Chapter 1

Wenatchee National Forest, Northwest of Chelan, Washington, Present Day

“Okay, maybe this wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had.”

Zarina Sokolov cursed as she stumbled over yet another tree root and tumbled to her knees in the rich, leafy soil along the dirt trail. At least she hoped she was still on the trail. It was darker out here than she’d ever dreamed possible, and the flashlight the man at the sporting goods store had sold her was a piece of crap.

She shone the dim beam around as she stood up, hoping to see something to convince her she was still following the 25 Mile Creek Trail. But after a few moments, she realized one patch of pine needle–covered dirt looked much the same as the next. She turned and took a few steps back the way she’d come but then stopped when she didn’t see anything that looked remotely like a beaten path in that direction, either.

Perhaps it was time to accept she’d wandered off the trail. She flipped her wrist over and looked at her watch, stunned to see it had only been an hour since the sun had gone down. She could have sworn she’d been out here half the night. She’d been hiking since midmorning, but it already felt like days.

Blowing out a breath, Zarina tucked some long, blond hair that had escaped from her ponytail behind her ear and began backtracking along the route she’d followed to get here. Her navigational skills being what they were, it was entirely possible she’d end up farther off the trail and deeper in trouble, but she wasn’t going to stop searching until she found Tanner. While the idea of wandering around the woods in the middle of the night scared the hell out of her, she was committed to finding him no matter what she had to do. She wasn’t going to give up simply because she was a little nervous about being alone in the woods at night.

Zarina moved her flashlight around as she walked, relaxing a little when she recognized some obvious landmarks after a few steps. She definitely remembered that waist-high outcropping of rocks ahead of her, as well as the big tree leaning over part of it. And that thick root sticking up out of the ground like a clutching hand? Yeah, she’d almost fallen over that thing.

Within minutes, however, the route started to look unfamiliar, and Zarina second-guessed her decision to keep going. Frowning, she stopped walking and turned in a slow circle, wondering if maybe she’d missed a turn or something. Nothing looked familiar now. Not the ground, or the rocks, or the trees.

She was lost.

She probably shouldn’t have been surprised. She was a scientist who specialized in genetic engineering. A normal day for her involved spending hours in a lab looking through microscopes and manipulating DNA strands, not hiking while carrying a backpack’s worth of outdoor gear on her back, looking for one man in the middle of a huge wilderness.

Zarina considered pulling out the satellite phone buried in her backpack but decided against it. She was lucky the new people in charge of the Department of Covert Operations in DC had agreed to let her come on this hopeless mission in the first place. If she called for help after looking for less than a day, they’d probably be on the next flight out to rescue her and her search would be over.

Taking a deep breath, she reached into the pocket of her jacket for the trail map she’d been following. Well, the one she was supposed to be following, anyway. As she focused her flashlight on the bewildering collection of squiggly solid and dotted lines crisscrossing the carefully folded map, she realized she could see her breath in the crisp October air.

Crap. She hoped it didn’t get too much colder tonight. She might have lived most of her adult life in Moscow, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed turning blue. It probably didn’t help that her jacket wasn’t meant for these kinds of temperatures. But in her defense, it had been much warmer in town. Plus, she hadn’t planned on being out here this long.

When she’d showed the man at the sporting goods store a photo of Tanner, he’d told her he had heard rumors of a huge guy with a crazy mane of dark-blond hair camping near Grouse Mountain, just north of the trail she’d been following. The man had sworn it would be easy to find Tanner if she stayed on the path. All she needed to do was look for a big pile of rocks near the spot where the trail and 25 Mile Creek nearly crossed each other. From there, a small, unnamed side path would take her to the general location where Tanner was camping. It had sounded so simple.

But Zarina had been following the main trail since ten o’clock that morning, and she’d never seen anything even close to the landmarks the store clerk had described. Then again, this was the same man who’d sworn the flashlight he’d sold her for fifty dollars would light the forest up like it was broad daylight. That had turned out to be a lie, so maybe he’d been lying about knowing where Tanner was, too.

She pushed that thought aside and stared harder at the map, trying to figure out where she’d veered off the path. While the store clerk might have lied about the quality of the flashlight he’d sold her, she knew in her heart the man he’d described was Tanner. Not only was the former Army Ranger one of the largest men she’d ever seen, he was also graced with the most amazing head of hair any man had ever possessed. It was the kind of hair that made women want to run their hands through it just to feel its softness against their skin. Well, at least that’s what she wanted to do every time she saw him. But maybe that was just her.

