Paxton looked out the window from his apartment. The lights of the city winked across the landscape with a dark patch at the center that was Central Park. Evelyn had been in the hospital a week. He slid his eyes toward the chair in the living room where his overnight bag sat.

He tilted the beer in his hand to his lips and drained what remained in the brown bottle, her voice in his head. Their conversations were as alive and real as if she stood beside him, her gorgeous dark eyes flashing with humor the way they did when they were kids. The way they did that morning at the coffeehouse.

Walking to the kitchen, he tossed the empty bottle in the trash and then moved to pack up his laptop. He’d set up in the doctor’s lounge at the hospital, not wanting to be more than an elevator or staircase away from her at a time. There was so much on Ward Grisham he’d yet to uncover.

He’d read through the bullshit public relations and press releases his office put out, along with the white-washed website. The man was crooked to his eye-teeth and Pax would dig until he found the connection that brought Evie to the point she was now.

One phone call was all it took to set the bloodhounds working. Wolves were pack animals, even as shifters, and when one member of the pack called, they all answered. He’d have his answers soon enough about Senator Ward Grisham and any nefarious ties the man held. The only thing that worried him now was insulating Evie from whatever toxins her father could bleed onto her from this point on.

Funny, Grisham no more recognized him than he did Evie. Then again, the only time he saw Grisham was the day Evie’s tiger emerged, and the man still carried the scars from her adolescent panic and pain. Maybe years of grift and greed had doused Grisham’s senses as much as Pax’s self-absorption had doused his own.

Paxton inhaled. Things were different now. His senses had never been more alight or attuned. Evelyn was all that mattered and every gut instinct he had that day outside the Starbucks rang true. She was everything incarnate. Life. Love. Mate. Everything.

He shrugged his arms into his jacket and grabbed his laptop and his overnight bag and headed out. It was time to pay Craig’s lab another visit.

* * *

“Holy shit!” Craig swiveled in his chair, his fingers tapping his laptop keyboard. “The longer I test this venom, the more it keeps mutating. Every antiserum I try, it transforms itself to swallow whole and destroy.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I really thought I had it this time.”

Paxton glanced from his own computer to Craig’s screen. “I think you might have to add my blood to whatever composition you’re using, or at least my saliva.”

Craig shook his head. “I tried wolf spit, and wolf blood. Neither helps. Hell, I even tried Dire Wolf thinking the primordial breed would hold something, but no.”

Rolling up his sleeve, Pax motioned with his arm toward the phlebotomy tray beside Craig’s bank of centrifuges and vials. “Wolf blood, Dire or otherwise, isn’t my blood. You were the one who correctly surmised Evelyn and I share a blood bond.” He opened his palm to the scar at the center. “Now that her identity is undeniable, I can unequivocally tell you you’re right. Evie and I sealed our commitment to each other in blood when we were teenagers.”

“Like blood brothers?”

Pax chucked a pen at him. “No, asshole. Blood lovers. Oaths sealed in blood are binding.”

“Says who? Bram Stoker?” Craig snorted.

“Yuck it up, Grizzly Adams. You know as well as anyone blood in our world carries supernatural weight.”

He laughed. “Wow, metaphysical much?”

“Dude.” Pax raised an eyebrow.

“C’mon. Are you telling me you’ve made up your mind Evie is your mate based on one hot teenage summer and a few sex dreams?”

“Does a bear shit in the in woods?”

Craig groaned. “Boy, you did not just go there.”

Paxton grinned at his friend. “I certainly did, Brother Bear. Besides, my bond with Evie is deeper than just a few X-rated dreams. When it’s right, you know. Your animal knows. In fact, your animal will know it before you do. Evie is my mate.”

“Dream mate.”

He held out his arm toward Craig. “Dream in every sense of the word, dude. Now take my blood and do whatever voodoo you do to help make that dream become a reality.”

He whistled low, tying the rubber tourniquet below Pax’s bicep. “You’ve got it bad.”

“Tell me about it,” Pax replied.

Craig didn’t look up as he slipped the needle into his vein, drawing the red sample. “What are you going to do if I can’t isolate an antiserum?”

Pax’s chest tightened and his wolf howled in objection. “I’m going to kill her father.”

His friend looked up. “Why not try talking to him first?”

* * *

“Talk to him,” Pax grumbled, scrolling through his emails. Nothing yet on Grisham. Then again, his wolves had only been hunting for a day. They’d turn up something, he hoped. He would take Craig’s advice and confront the man, but only when he had more than just his dick in his hand. If he wanted the man to come clean, he’d need something to persuade him.

He glanced at Evie, so still in her bed. The gentle rise and fall of her chest the only sign she was still with him.

“I feel the weight of your stare, Pax. Besides the obvious, what’s wrong? Your head is a mess and I’m not talking about the gorgeous swollen mass you hide behind your zipper. How about a little action to take your mind off your worries?”

Her chuckle drifted past his tangle of thoughts and she laughed, drawing a ghost of a hand down his chest to his crotch.

“Quit that!”

“Why? Does the big bad wolf not want me to huff and puff and blow his house in?”

“Evie, please. It’s unnerving enough to hear your voice in my head, but to feel your—” he sucked in a breath at the invisible touch of her lips on his cock. “At least wait until I’m asleep so I can touch back.”

“Party pooper.”

The door cracked open. “Did you need something, Dr. Noble?” Carol asked, poking her head through the entrance. “I thought I heard your voice.”

“The boy needs a good suck and fuck.” Evie gave his head another ghost of a lick.

Pax cleared his throat. “No, I’m fine. Thank you, Carol.” He waited for the door to close before moving to Evie’s bed. He leaned down, his lips just touching the edge of her ear. “I am going to give myself a dose of injectable valium and then we’ll see who needs what, Miss Potty Mouth.”

“Valium? Pax, don’t. I want you stone hard, not stoned.”

“Too late, baby. You’ve awakened the wolf and now he’s gonna cum for you.”

She giggled in his mind. “Ooh, you just made me wet, you dirty dog.”

He kissed her ear and then straightened. Walking to the door, he yanked it wide. “Carol! On second thought—”