With a curse, Grant tore his lips from Rachel. He pressed his forehead to hers, sharing breath with his mate while he forced his wolf back from the edge. He wanted nothing more than to strip the witch and explore her curvaceous body with his hands, trace every hill and valley of her form.

His cock throbbed within his slacks, longing to be released and stroked by his mate. He could scent her arousal, the seductive musk rising above the blood and gore. Then he’d let his fangs shift, sink his cock into her waiting depths, and…

“Why did you kiss me?” Her chest was heaving, and he could see the outline of her hardened nipples beneath her stained shirt.

Good, at least she wasn’t unaffected. “Because I wanted to.”

Because you’re my mate and too damned tempting.

He dragged his focus to his cell phone, and a quick glance at the screen revealed exactly what he’d expect from his sentinels. “They secured the remaining vamp and Hagan is being tended by his mate.”

Rachel blew out a breath, seeming relieved.

And he was surprised. “You care?”

The average person would be concerned that someone was hurt, but it amazed him that a witch would distress herself over a wolf. Even if she was his mate.

“Of course I care. He was shot, at least three times, and was bleeding all over the place when you dragged me out of there. I’d have to be a heartless bitch not to care.”

Grant looked at her from the corner of his eye as he got the car moving once again. He split his attention between the road and his mate and noted her annoyance. “I’m not trying to be an ass. It’s just that most witches…”

She snorted. “I’m not a witch, Grant. I’m not part of a coven. I don’t rock out with any chants, spells or casting of circles. I inherited a little power, but that’s not what my family does. We—” Rachel snapped her mouth shut, lips forming a stiff line.

So many secrets. He held a few of his own. “We?”

Their destination loomed before them, and he pulled into the driveway, continuing into the garage as soon as it opened. “We’ll be safe here tonight.”

“And tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow night I meet with the clan’s patriarch and figure out what the hell kind of game they’re playing.” He turned toward her, the dim light of the garage doing nothing to hide the sparkling, pale blue of her seductive eyes. “And you’re going to help me.”

“The fuck I am.” Rachel opened the door, and he reached for her, fingers just missing her wrist as she climbed from the car. “I do have a sense of self-preservation.”

“Rachel…”

She spun to face him. “You know, you say my name a lot. And usually not in a nice way. How about, ‘Rachel, I’m sorry I got you into this.’ Or ‘Rachel, I’m sorry that, through my actions, I led the vamps that probably killed your parents to your front door.’ Even ‘Rachel, I’m an ass—’”

“Vampires killed your parents?”

She growled at him and gave him her back as she stomped toward the door that led to the house. She left it ajar, but didn’t wait for him to follow.

The vampires killed her parents? Probably? They tended to keep to themselves, living on bagged blood or donors they’d discretely acquired through the years. But to outright kill…

Grant stomped after her. “Rachel…”

A yell came from deep within the home. “Again with the ‘Rachel’. Didn’t we just cover that? Were you slow in school? And why the hell did you kiss me?”

He followed her voice. He needed to know about the vamps. Wanted to figure out what they were trying to play at with the contract. Was desperate to discover why they wanted Rachel and killed her family. He’d heard the vamp back in his office, heard that creature say that the clan’s patriarch had been hunting his witch.

But most of all: he needed her.

The gentle patter of water against tile told him she’d found one of the house’s showers and his cock hardened in his slacks once again. He imagined her pale body clean and rinsed free of blood. Envisioned her soaping those curves, fingers dipping and sliding over her breasts, between her thighs…

Grant palmed his cock, stroking his length and then shifting it to a more comfortable position. He needed to be calm. He could check on her, make sure she had everything she needed. But he couldn’t pounce on her in the shower. Couldn’t explore her with his tongue from head to toe. Couldn’t…

He paused in the hallway and took a deep breath. The wolf was nudging and pushing him toward her, alternating between whines and growls as it encouraged him to mate her. Now. Before anyone could harm his little witch. As a wolf, she could protect herself and her body would ensure a rapid healing.

Following the drumming of the shower, he found her in the master bathroom. Or rather, he found a trail of clothes that led him through the large bedroom and toward the shower.

With its glass door and walls not yet clouded by steam, Grant was gifted with an unobstructed view of his lovely mate, her back to him. Her skin was pale as milk and unblemished from head to toe. It was silken and smooth and seemed to beg for his hands. He wanted nothing more than to pet and stroke her until she purred beneath him, around him.

Her hair was slick and wet, reaching the middle of her back, and he wanted to sift his fingers through the strands, force her gaze to remain on his as he slid into her that first time. He’d have her come on his cock and then… Then he’d slide his teeth into her vulnerable neck and claim her for all time.

