all the blood rushes to your dangly bits, most of you don’t have enough to fuel the head between your ears.”
Salem expected him to be insulted, but all her comment did was make him laugh. “You have a point.” He opened the bundle, pulled out his clothes and got dressed. God, he was just as good looking in clothes as he was naked. The button-fly jeans made the most of his very firm and fine ass, and the shawl collar sweater emphasized his broad shoulders. The cowboy boots were a nice touch. “I am Cullen Manchester, Alpha of the Ghost Moon Pack.”
Did that mean wolf-shifters lived in packs? Alpha? That must mean he was the big bad dude among his people—their leader, their protector, and the one who got all the best females and other goodies.
Salem reached for her ID with one hand and her gun with the other. Bringing both up so he could see them, she said, “I’m Special Agent Salem Hubbard of the Bureau’s Special Projects Unit.”
The wolf-shifter nodded—the strong, symmetrical lines only enhanced by his wicked grin. “The SPU is only under the Bureau’s auspices because legally the CIA can’t operate on domestic soil. Trust me, Special Agent Salem Hubbard,” he said in a mocking tone, “you’re a spook.”
She would have liked to have been shocked and told him he lied, but she was beginning to believe Cullen Manchester might be able to fill in a lot of gaps in the information she’d been given versus what she’d been finding out. She supposed that was fair; she hadn’t been exactly forthcoming with the information she’d been digging up. She gave them just enough to keep them satisfied.
“I’d begun to wonder about that,” she said. “But now as we’ve sorted out who I am, what the hell do you mean you are ‘Alpha of the Ghost Moon Pack?’ I mean, obviously you’re a wolf-shifter. Forgive me; I am not yet up to speed on all the varieties of wolves and shifters so specifically you are…”
“Leader of the arctic wolf pack in the Aleutian Range. Seeing as I saved your life…”
