Raul showed up at Avery’s front door a few minutes later, giving me butterflies with the way he eyeballed every inch of me in the short, strappy sundress I was wearing—the one he’d chosen from my clothes and had left for me at Avery’s.

I asked Avery if I could borrow a sweater or a jacket as Raul and I were heading out the door, but they both dismissed the need for one, claiming it was warm outside.

“I always thought Bariloche was where people came to ski,” I commented to Raul as we began to make our way, hand in hand, from Avery’s house on the outskirts of the compound to the main Salvatella mansion. “Pretty sure the forecast called for colder weather in San Francisco today than you have here.”

Not only was it green and lush everywhere I looked, the sky was a perfect shade of blue, the sun bright, and the temperature a breezy seventy-six degrees. Vibrant lupines and other colorful wildflowers covered the earth like a rolling patchwork quilt.

“February is a summer month here. July and August are for skiing. Gorgeous, right?”

“Um, duh! Utterly breathtaking times ten. It doesn’t even seem real to me. Between the Andes Mountains and the stunning crystal-clear blue lake, it looks like a fairy tale. Or a movie set backdrop. What’s the name of that enormous lake?”

“Nahuel Huapi.”

I made a face. “Like the moonshine drink guy? The one who got his head—”

“Yep. He was named after that lake.”

“Nice. You just ruined a perfectly beautiful lake for me. Thanks for that.”

He laughed. “Did you want me to lie and invent a fake name for it?”

“Eh, maybe,” I said with a playful toss of my hair, reverting to the role of airhead captive I’d adopted on the plane. “Sometimes truth-bending is arguably the more considerate, humane approach.”

We’d walked a few more paces when he stopped, pulling me to a halt with him. His eyes were serious, despite the smile on his lips, as he took both my hands in his. “You’re joking, I know, but don’t you think that sometimes, in certain situations, it can be the humane approach? Like Plato’s concept of a ‘noble lie’ for the greater good and all that?”

Was this a trick question? “I thought they discovered that was just a really bad translation of The Republic. Didn’t they?”

He nodded slowly and we resumed walking.

“Well, since the lake’s ruined for you, I guess it won’t hurt to tell you that there’s also a legend about a giant creature known as Nahuelito who lives in that lake.”

“That in no way qualifies as a noble lie, Raul.”

He laughed. “Nah, I’m serious. He’s our Loch Ness. Ask anyone in my pack about it; they’ll tell you.”

I gave him a sidelong glance. “You know I’m gonna Google this as soon as I have my freedom and Internet privileges back, right?”

My words had been spoken in teasing, but I immediately wanted to take them back. Because the moment between us was so fun, so carefree, I realized how much I didn’t want the fact that I was essentially his hostage to shatter the spell.

Annnd I was ten shades of fucked up in the head for thinking that.

One side of Raul’s mouth kicked up. “I’d expect nothing less. I’m not jerking your chain on this, Bethy. It’s true. You’ll see.”

“So is that how you get by surfing here? A Loch Ness monster at the bottom of the lake creates waves for you? How does that lake-surfing compare to Stinson Beach in San Fran or Steamer Lane in Santa Cruz, huh?”

“Yeah, not exactly. Actually, I tend to teleport over to Playa Mariano to surf. If I want to stay close, that is. Sometimes I go to Lima. Or, you know, I might go all the way to Oahu or even Gold Coast or Jeffreys Bay.” His face still lit up whenever he talked about surfing, reminding me of the Raul he’d been growing up. “Teleporting does have its perks. Sometimes … I even go back to Santa Cruz to surf.”

“Really? How often have you been back to NoCal to surf?” I pulled my hand from his as I stopped and squatted down on my haunches to inspect a beautiful blue flower. “Oh, wow, is this a wild orchid?”

How often had he gone back to check on me, I really wanted to ask.

“It is. There are wild orchids all over around here.” He squatted down next to me, and the simple brush of his bare knee against mine caused my breath to come faster, my belly to tighten and tingle. “This mean you’ll stay? I think I can arrange for you to have orchids and Internet access twenty-four-seven.”

“But not my freedom?” I’d done it again. My cheeks burned as I met his eyes, and I couldn’t understand why. “I—I’m sorr—” I cringed as I realized I’d been half a breath away from apologizing, when I had no reason to be sorry. Something was clearly wrong with me.

Raul’s expression mirrored my thoughts. “Why the hell are you apologizing to me?”