How he wished she’d turn around and let him look at her abundant breasts. He imagined them overflowing his hands as he kneaded the lush mounds. Then he’d take a single, pert nipple into his mouth and lave the hardened nub until she begged—

“Excuse the fuck outta me?” Small hands disrupted his appreciation of her body, and Grant dragged his gaze up to clash with a beautiful, yet supremely angry, Rachel.

He cleared his throat, wishing his arousal away and nudging his wolf to the back of his mind. His beast had been at his internal side as he traveled through his fantasy.

Blushing like a virgin, he turned his back, fighting the urge to join Rachel in the shower. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Riiight.” He didn’t miss her sarcasm.

He felt like a kid who had his hand caught in the X-rated cookie jar. “I’m going to leave some clothes on the bed for you and then I’m going into one of the other bathrooms for a shower. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

And when he said “clothes” he meant a T-shirt and shorts…and nothing else. It’d be torture knowing she was bare beneath the clothing, but it’d be the most pleasurable torment known to wolf-dom.

* * *

Rachel was still mad. And embarrassed. Mad and embarrassed and aroused. But aroused was a bad thing since the wolf could probably scent the state of her need.

Damn it.

But that kiss…

And then the look in his eyes when she’d caught him spying on her. Wowza.

Apparently his distaste for witches wasn’t enough to keep him from ogling her.

She was still trying to figure out if she was more aroused or annoyed.

Leaving the master bedroom, she found Grant barefoot in the kitchen, cooking in nothing but a pair of ratty jeans and a tight, threadbare T-shirt.

Now, she took her turn at watching him, letting her gaze travel over his toned and muscled body. Like this, dressed in casual clothes and doing something so normal, she forgot he was a werewolf to be feared. And a gazillionaire. She wasn’t sure which freaked her out more.

“You done staring? I can strip if you want.” Grant, eyes sparkling with mirth, glanced at her over his shoulder. She rolled her eyes.

“No, I’m good. Thanks for the offer. I may take you up on it later.” She ignored the heat that came with her statement. She’d never been good at flirting and always blushed at the drop of a hat.

“Your loss.” He shrugged.

Yes, it was her loss, but she wasn’t born with balls. Of any kind.

Within minutes, he had food on the table, presenting her with a pan-fried steak and sliced potatoes. “It’s not much. We have to keep the place stocked with non-perishables, so the potatoes came out of a bag. Steak’s from the freezer.”

Rachel didn’t hesitate to dig in and moaned when the delicious flavors hit her tongue.

Grant was still beside her, body immobile, and a glance showed that his eyes were once again amber. And focused on her. “What?”

He shook his head and turned his attention to his food. “Nothing.”

“Mm hm.” She popped a bit of potato into her mouth. “So, you brought the contract?”

He nodded, taking a bite, but not commenting. Apparently there was no separating a wolf and food. Then again, she glanced at his steak. She wouldn’t touch that bleeding, rare hunk of meat for all the money in the world.

When he passed over the sheaf of papers, she flipped through them, alternating a bit of reading with another bite, hunting for the reason the vamps and the wolves would even bother with a contract. Exhaustion beat at her, but she wanted to get through this bunch of garbage as soon as she could. Once the contract was dealt with, she could leave him to making plans with the other wolves. The ones that would probably love to see her as an appetizer.

“You realize that there’s nothing that benefits the pack in here, right?”

Grant stilled, fork halfway to his mouth. “Other than continued residence?”

“Well, yeah, but… Why would you sign something like this?”

He chomped on the piece of steak. “Because it’s necessary? I can’t very well move the entire pack. I haven’t read it yet, but the lawyers said it was essentially the same as the last. With all their terror, ‘essentially’ didn’t sit well with me.”

She quirked a brow but ignored his comment. There had to be more hidden within the words. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe…

Another flip of paper. “And you’re going to pay them a billion dollars per year?” She coughed, choking on a bit of meat. Or the amount of money.

“It’s reasonable.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She opened her eyes wide, mouth hanging open.

He shrugged. “It’s gone up over the years, but considering the economy, cost of living, etcetera.”

“You can tell ‘et’ to go ‘cetera’ itself.” She shook her head. Maybe she didn’t actually get the politics of interspecies relations. She was a witch. Actually, not even that, but she couldn’t imagine the wolves would enter this kind of agreement. Not when…

Her eyes practically popped from her head. “And a thirty percent stake in Hemming Industries? Seriously?”

Again, he paused. “You may be my ma—” He bit off the word, and she wondered what he had been about to say. “I know I asked for your help, but I need to know if there’s anything that would be harmful to the pack. We renegotiate every hundred years, and I want to make sure that I’m not committing to personally feeding them until the term ends.”

Okay, then.

Rachel rolled her eyes and got back to work, alternating between reading and noshing. Silence enveloped them, only the click of silverware against plates breaking the quiet.