Of course, Tanner’s size and wild mane of dark-blond hair were a result of the horrible serum that evil scientists wanting to play God had injected him with nearly a year and a half ago in an old, abandoned ski lodge a dozen miles or so from the place she now stood. But still, no one would ever confuse Tanner with any other man. He was singularly unique in every way.

Zarina vividly remembered the first time she’d seen Tanner. He’d been stripped to the waist and strapped down to a hospital gurney in the bowels of the ski lodge while those two psychotic doctors pumped him full of drugs in an attempt to create the world’s first viable man-made shifter.

But while she’d been in the room, she’d been far from a willing participant in the whole thing. The man heading the horrible operation—Keegan Stutmeir—had kidnapped her four months earlier from her home outside Moscow, believing her knowledge of gene manipulation could help him achieve his goal of turning a normal human being into a shifter.

At the time, Zarina was sure Stutmeir and his scientists were insane. Back then, the idea of shifters, humans who had naturally occurring animal DNA, seemed absurd. According to Stutmeir, shifters could turn this normally dormant genetic material on and off at will, using it to make themselves stronger, faster, and more dangerous. They even had claws and fangs. It had sounded crazy to her, but she’d soon learned Stutmeir would do anything to create these shifters, no matter how many people got hurt.

Zarina thought she’d understood the depth of cruelty one human would go to in an effort to hurt another, but she realized how naive she’d been the first time she’d seen the results of their experiments. They had rounded up dozens of homeless people in the surrounding areas, administering their horrible drugs to one man after another, then letting them die and throwing their bodies away like they were nothing but garbage. And since no one besides Thomas Thorn, the late former senator who had hired Stutmeir, knew what they doing, there was no one to put an end to it.

Except her.

When her attempts to stop Stutmeir had failed, Zarina focused on helping as many test subjects escape as she could. Unfortunately, that was difficult when none of them survived very long. She’d seen so many other people die in horrible pain after being given the DNA-altering drugs that she’d been terrified the same would happen to Tanner. Her hands shook now just thinking about that awful day. His body had twisted and spasmed so hard, she’d heard muscles tear and bones crack.

Yet somehow, Tanner had survived. He hadn’t come out of the process as the shifter Stutmeir had been hoping for, though. Instead, he’d become stuck somewhere in between human and shifter. He was a blend of both…a hybrid.

Whereas shifters had flawless control over their abilities, hybrids like Tanner possessed almost none. In many ways, they reacted like mistreated animals, their fangs and claws coming out as they flew into violent rages at the least provocation. Around her, however, Tanner was never violent. That was the main reason she’d been able to get close enough to him to help him escape.

By then, the damage had already been done. Tanner had been as much uncontrollable beast as man, and the rages that sometimes turned him into a killing machine had made his life a living hell ever since.

Zarina had tried to help Tanner learn to control the anger inside while she worked on an antiserum that would put his DNA back the way it had been before. A lot of good people at the Department of Covert Operations in Washington, DC, friends who cared about Tanner nearly as much as she did, had helped any way they could. But in the end, those friends were the reason he’d run away.

Two months ago, the DCO training complex outside Quantico had been hit by a large group of highly functional hybrids led by Thorne. Tanner had had no choice but to fight alongside everyone else and had ended up completely losing control. He’d killed a lot of bad guys, but he’d also come close to killing some of his friends, too.

Tanner had run away that same night, fleeing back to the forest where all his nightmares had started. Zarina knew he was looking for the isolation he thought would keep him from ever hurting anyone he cared about again.

She understood why he’d left. He was the type of man who always worried more about the safety of others than himself. But she cared about him, and she wasn’t going to let him live out here by himself. Not when there was something she could do to help him.

Blinking back tears, Zarina folded the map and slipped it back into her pack. She had a fairly good idea where she’d gotten off the main trail. More importantly, she knew how to get back on it. If she headed left—west, she guessed—she should stumble across the 25 Mile Creek Trail again within a mile or two. If she was lucky, she’d find Tanner’s campsite by midnight.

Cutting cross-country in the direction she thought the main trail might be had seemed like a simple solution, but it turned out to be a lot more difficult than the map suggested. If she wasn’t heading up a steep slope of rock and pine needles, she was heading down the far side. But it wasn’t like she had a lot of options. She didn’t trust her navigational skills enough to do anything other than head in a straight line. She was going to have to deal with the rough terrain until she reached the trail.