Fuck if I knew. “I don’t know. Because I like you—I enjoy spending time with you. This is all so weird and fucked up, Raul, and yet I wish so badly that it wasn’t. I mean … this is madness what we’re doing right now.”

His smile was an arrow straight to my heart. “Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to go? When love is not madness, it is not love.”

It took effort to swallow as our eyes held and I tried to act casual. “Who said that? Shakespeare? Johnny Depp?”

Are you saying you love me?

I supposed that in a way he’d already implied as much. Several times. And yet he hadn’t made it clear: Was it the mating bond that he’d avoided for a decade driving his desire for me now, or was it genuine desire for me?

Was this love?

“No. Pedro Calderón de la Barca said it.”

Fancy. “Never knew you were into Spanish Baroque literature. Did you study world literature in college? I’m guessing you didn’t actually go to school for special education, did you?”

“Nah.” He ran a hand through his hair and reached out to pluck a long blade of grass. “I’ve just always read a lot. I never made it to college.” He sounded sad—maybe a little embarrassed—to admit it.

I was sure I’d heard Milena and her mom talking about Raul being offered scholarships to a number of colleges back in the day. He’d played and lettered in virtually every sport in high school. Often when I’d hung out over at Milena’s house as a kid, he’d be rushing in and out, always headed to some game or practice. I remembered Milena saying that he’d gotten great grades in school, too—complaining that he’d set the bar high for her with his former teachers.

“Didn’t you have scholarships? I seem to remember—”

“Yeah. I did.” He dropped the blade of grass he’d been twisting between his fingers and stood—apparently set on dropping the subject, too. “To answer your earlier question, Bethy, I haven’t been back to NoCal as much as I’d have liked in the past decade.” I knew he wasn’t talking about surfing anymore.

“Did you really have to stay away?” I squinted against the morning sun as I looked up at him. How desperate had he been to see me? Was resisting the mating bond as painful as Avery said? Would Gabe really have made a handbag out of me?

“I did.” He frowned down at me. “Why do you ask?”

Why did I ask? “No reason.” I stood as well, simultaneously attempting to mask and quell my pointless sense of disappointment.

What answer did I want from him, anyway?

I didn’t know. I only knew something was missing. Something he wasn’t sharing with me.

He cupped the side of my face in his hand before I could turn away. “Sometimes I wondered if you felt some small part of the mating bond pull, too. If it hurt you at all the way it did me.”

Was he asking if I’d thought about him in the decade since he’d shown up at my parents’ house trying to whisk me away to a surprise party in Argentina for Milena? Most definitely I had. Had those thoughts often sparked fantasies and masturbation sessions? Affirmative. Had I felt a gnawing ache in my gut and ongoing pain in my chest for more than a decade that I’d simply dismissed as stress when ulcer tests repeatedly came up negative? Fo’ sho.

But I chose not to share any of those things with him. Because he hadn’t outright asked. And I could hold cards to my chest, too, on occasion.

He’d confessed to me last night that the day he’d shown up at my parents’ house had been the moment his wolf had first recognized me as his true mate. Yet he was still looking at me now the same way he had then—his soulful brown eyes projecting so much internal conflict. Beckoning me closer while begging me to keep away. And I knew in my heart that I was missing something.

“Is there something you wanted to tell me?” I asked.

My heart fluttered in my throat when his lips parted and his gaze dropped to my neck. Slowly, his hand trailed down my face, following the path of his eyes, his fingertips lingering over my new scar.

I knew the moment he closed himself off to me, even before he shook his head and his fingers dropped from my throat to clasp my hand once more.

We began to pass werewolves, both in human and giant wolf form, as we drew nearer to the main estate. They displayed deference to Raul, while feigning courtesy to me. The closer we got, the more there were—including a lineup of big, hulking guard werewolves who looked like they could each easily fit half my torso in their mammoth jaws.

I tried to bear in mind Avery’s advice, but I couldn’t help but feel a little freaked out about the reality of my situation. Raul held my hand tighter, pulling me in to his side a little closer. But the only pointer he gave me was a whispered, “Meet their eyes. Don’t be afraid.”

I whispered back out of the side of my mouth, “Can’t they smell it on me anyway? Tiago said—”

Raul shushed me and gave my hand a squeeze, and we didn’t speak the rest of the way. I was so out of sorts I felt like I might puke by the time we entered a pretty building adjacent to the main estate.