Grant lingered in her periphery, his gaze occasionally wandering to her and she was torn between focusing on the contract, the future of his pack, or the Alpha himself.

She readily admitted her attraction to him, the physical pull she felt toward the massive werewolf. She didn’t fear the wolf and her feelings went against everything she’d been taught. Her parents had always warned her away from the weres, but Grant…

I want to jump his bones and ride him like a donkey. There, I said it. Well, thought it. I should seriously stop having these conversations with myself. But that doesn’t change the fact that I wish he’d lay me on the table and go to town “downtown”.

The mere thought of him making love to her with his mouth had her pussy aching once again, begging for something only the wolf beside her could give.

A slight flaring of his nostrils, and his deep breath, was immediately followed by a cocky smirk. Damn, he had to have scented her arousal. Stupid wolves with their stupid super-smell. She ignored him, disregarded the heat that suffused her face, and did her best to concentrate on the papers before her.

“How you doin’?”

“Fine,” she snapped, pissed at herself.

“Hmm…”

At least he didn’t bust out with “Rachel” again.

With a roll of her eyes, she shoved away her lingering arousal. Stupid, cocky, even-if-he-deserves-it man.

Rachel scanned another page, ignoring the stupid clauses. She couldn’t believe what Grant was about to concede. And why? What was she missing?

The last section was too much for her to take. “Really? Grant, I get that you’re the big, bad, kick ass Alpha and stuff, but you’re going to agree to step down and hand the pack over to a vamp?” She slapped the pages onto the counter and turned to him, ignoring his amber eyes. “There is no reason to sign this shit. If it benefitted you in some way, okay, I’d get it. But the original agreement between the Farleifr clan and the Hamr pack was meant to last a thousand years with a caveat that some terms could be renegotiated every hundred. Some. The biggest and most important notation, though, was that it could never be extended past the original thousand. Ever. That expires this year.” She huffed. “There’s no reason, none, to sign any of this, let alone give them money, a part of your company, and your damned position!” She didn’t realize she was yelling until her shout echoed through the kitchen.

That didn’t stop her. “Plus, it’s ad infinitum. Forever since, if you squint at this contract sideways, it’d be a new agreement and not a continuation of the old. If anything, it’s the fucking vamps that should high tail it out of here because the entire county belongs to you now. All of it. They are persona non grata, and they should be bending over backwards to keep you happy. Why the hell did your lawyers even entertain this agreement? For the love of fur, don’t any of them have a copy of the spelled original? My family—”

Rachel snapped her teeth together, cutting off her next words. She didn’t want to reveal her roots, fearful that it’d give Grant a true reason to send her packing. Being a witch was one thing. Being a watcher… Well, that was another.

She turned her attention to the wolf beside her and froze. She wasn’t seated beside a man. No, Grant had been replaced by the wolf. Entirely. Oh, the body was still humanoid, but the eyes were all animal. His beast stared out at her while fur sprouted to coat the man’s body. Claws tipped his fingers and his teeth had sharpened and lengthened during her speech.

This… This was a true wolf.

And she was fucking scared.

* * *

The wolf wouldn’t let him free, wouldn’t grant him power over their shared body. He watched as the beast snarled at Rachel. His mate. The beast was beyond angry, beyond rage. Pure, molten fury pounded through his veins, and the emotions were directed solely at the vampires.

They’d infected the attorneys and Grant wondered what else the beings had accomplished.

My father…

It was quite possible. No one had found his father’s killer, the man having been shot in the head during a run, an instantaneous death, but it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. And at that point, Grant had still had a lot to learn. Like the fact that the contract was at an end, and the land now belonged to the wolves. His father must have known.

The acrid scent of fear overrode his senses and the wolf seemed to realize that he was scaring their mate. In a blink, the beast bound back and shoved his human mind forward, anxious to soothe their other half.

Flicks of pain whipped his skin as his fur receded and his teeth returned to normal until he felt human once again. The vampires had probably killed his father for his knowledge. And now they were after him since he’d wanted time to review the contract himself.

Grant forced a calm he didn’t feel and looked at his pale-faced mate. “Do you have a copy of the original? Can you get one?”

Rachel’s pale, pink tongue darted out to lick her lower lip. At any other time, he would have seen the action as an invitation. Desire would have unfurled in his belly, his cock going hard, and he would have delved into her sweetness.

“No. Maybe.” He could hear the rapid tattoo of her heart within her chest, the speeded rush of blood in her veins.

“Because you’re a witch?” Color fled her face, features going tense with his words. “I don’t hold it against you, Rachel. Others may, but I don’t.” With his human-shaped hand, he reached out and stroked the fist that rested on the table. He worked to ease the tension that filled her. It wasn’t healthy for his mate to worry so. “I swear it.”