To take her mind off the hike, she thought about the conversation she’d had with Tanner a few days before the hybrid attack on the DCO complex, when he’d not only come damn close to admitting he loved her, but also confessed he’d rather isolate himself in this forest than risk hurting her. Hearing him say he’d willingly live in total seclusion because he was terrified he’d harm her had torn at her heart.

That was the moment Zarina had realized she was in love. It was true. A man she’d never even kissed completely owned her heart. How crazy was that?

She was still pondering that when she heard a strange noise to her right. She froze and slowly turned that way, her pulse kicking up a notch. It sounded like heavy panting, as if someone was having difficulty breathing.

The doctor in her urged her to see if someone needed help, but she stopped. She wasn’t sitting in a restaurant in DC. She was hiking through the forests of Washington State, one of the few true wilderness areas left in this country. Whatever was out there making that noise didn’t need her assistance.

Heart still beating a little fast, Zarina turned and headed in the direction she’d been going before. As much as she wanted to run, she resisted the impulse. Her time with shifters and hybrids had taught her running away was a very bad thing to do around any animal. She definitely moved with purpose, though.

Zarina thought her plan had worked and whatever was behind her would leave her alone, but the panting grew louder, like the animal was following her. She gripped the flashlight tighter, refusing to give in to the urge to look over her shoulder. She didn’t really want to know what was back there.

She crested a hill and started down the other side, picking up her pace even as she told herself to slow down.

“Don’t look like prey,” she whispered, remembering something her father had told her a long time ago back in Russia. “Rabbits get eaten.”

But the reminder did no good. Her feet decided they knew better and began propelling her faster down the slope. The flashlight in her hand swung wildly as she moved, casting crazy shadows and making her wonder how long she could keep going before she tripped over something…and got up just in time to find the animal stalking her ready to pounce.

That terrifying image fueled her fear, and by the time she reached the bottom of the slope, she was practically running. That’s when the panting behind her stopped and the long, drawn-out grunting started. Halfway between a loud moan and a low roar, Zarina had never heard a sound like it. But it was loud and menacing, and she couldn’t imagine anything cute and cuddly making it. Whatever was back there, it was big and it didn’t like her in its territory.

At the thud of heavy paws hitting the ground, Zarina abandoned caution and ran as fast as her legs would carry her. Playing it cool and calm hadn’t worked. Maybe giving in to panic might.

She didn’t even attempt to head up the next slope, instead running along the flat valley she was in. But the creature behind her was fast, and she barely made it fifty feet before it caught up to her. It was so close, she swore she could feel its overheated breath stirring her hair.

Knowing she wasn’t going to get away, Zarina slid to a stop and spun around, ready to shout at the beast that wanted to kill her. She’d seen Tanner let out a roar that could paralyze almost anything crazy enough to attack him, so perhaps she could do the same thing.

But her cry of defiance died in her throat as she came face-to-face with a gigantic grizzly bear. The beast reared up on its hind legs, towering over her for one heart-stopping moment before dropping to all fours and roaring at her so loud, her bones felt like they’d turned to jelly.

She vaguely remembered the store clerk in town trying to sell her a can of bear repellent. If she wasn’t so terrified, she’d laugh at the idea. What the heck would a can of pepper spray do to something this big?

The bear took a step in her direction with another roar, showing off fangs large enough to bite right through her.

For a split second, Zarina considered running again, but it would be pointless. She’d never outrun a bear.

Rabbits get eaten.

So instead, she screamed as long and loud as she could.

The grizzly looked shocked for a moment, but instead of scaring the animal off like she’d hoped, all it did was seem to make him mad. Head low, the bear started toward her.

She was going to die.

But suddenly, the bear stopped, a look of what could only be confusion on its face as it focused on something behind her. A second later, a roar ripped through the night that shook the ground. She jerked her head around, almost collapsing in relief when she saw Tanner standing there in the dark, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his eyes glowing vivid red, fangs bared as he let out a roar that sounded exactly like that of a lion. Which made sense, because those were the DNA strands blended with his own.

Zarina stood transfixed. Tanner’s fangs were longer and looked more terrifying than the bear’s.

The rage and anger on his face must have been enough to scare the grizzly, because the huge animal gave one more half-hearted chuff in Tanner’s direction, then turned and scurried back into the pitch-dark forest.

