Page 37 of A Lady’s Guide to Werewolves

Or wanting to do it again.

Namely, because he had never done so. Had never even been tempted.

He had fought for his self-control earlier, outside the Library, trying not to bare his teeth, fists clenching with the effort. He had done what was necessary. A gentleman would have asked, would have stayed to explain himself. But he hadn’t been able to.

Not while keeping her safe.

He had to get out of here. He was too recognizable in Hallow—too many curators and professors with questions about their collections, wanting funding from the museum, wanting dozens of things from him that had nothing to do with the magic coursing through his veins at present. He was good at finding things. It was his magic, the one he had grown up with.

Not this new power that swept through him like a river swelling its banks in spring. This one was all teeth and hunger and a certain physical knowing that spoke of the moon and the forest and long silver nights. He was more accustomed to neat shelves of artifacts, faded journals, spells to trace an object’s provenance. He knew this provenance. But it still did not help.

The least he could do was stay away from Sorcha until he had some kind of control. Understanding.

That knowing inside his chest howled. It did not want distance. Especially now, with the scent of her warm skin in his nostrils. She smelled like sunlight on the fields, like rain, like cake. Like home. Something with claws scratched at the inside of his chest in response. He stumbled, biting back a growl. Civilized men did not growl. Earls did not growl.

Earls did not press ladies against stone walls and sink their teeth, however lightly, into their necks, either. He could blame that on the wild magic inside him.

The lick of his tongue was entirely his doing. It was not magic or a curse. Only need. Desire. For her.

She had no idea how much danger she was in. From the wolves. Magic.

But, most of all, from him.

But the shimmer of gold that heralded magic could not be denied. Not if it meant what he thought it meant.

And Sorcha could not want him to touch her. He might be an earl, but he was also a wolf. The scar that slashed across his left eyebrow. The ragged mark left by the one who had turned him on the Isle of Orkney. The fact that, even human, he was too big and too quiet and his eyes were too “unnerving.” There was a reason he wore spectacles that he did not need for his eyesight and kept his voice low and soft. He was made for dark nights.

And Sorcha was pure sunlight.

None of which mattered when his vision shimmered. He knew his eyes went gold when he tracked and hunted, just as they did when he wore the wolf. The tent stayed sun-bright, dancing with dust motes. The trampled grass underfoot remained, the coverlet on the bed.

But also: gold threads.

They gleamed and glimmered, invisible to others but connecting witches to magic, talismans to places of power, artifacts just waiting to be found. There was a delicate gold chain linking Sorcha to her familiar, a crow that flew over them to land on the edge of the trunk.

Usually it was a thrill, a primal edict. His natural magic finding its purpose: track, hunt, find.

But today there was a hint of something else: a threat to Sorcha’s well-being.

And that was unacceptable.

He might have thought it spooled out toward Brutus, that maybe he was returning to find Sorcha. But it wasn’t that. Brutus would not challenge him. Aidan might not have a Pack, but he had a certain reputation.

Something told him it was so much worse.

“Aidan?” Sorcha spoke his name again, and despite the pull of his magic, of his wolf, of his legendary, unbreakable focus, he paused. Because he had to. Because it was her.

She poked him in the arm. Hard. There were ladies who were too frightened to look him in the face, but she drilled her sharp little finger into his muscle with a huff. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Tracking.”

“Is that why your eyes are gold?”

“Aye.” Was she disconcerted? “I’m sorry.”

“You are sorry rather often for someone who keeps saving my life. That was you, wasn’t it? In the Cauldron.”

“Aye.” He lowered his lids.