“I’m…” She swallowed hard and closed her eyes. “I’m not just a witch, Grant. I’m a watcher. My family… My family name is Marrok.”

“You’re part of one of the oldest families.” His voice was hoarse with disbelief. None of the paranormal races held love for the watchers. They did as their name implied: watched and then recorded. Occasionally they mediated between races as impartial arbitrators. That was their sole usefulness to the others. No one appreciated having their sins jotted down for all time. Or the prospect of being reported to the Senate for disciplinary action. Their laws were few, but violating them meant immediate death. And watchers would know it all.

The Marroks had been assigned to the Hamr pack since its inception and they’d managed to avoid Senate action through the years.

“My great aunt Petunia changed my last name when my parents were killed. She made sure she got my parents’ journals before anyone else found them, and I’ve been studying them ever since. There’s a lot I can’t do, like actually ‘watch’, but conjuring the original document should be straightforward since my family created it in the first place. And I think that’s why the vampires killed my parents. They probably knew about the end of the term, and would have worked with the Alpha to end it peacefully. I just didn’t know…” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her inherent scent teasing him. “I can help you save the pack, and then I-I-I can leave the city.”

Grant’s gut clenched and it felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. His response was immediate. “You’re not leaving.”

Never.

Rachel shook her head. “It’s for the best. You know that. Your pack may appreciate my help, but they won’t let a watcher, let alone a Marrok, live in the city.”

He curled his lip. “They will if they want to live.”

“Grant—”

“No. I would appreciate your help, but you’re not leaving the city. This is your home. I’m your home.” He glared at her and dared her to speak against him while he internally winced at what he’d revealed. He knew she was skittish because there truly was animosity between witches and wolves, even more so with the watchers, but he wouldn’t let anything happen to his mate. Ever.

Not giving her the opportunity to object to his words, or examine them too closely, Grant snatched her from her seat and yanked her close. He forced her to sit across his lap. She struggled, pushing against his hold, but he calmed her by pressing his lips to hers in a fiercely possessive kiss.

Grant brushed his mouth across hers, savoring the soft sweetness of her lips. He gathered the honeyed flavors, nibbling until she opened to him. He swept his tongue into her, a sweet invasion of her mouth, seeking out more of her natural flavor.

His cock stiffened in his jeans, throbbing and aching within the tight confines. His wolf, ever present, nudged him, urged him to take their connection further.

He conquered and claimed, stroking her mouth, discovering and learning what made her moan and wiggle. Her ass shifted on his lap, the curve of her plump bottom petting him with her innocent movements.

Were they innocent?

The musky, heated scent of her arousal drifted to him on the cool air, taunting him, teasing him with what lay undiscovered.

His tongue found hers again and again, twining, dancing, twirling… He alternated between gentle suction and rhythmic suckling, mimicking what he’d like to do to her delicious body.

Delicate moans and soft whimpers seeped from her mouth, muffled only by his passionate kisses.

Rachel shifted again, legs sliding and pressing together as the heady fragrance of her need mocked him. He wanted to slake her desire, give her everything she craved and then more. The wolf inside him agreed wholeheartedly.

Reluctantly, he pulled his lips from hers, eased away even when she seemed to chase him. “You’re mine, Rachel. I don’t want to hear any more talk about leaving.”

“Grant…” His name was a cross between a moan and a whimper.

“What do you need, baby?”

She rocked her hips, thighs clenching.

“I don’t do this.” She shook her head. “Why do I want you so much? I’ve never…”

Grant nuzzled her neck, scraping her vulnerable skin with his exposed canines, and reveled in the shudder that traveled through her body. He nibbled her earlobe and traced the shell of her ear with his tongue. He catalogued her response to him, the increased tempo of her breathing and the rapid beat of her heart.

“No. You need… I can’t breathe… And we should stop…” Again she shook her head in denial.

“Yes, sweetheart.”

She leaned away from him, but he held her fast, unwilling for any space to separate them. He wouldn’t force her, but he wouldn’t let her run and hide from the truth, either. He knew she felt their connection, she just couldn’t recognize it for what it was.

Their mating.

“No, it’s the danger or Stockholm Syndrome or… You don’t want me.”

Grant stroked her back, slid his palm down the shivering length, glad he hadn’t bothered with trying to find a bra or panties for her. His mate was completely bare beneath her oversized clothing. Bare for him.

He eased her close again, pressed his face to her neck and nibbled her shoulder. He couldn’t wait to sink his shifted teeth into her flesh and claim her, change her.

Rachel whimpered. “Why do you keep kissing me?”

He didn’t answer her question right away, couldn’t tear his lips and teeth from teasing her skin. She tasted like honeyed strawberries and sunrise on dewy grass and not even wild horses or blood-crazed vampires could have pulled him away from her.

“Because you’re mine.”