To her right, she caught movement. Crap! Tanner was going after the bear. Not because he wanted to hurt the animal, but because by running, the grizzly had become the prey, and Tanner’s lion half simply couldn’t stop itself from hunting the animal down now that the rage had taken over.

“Tanner,” she said softly. “Let the bear go.”

He stopped like he’d hit a brick wall, then stood there, unmoving, for what felt like forever, facing away from her and staring off into the darkness in the direction the bear had run. Not that it was probably all that dark for Tanner. With his animal-enhanced eyesight, he could probably see the grizzly’s big, fuzzy rump bouncing off into the woods. And if his eyes lost the creature, then his keen sense of smell would fill in the details. Which was a good thing, since she’d have probably been a bear treat if it hadn’t been for that nose of his.

After what seemed like an eternity, Tanner turned and looked at her. His fangs and glowing red eyes were gone now, replaced by a mesmerizing blue gaze and a ruggedly handsome face that had made her heart almost stop beating the first time she’d seen it. He had a bit more dark-blond scruff along his jaw and chin now. Actually, a lot more. Maybe it was because she’d grown up in a cold-weather environment where the opposite sex went all caveman in an attempt to stay warm, but she wasn’t usually a fan of facial hair. On Tanner, though, it looked incredibly scrumptious.

His T-shirt clung tightly to his chest and shoulders, showing off all the muscles he had upstairs, while his jeans fought to contain thighs that looked poised to tear their way out at any moment. Had he actually gotten more muscular since he’d been out there?

Zarina almost ran to him right then so she could throw her arms around him and hold him tight for the rest of the night. But she didn’t, because she knew he wouldn’t be ready for that. Not after she’d showed up in the forest out of the blue and almost gotten eaten by a bear.

But damn, it was hard.

Tanner looked better now than when he’d been living in the dorms at the DCO complex. He had been put up there since the agency’s covert agents had found him out here all that time ago. Even the stress lines that had been etched into his features had completely faded. It almost made her sorry she’d come out here to disturb the serenity he seemed to have found. But she couldn’t stay away, not with the way she felt about him. And especially not when she could finally help him.

“What are you doing here, Zarina?” he asked bluntly.

So much for him sweeping her into his arms and saying he was happy to see her. Clearly, he wasn’t. She tried not to let that hurt too much.

“I’m here to help you,” she said, equally blunt.

She’d learned a long time ago that dancing around a subject wasn’t the way Tanner did things. It wasn’t the way she did, either, so that was okay. She didn’t bother mentioning that his disappearance had caused her more sleepless nights than she could count and had nearly driven her insane with worry. That would have been emotional blackmail, and she wasn’t going to do that to him.

His jaw flexed. “I don’t need any help. I’m doing a good job of controlling my hybrid impulses all on my own.”

She looked pointedly in the direction the grizzly had run. “It doesn’t seem like it to me.”

Tanner flinched, and she immediately regretted her choice of words. Dammit, she was out here to help him, not push him further away.

“I haven’t lost control in the two months I’ve been out here,” he said through clenched teeth. “Not until you decided to do something stupid like wander through the middle of a grizzly’s territory by yourself.”

Zarina wanted to point out that she hadn’t planned to be out here this late and that there was no way she could have known she was in a bear’s territory. But she bit her tongue and focused on trying to defuse the situation.

“I’m sorry I made you lose control again,” she said. “But I’m here to make sure it doesn’t happen again…ever.”

She waited, expecting Tanner to ask her what she meant by that, but he didn’t. Instead, he stood there regarding her and looking way better than any man should considering he’d been camping in the woods for two months. She had met plenty of guys who couldn’t pull off his level of masculine perfection after primping in front of a mirror for an hour. That was one of the other things she’d learned about Tanner. He didn’t have to work hard at being so amazing. It came naturally to him.

After another minute of silence, Zarina accepted that if they were going to talk, she was the one who would have to get the conversation started. “I finished the hybrid drug antiserum that will return your DNA back to what it was before Stutmeir’s doctors experimented on you. You can be a normal human again.”

She waited for some reaction—relief, doubt, elation. Something. But Tanner looked as interested as if she’d told him it might rain tomorrow.

“I’ll never be normal again,” he finally said quietly.