There was a supermodel sitting behind a reception desk. Raul barely nodded at her in greeting, and I had to restrain myself from asking if he’d slept with her as he pulled me down a sterile white hallway. We must’ve passed seven or eight identical doors with no discernible room numbers or markings on them before Raul stopped in front of one and opened it for me.

The spacious examination room we entered was sterile white, well lit, and sparsely furnished, as one might expect to find in a modern medical facility. But despite its classic utilitarian features, something felt off—and strangely sinister—about the whole space.

And then I saw him—standing in profile, hunched over the scope of an odd-looking piece of machinery in the corner of the room. He wasn’t dressed like a doctor. He was dressed like a civilian in jeans and an Iron Maiden concert T-shirt. He was tall, dark, bald, and built. Already I could see why Avery had described him as “really hot” simply based on the way his ass filled out his jeans.

“Rafe, I’d like for you to meet Bethany Garrett. Bethy, this is Rafe, our head—”

“Congratulations,” Rafe responded without turning to look at us. “You’re mated.”

Raul’s knuckles cracked at his side, and I heard his exhale. His voice remained calm, though, as he said, “Rafe, you didn’t even look at her bites—”

“Don’t need to. I smelled you on her from fifty yards away. You’re mated. And she’s changing in four days.”

“Six days,” Raul corrected him.

“Four,” Rafe insisted. Slowly, he straightened to his full height and turned to face us. And even though I was prepared for the scar, I wasn’t prepared for the impact of seeing something so alarmingly grotesque bisecting such an otherwise gorgeous face.

“You mean she’ll start the initial transformation in four days,” Raul proceeded to press. “But she’ll be done in—”

“Four. She’ll be fully shifted in four days. A full-fledged bitch.”

Um … bitch?

“That’s too soon,” Raul argued. “I bit her Friday night.”

“You bit her ten times.”

“So? That makes a difference in the shifting timeline?”

Rafe shrugged. “Never seen anyone infected that many times before. But apparently, yes, it does. Because she smells four days away from turning bitch.”

“You know what?” I broke in. “Let’s drop the bitch label if you don’t mind.”

“But I didn’t infect her every time I bit her,” Raul argued with Rafe.

“No? Could’ve fooled me.”

“Just fucking humor me and take a blood sample to see where her cells are in the transformation process.”

“Not necessary. It’s four days.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Then you have an extra day or two to figure out how to get inside her head and control her shift. If I’m right, and you still don’t have this mind block shit sorted out in two days when she starts shifting, then your mate’s dead, and so are you.”

Talk about a horrendous bedside manner. I blinked at him in disbelief—while trying not to look at the hideous scar running down the midline of his amber-colored eye. “Beg your pardon?” I attempted to insert myself into the conversation again. “Could you repeat that part about the mind block—?”

“It’s nothing for you to worry about.” Raul squeezed my hand. “I’ve got this.”

“No, nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart,” Rafe mocked. “Not until your body starts blowing up from the inside at least.”

“Would you shut the hell up? That is not going to happen, and you know it.”

“If you die, I’m putting in a bid for Alpha,” Rafe announced callously. “So do not disappoint me in this, kid.”

My mouth gaped open. “This is the best doctor in the world? The amazing werelock physician that you brought me all this way to see?”

“Aw, did you say that about me, Raul?” Rafe smiled, and the scar running down his face widened—the skin breaking open before my eyes.

Ugh! Jesus, that was freaky.

“That’s really fucking touching. If I had feelings or any sense of pride left, I daresay I’d be flattered in this moment. But …” He waved an errant hand. “Let’s get on with this, shall we?” Rafe’s predatory gaze swung in my direction, and I realized it was the first time the crazy doctor had looked at me other than in his periphery. “I’ll need you to take everything off but that soaked-through thong you’re wearing and bend over the examination table for me.”

No further words—of a pseudo-medical nature or otherwise—were exchanged after that as Raul transformed into a giant black and white wolf and lunged for Rafe’s throat.

I didn’t get to see more than the initial attack, though, because Raul poofed me back to the waiting room area, and I found myself standing next to the supermodel receptionist’s desk as crashing and growling ensued inside the examination room.

Smiling, I extended my hand and introduced myself.

And then I held out all of fifteen seconds before asking Yamila Diaz’s doppelganger if she’d ever slept with my mate.