Page 7 of Blood and Trouble

“Okay.” I was not convinced.

“How are things with you?” Maeve asked, clearly shifting the attention to me. “How’s Lycan?”

She said his name like she thought we’d spent the last few weeks in a lust-crazed stupor.

“Lycan is perfectly professional.”

He was, even to the point of my own embarrassment. I shouldn’t have invited him in. I shouldn’t have allowed him to hint that things were more between us, even if it flustered Scott and beautiful, pregnant Bea.

“Uh-huh.” Now, Maeve was the one unconvinced. “Have you found a French lover?”

She knew me better than that, but she never hesitated to tease me about it.

“Maeve.” I laughed, chiding her insistence that I loosen up and take life by the horns. I asked about the ranch and how things were going Stateside. The company was in shambles, and despite our close ties with the local PD, they were starting to circle us like sharks. Twelve missing people raised alarm flags, even if they’d never found their bodies.

It made my work here even more important.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked again, certain I’d heard a twinge of agony and regret in her voice.

“Yes, don’t worry about me. Just do us both a favor and get laid, okay?”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “Yes, I’ll move it right to the top of my priority list.”

“Good. Love you.”

“Love you,” I replied before I hung up. I sat back in the seat and drummed my fingers on the armrest. Yes, she was definitely keeping something from me, and her insistence that I not worry about it only increased my concern.

My skin itched with something else, like it was too small for my body, and my head ached as a chill wracked my muscles. I chalked that up to an exhausting trip on no sleep and decided to get ready for bed.

After applying my moisturizer, fixing my hair, and slipping into silk pajamas, I stepped into my slippers and poured lotion on my hand. I’d used the same brand for years, but that night, it hit me differently. It swam through my nose and pierced the space between my eyebrows, almost like a lance had stabbed me in the forehead.

I winced and placed it on the dresser, waving the air in front of me to clear it out. I almost jumped into the shower to wash it off, but I didn’t want to do the whole process again, and it didn’t matter anyway.

Just as I was about to crack open a new bottle of wine, three knocks echoed from the door. Knowing I had a security detail for a reason, I grabbed my phone and padded lightly to the entry, peering out the peephole to see Lycan standing there with his hands in his pockets, now dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt.

I snorted and opened the door. “Well, hello.”

“Hey.” His answering grin made his eyes sparkle. “How about that rain check?”

CHAPTER 2

Lycan

When I agreed to be her guard in Paris, I told myself Ava Vanderbilt was off-limits. She was too put together, too worthy, too…everything I wasn’t. I’d done that before, and I ruined it. I ruined everything I touched.

But fuck, the way her hips filled out her soft PJs made me want to throw her over my shoulder, toss her on the nearest available surface, bury my face in her cunt, and make her come all night. Fuck my moral code. Fuck society’s expectations. Fuck the entire world.

The full moon had been last night. I’d spent it as my furry alter ego, howling at the sky in the woods belonging to the Paris chapter of the RBMC and chasing deer until I couldn’t feel my paws. I’d hoped the clawing, aching need inside me would go away once I let my inner wolf loose. It hadn’t. No, if anything, it was worse today. And standing there, so close I could taste the pheromones pouring off her, I understood why. I shoved that deep down inside me, never to see the light of day again.

“You still have that scotch? Or did you drink it all already?” I teased, moving forward to fill the doorway.

She laughed and stepped aside to let me in. “I do have some self-control.”

Fuck, I hope not.

Once the door shut behind me, I tried to ignore the mouthwatering scent wafting off her. Coconut and mango and fresh female. Gods, she smelled delicious, and my wolf yipped inside my mind, desperate for a taste.

I’d always had a sixth sense about people like me, specifically when they’d be going into transition, and this one was close…very close. In my world, shifters were born relatively human. Their magic lay dormant until sometime in their late teens or twenties, when they went through a magical change, almost like a second puberty. More dominant wolves could transition earlier, like our alpha, Kodiak, and the second, Orion, who both had transitioned at fifteen. When it hit, our bodies pulsed with magic, altering our molecules to accommodate our new physical strain.