“Yes, you will.” She stepped closer, anguish coursing through her when he immediately took a step back. “I worked on the antidote every minute since you left. It will work. It will keep the beast from ever slipping out again.”

“I don’t want it, dammit!” he shouted, making her jump. He cursed and ran his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice softer. “For yelling at you. And for making you come all the way out here and hiking halfway across the Wenatchee Forest to find me. But I don’t want the antidote. Just go home, okay? Leave me out here where I can’t hurt anyone.”

Zarina’s heart tore in two at the pain in his eyes. She had no idea why he was turning down her offer, but she wasn’t leaving without him.

“I’m not going home,” she said, standing her ground and leveling her gaze at him.

Having this conversation would have been a lot easier without holding a flashlight. Then she could have folded her arms to emphasize her point.

“Then you’d better have a lot of books on that e-reader of yours, because you’re going to get bored damn fast waiting for me at whatever hotel you’re staying in.”

“I’m not going to a hotel,” she told him. “I’m staying out here.”

Red flared in his eyes but faded just as quickly. “Like hell you are.”

“I’m not leaving,” she said firmly. “You can run off into the woods—we both know I can’t keep up with you—but I still won’t leave. I’ll keep walking all over the forest looking for you.”

His eyes flickered red again, and he muttered something under his breath she couldn’t catch. “You irritate me like no one else on the planet, do you know that?”

“Yes,” she replied, even though it was probably a rhetorical question. “So, which way to your camp?”

* * *

Tanner was so mad, he could have punched a hole through a tree trunk. Getting a grip on his temper, he took a deep breath and forced himself to walk slower. If he moved too fast, Zarina wouldn’t be able to keep up, and while he might be pissed as hell, he wasn’t going to leave her alone out here in the dark. They could have made better time if she’d let him carry her pack, but even though it was obviously too damn heavy for her, she adamantly refused.

He bit back a growl. For a brilliant scientist, Zarina did some frigging stupid stuff. Like hiking out here in the middle of the night looking for him. She could have gotten herself killed, and probably would have if he hadn’t jerked awake from the middle of a deep sleep, one hundred percent sure he was picking up a trace scent that was impossible for his nose to miss—or ignore. He’d almost convinced himself he’d been dreaming. God knew he’d been thinking enough about her over the past two months for that to be possible. His hybrid sense of smell had been jerking him around a lot lately.

It kind of sucked when you couldn’t even trust the stuff your head was telling you was right there in front of you. Then again, that was why he was alone in the forest in the first place. He couldn’t trust himself anymore. Not his hybrid side or his human side.

Even so, he’d dragged himself out of his tent just to be sure. It was a good thing he had, because he’d picked up the grizzly’s scent at the exact same moment he’d figured out Zarina’s scent wasn’t an illusion. He had no idea what she was doing in the woods, but he had no doubt it was her. No one on the planet had a scent quite like hers.

He’d slowed only long enough to pull on his boots and T-shirt, then sprinted across the mountainous terrain like his life depended on it. He’d smelled that bear a few times over the past several weeks. The grizzly had been getting bold when it came to following campers around looking for food. The animal probably had no desire to hurt Zarina, but a grizzly could do strange things if it thought its territory was being poached. Tanner thanked God he’d found her in time.

Now he was taking her back to his campsite. But just for the night. First thing in the morning, he was dragging her cute ass back to town and sitting it down in the first bus or cab heading for the airport.

As angry as he was with her for coming after him, he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t good seeing her. He hated his traitorous heart for going there, but the beautiful Russian doctor had stirred something inside him from the moment he’d opened his eyes and seen her leaning over his bed in that damn place where those assholes had turned him into a monster. She’d saved his life in that hellhole—and saved his soul several times since then. But as beautiful and mesmerizing as she might be, she was also the most stubborn woman he’d ever met. That damn grizzly would have killed her if he hadn’t found her in time, and she barely seemed to care. He’d told her she needed to go home, and she’d firmly refused. When he’d threatened to leave her out there on her own, she’d called his bluff.

Damn, she could be irritating as hell when she wanted to be. That made it damn hard to protect her from the most dangerous thing in all these woods—him.

Tanner did his best to ignore Zarina as they headed northwest along the top of the ridgeline that led to his campsite. Of course, that was useless. It wasn’t like he had to even look over at her stomping through the darkness beside him to know exactly what she looked like. Her perfect skin; plump, kissable pink lips; and long, wavy blond hair were permanently etched into his mind. He’d never forget a single part of her as long as he lived.

“I can’t believe John Loughlin let you come out here on your own,” he grumbled, needing something to distract him from thoughts of how insanely gorgeous she was and how much he’d missed seeing her since sending himself into exile, even if it was for the best. “Didn’t he have anyone available to send with you? Declan, or Landon, maybe?”

There were plenty of other operatives and shifters at the Department of Covert Operations, people who could have tracked him down easily enough. But Declan MacBride was the big natural-born bear shifter who had found him when he’d been wandering these woods after being turned into a hybrid, and Landon Donovan, a former Army Special Forces A-Team Commander, was the best operative in the DCO. Sending either of those guys with Zarina would have made perfect sense. Sending her out here alone had been crazy. What the hell had John been thinking?

“Well, Landon couldn’t come because he’s busy running the DCO now,” Zarina said, waving her flashlight from side to side in an effort to keep from falling over the rocks along their route. “And Declan is spending most of his time close to home. Those twins of his are a handful. Neither he nor Kendra are getting a lot of sleep.”

Tanner completely got the part about Declan needing to stay near his wife and kids, but the stuff about Landon having a new job caught him off guard.

“What do you mean, Landon is running the DCO now?” He frowned. “What happened to John? He’s okay, right?”

Two months ago, he and everyone else at the DCO had thought John had been killed by a bomb. Thankfully, the director of the DCO—former director now, Tanner guessed—had a guardian angel out there in the form of a shifter named Adam who’d gotten him out of the building just in time. Tanner had been relieved to see John alive and would hate to think something had happened to the guy after he’d left.

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Zarina said. “But all the stuff he and his family went through convinced him he needed to reprioritize his life. He took a sabbatical from the DCO and made Landon deputy director. No one really knows if he’s coming back or not. Heck, I’m not sure if anyone even knows where he is right now.”

Tanner shook his head. Apparently, a lot had changed at the DCO since he’d been gone. “If Landon is deputy director, who’s the new director?”

“Some political mover and shaker named William Hamilton.”

Zarina reached out to grab his arm for balance as she stumbled over a rock. The feel of her hand on his skin immediately sent tingles racing through him. Tanner cursed silently, hating how his body reacted to her touch.

“I don’t know anything about the man, but he seems capable,” she continued, squeezing his biceps as she made her way over the uneven ground.

Tanner stifled a groan. She was doing that on purpose, wasn’t she? Considering she was smarter than he’d ever be in his life, she had to know the effect she had on him. He hated to think she’d manipulate him like that, but he wouldn’t put it past her. She knew he didn’t want her here, and she was going to fight him every step of the way when he made her leave. But he had to do it. It was too dangerous for her, and it had nothing to do with him or the grizzly. There were things going on in these woods he didn’t want her getting mixed up in.

He was still pondering that when she slid her hand to the top of his shoulder before moving it away, all the while acting like she was unaware of what she did to him.

He moved to the right a little, putting some space between them and focusing on what she’d said.

Landon Donovan as deputy director. Tanner hadn’t seen that coming. The guy was a dirty boots soldier through and through, built from the ground up to spend his life fighting the fight and leading his troops. Trying to imagine him behind a desk running a covert organization didn’t seem to fit.

“So Landon’s the one who let you come wandering around out here on your own, huh?” he asked Zarina.

From the corner of his eye, Tanner saw her throw him a withering glare. “It wasn’t up to him whether I came or not,” she said sharply, reminding him yet again that she was a woman who did whatever she felt was right regardless of what anyone told her. Which had a lot to do with him being alive at the moment, he supposed, so maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

“When I told him I was coming to find you, he wanted to send someone with me, but I pointed out you’d only run again if he did,” she explained. “I convinced him I could find you on my own and talk you into coming back.”

More likely Zarina had browbeaten the new deputy director until he relented and let her do what she was going to do anyway. Landon had a strong-willed woman for a wife in Ivy Halliwell. The man knew enough to conserve ammo when he was in a fight he couldn’t win.

“How did you know where to look?” Tanner asked, leading her down the ridge toward his camp. “Don’t tell me those analysts at the DCO have been watching me on one of their spy satellites.”

Zarina laughed. “No. It wasn’t an analyst figuring out where you were. It was me. Remember the conversation we had when we were sitting on the bench overlooking the obstacle course at the DCO complex? You told me that you were thinking about coming back here.”

“Oh.” He remembered the conversation all too vividly. Mostly because he’d nearly slipped up and told Zarina how he felt about her. Thank God, he hadn’t made that mistake. If she was stubborn now, what would she be like if she knew he loved her? “That explains how you knew I was in Wenatchee. How did you know where to find me once you got here?”

“You’re an easy man to remember.” Her lips curved in the darkness. “I simply walked into every camping and outdoor store I could find in the surrounding towns and asked if they’d seen a man fitting your description. I had a general idea where you were within hours.”

Tanner did a double take. “A general idea? You came up here and wandered around the woods because you had a general idea of where I was? Do you have even an inkling of how stupid that is?”

She glanced at him. “It worked, didn’t it?”

He didn’t bother pointing out that her wonderful plan had almost gotten her eaten. She’d probably have something snarky to say about that, too.

“I’m serious, Zarina,” he said softly. “There are things up here that can hurt you, and I’m not just talking about the bears. Several locals have gone missing in the past few weeks, and no one has a clue what happened to them. It’s not the kind of place you should be wandering around on your own.”

She was silent, as if considering that, then shrugged. “It was a risk I was willing to take. I thought you’d know that about me by now. I’m not a foolhardy person, but for you, I’ll take any risk.”

Tanner cursed silently. He knew that all right. He simply didn’t understand why the hell she’d do something so selfless for someone like him.

He knew she meant well by coming after him. She thought she could make everything better with her magic antidote, that all his problems would simply go away if he wasn’t a hybrid anymore. He didn’t have the heart—or the words—to tell her it wasn’t that simple.

When they reached his camp, Zarina moved her flashlight around, taking in the clearing, the small tent, and the even tinier fire pit encircled with rocks. It wasn’t much, but that was because he didn’t need much. The fire was out now—he never left the camp with it still burning—and he wordlessly walked over to get the flames started again, then put on a bit more wood to build up some extra heat and provide a little more light.

Switching off her flashlight, Zarina stowed it in her pack, then knelt down on the far side of the fire pit opposite him. She held out her hands toward the flames. “Is this where you’ve been staying this whole time?”

He shook his head, trying hard to keep from looking at her too closely in the light coming off the fire. She looked way too damn sexy in the flickering orange and reddish glow. He didn’t need anything making this situation harder than it already was. He was going to have a tough enough time convincing her to leave tomorrow, and it would only be worse if he let himself think too much about spending time with her.

“No,” he said, realizing he hadn’t answered her question yet. “This is about the tenth or eleventh place I’ve made camp since coming here. The rangers from the forest service aren’t too keen about people living out here full time, so I move every few days to make it harder for them to find me.”

She looked around. “It’s hard to believe someone could stumble across this place by accident. It’s so well hidden, I didn’t even know it was here until we walked into the clearing.”

“That’s one of the biggest factors when it comes to the places I set up camp,” he admitted. “It has to be well off the beaten path and difficult to find. I don’t like taking risks, though, so I move a lot.”

She frowned, as if considering that. “It must be difficult having to move your stuff and set up somewhere new all the time.”

He shrugged. “Not really. Everything I have can fit in my pack. I can grab my gear and move everything I own in less than ten minutes. That’s the way I like it.”

Her expression softened, and he knew she was about to say something meant to be comforting. He stood up quickly, cutting her off. “You need to get some sleep. We’ll have to leave early in the morning if I’m going to get you back into town at a reasonable time.”

He expected her to protest, to stubbornly tell him once again that she wasn’t going anywhere, but instead, Zarina simply nodded. Tanner wasn’t fooled into thinking that meant she was going to comply with his wishes. She was simply putting off the argument until morning. He was okay with that. He had no desire to get into it with her right now, either. Not after the evening they’d both already had.

“There’s some more wood over in that pile,” he said, gesturing to the branches he’d broken into manageable-sized pieces and stacked off to the side of the camp. “If you toss a few logs on the fire right before you go to sleep, that should keep you warm enough through the night.”

Once again, Zarina didn’t complain but merely nodded and began taking stuff out of her pack. First came a lightweight sleeping bag, then a self-inflating sleeping pad. That was followed by a blanket and a frigging pillow, of all things. Damn, no wonder that pack had been so heavy. She’d brought her whole damn apartment with her.

“If you have to…you know, use the facilities, I’ve dug a slit trench in the ground over there behind those trees,” he added. “There’s a stream about twenty-five feet or so downhill from my tent, but I don’t recommend going that far outside the circle of the firelight. That grizzly probably won’t come back, but he may have friends.”

Tanner felt like crap for scaring Zarina. Hell, he could hear her heart thumping harder already. But he didn’t want her getting comfy out here. He wanted her going home tomorrow, and that wouldn’t happen if he went easy on her. That’s why he was making her sleep outside rather than in the tent.

He hesitated a moment before turning away, his heart begging him to say something meaningful to her before walking away. But what the hell could he say that would help?

Thanks for coming. I appreciate the thought. Now go home.

“Good night,” he finally murmured, then quickly yanked down the zipper of his tent and ducked inside.

Zarina told him to have a good night in return, and her soft, mesmerizing voice was almost enough to make him turn around and go back outside. The urge to yank her to her feet and kiss her was so strong, his inner hybrid was practically panting in anticipation. Ignoring the beast, he zipped the tent flap closed with a muttered curse.

He yanked off his boots and T-shirt, leaving his jeans on like he always did just in case he had to run out and chase off a stray animal, then lay back on his sleeping bag. He wiggled around a bit, getting comfortable on the balled-up sweatshirt he used as a pillow and waited to fall asleep. Instead, he stared up at the inside of his tent, inhaling Zarina’s intoxicating scent. Damn, how could any woman smell that good? She was like a slice of heaven with a Russian accent.

He tried to block it out, but it was useless. Short of not breathing, there was no way to keep her scent from invading his nose and reminding him exactly how spectacular she was. The fact that it was giving him a boner sure the hell didn’t help.

Tanner closed his eyes only to open them again when his ears picked up an odd tapping sound. It sounded a little like a woodpecker, but they didn’t usually come out at night. He pushed himself up on his elbows and listened again.

Crap. It was Zarina. Her teeth were chattering. Dammit to hell, he knew that sleeping bag wasn’t heavy enough for her.

Biting back a growl, Tanner yanked open the zipper on the tent and crawled out. If he wasn’t so worried about her, he would have laughed at the sight of her snuggled up dangerously close to the fire pit, completely cocooned in her sleeping bag with nothing but her nose and eyes showing, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl.

Zarina blinked at him. “What’s—?”

Her words trailed off as he dropped down to one knee and slipped his arms under her, then scooped her up, sleeping bag, blanket, and all.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Keeping you from freezing to death,” he muttered. “I’m tempted to carry your blue butt into town and put you in a hotel room right now.” He knelt down to slip her through the open door flap of his tent. “Put your bag inside mine and zip them both up. That should keep you warm enough.”

“What about you?” Zarina asked.

“What about me?”

She unzipped her sleeping bag from the inside. “Aren’t you going to sleep in here, too?”

Tanner thought his jaw might have dropped, but he wasn’t sure. Before going to bed, Zarina had taken off her coat, along with her shirt, jeans, and boots, and was now wearing pajamas with cute cartoon moose printed on them. Holy hell, she’d brought pj’s with her? Apparently, the lightest, snuggest pair she could find. And holy hell part two, she wasn’t wearing a bra, either. She definitely hadn’t been faking how cold she was. Damn. It was all he could do not to cup her perfect breasts in his hands and kiss her until neither of them could breathe.

“That would be a no,” he said, working overtime to keep the growl out of his voice and the hard-on from showing through his jeans.

She frowned. “Take my blanket at least. It’s cold out there.”

Even though he didn’t need it, he snatched the blanket from her outstretched hand, then quickly ducked out of the tent before he could change his mind and climb in the damn sleeping bag with her.

Stomping over to the fire, he tossed another few pieces of wood on it, then stretched out on the blanket and tried to get comfortable. Fat chance of that with the tree branch throbbing between his legs. Well, he sure as hell wasn’t going to be cold tonight, that was for damn sure.

“Tanner?” Zarina called softly from inside the tent.

He tensed. If she suggested she needed him to come wrap his arms around her because she was still cold, he was seriously going to lose it.

“I left my pillow out there by the fire,” she said. “Could you bring it to me?”

He didn’t bother muffling his growl this time. Grabbing the pillow, he got up and walked over to the tent. The moment he unzipped it, Zarina’s scent hit him like a two-by-four. Hurriedly tossing the pillow to her, he headed back to his makeshift bed by the fire before he did something he’d regret.