Tenlee twitched her tail at the sound of her name. “Tenlee!” Kurt wasn’t calling her by the squirrel name. He was calling her real name.

She really liked the way it sounded in his deep timbre.

“Tenlee, where are you?” he called.

Clever hunter was getting closer to her little hidey hole.

The urge to go to him was tremendous. She missed him. Missed watching him and hugging him, and she’d even had a little fun dressing up in girl clothes for him. But she’d run for a reason, and out here in these woods, where her thoughts were the loudest thing she heard, those reasons for running had piled up even higher.

The woods were coming alive with the first signs of spring. There were tiny, tender shoots of green grass sprouting from the forest floor, and the buds on the trees said they would be green again before long. The moss was coming back, and the birds too. There was no more crunching of snow underfoot, so Kurt would be even quieter when stalking his prey. And right now…that prey was her.

He appeared like an apparition and, oh, was he a sight for sore eyes. His cowboy hat wasn’t hiding his lightened eyes today. He had the most striking shifter eyes she’d ever seen. They were silver at first glance, but if a person looked deeper, and she often did, she could see a ring of bright blue around his irises when his cougar was riled up. Like right now.

He wore a white T-shirt stretched tight across his muscular chest and arms that was looser at his V-shaped waist. His jeans were threadbare at the knees, and his work boots were caked with the mud he’d just walked through to find her. His Adam’s apple dipped low in his muscular throat as he swallowed. In his hands was a bowl of grapes, the green ones that she liked. Kurt’s lips were set in a grim line. She’d probably made that frown on his face, and she hated it.

“I brought a present,” he murmured, looking up in the branches of her favorite tree, right at her. Clever hunter. “A present and a question, but first I have some things I need to say. And I’d appreciate it if I could say them while I’m lookin’ at your human form.”

Tenlee crossed her squirrel arms. Not likely.

Kurt sighed an agitated sound and said, “Yeah, well, I figured as much. So here goes. You’re a runner, and I don’t like that. I think you are completely comfortable with who and what you are, but if anyone says or does something you don’t approve of, you bolt. I have a problem with that. The hardest thing for me to do is open up, and I don’t trust you to stick around if you hear something you don’t like.”

Tenlee backed up on the branch until her butt hit the trunk of the towering pine. Why did he track her down just to tell her she sucked? No amount of grapes was going to get her to stick around for a list of her shortcomings. She recited those to herself daily and didn’t need help from him to make herself feel alienated.

“I’ve been thinkin’ about you,” he continued, taking a seat on a patch of grass shoots. He set the bowl of fruit between his ankles and rested his elbows on his bent knees. A submissive position. Huh. “I won’t pretend to know what you’ve been through. No point. But I keep trying to imagine what it was like for you and how you got built to be like you are. I think a big reason I can’t stop thinking about you is because I feel a connection in our stories.”

Well, now he had her attention. Tenlee climbed down the tree slowly and sat on the ground at the base of the trunk, facing Kurt.

“You feel alone, don’t you? I can tell from the way you act so defensive and run off to be by yourself, like you think that’s your lot in life. I can tell by the little things you say. And that part of you calls to me, because I feel that way, too.”

Tenlee canted her head. What do you mean?

Kurt cracked his knuckles and then bit his bottom lip, shook his head. “I can’t do this.” He ran his hand through his hair. His heartbeat was loud like a drum and racing double-time.

Something was wrong with him.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Tenlee closed her eyes and forced her body to turn into a girl. It hurt. It always hurt, but at least her Changes were fast. They always had been since the very first time.

Her voice was all scratchy as she said, “Now your wish is granted. The one where you wanted me to be…me.”

Kurt’s lips lifted in a breathtaking, lopsided smile, and he dragged his gaze down her body and back up, pausing on her hips and breasts.

She couldn’t help her own smile. “Perv,” she teased.

“You’re so pretty. Now I really won’t be able to tell you what I wanted because you struck me dumb, woman.”

“I ain’t a woman,” she said cheekily, but now she didn’t really mind if he called her that. He was a man, and she sort of enjoyed being a person like him. Sometimes.

Kurt chuckled, and the sound of his relief loosened the tightness in her chest.

“You’re lonely to? Because your mate died?” she asked.

“Well, that’s part of it, but not all. I have something to tell you that will make you look at me differently. And the coward in me wants to keep this stuff all locked up so you keep saying that sweet stuff about liking me. Feels good when you say nice stuff about me.”

“You have a big, perfect dick,” she complimented him.

Kurt had just popped a grape in his mouth and nearly choked on it. He coughed a few times and nodded, his cheeks blazing red. “Well, I appreciate it.”

“I’m serious. It’s really big, and when you are about to Change and you are naked, it swings back and forth when you walk. And when we make-out, it feels so big against me that I wonder if you can even fit that inside of me, but I really want to try.”

Kurt was staring at her with his mouth hanging open and his eyes really big. “Okay.” He cleared his throat. “Okay,” he repeated.

“You have strong hands, and I like your man-nipples, and—”

“All right, wait. Let’s hold off on the compliments so I can say what I need to say and not make a run at fitting this”—he pointed at his dick—“in you right now.”

“Oh. Right.” Tenlee zipped up her lips and mimed throwing away the key. And then she sat there, perched on the new grass, waiting with an expectant smile.

There was a grin still tugging at the corners of Kurt’s lips.

“And you’re a good kisser,” she whispered.

“Are you done?”

“And you smell good.”

His eyes danced as he waited.

“I feel like I need to give you one last one because I was raised by crows, and even though the males are usually dominant jerks, the female crow who taught me about being a person always told me if I think something nice about someone, I should say it out loud because it could make their day. And that’s real power, being able to make someone’s day.”

“I think the lady who taught you was a wise woman. I wanna be touching you when you tell me that last compliment though,” he murmured. “Come over here.” His eyes were now a soft brown, and that told her his mountain lion was nice and comfy and quiet inside of him.

“You promise not to push me away again?”

“Oh, Tenlee, I wasn’t pushing you away. I would’ve kept you on my lap for the rest of my life if I could’ve got away with it. Sometimes people have to have space though, to be appropriate.”

“Sounds boring. Let’s be animals instead. Animals don’t give a fuck.”

Kurt laughed and jerked his chin. “Come here. I won’t push you away.”

She crawled to him, closing the space between them in seconds, and then she sat in his lap and hugged him like she wanted. And he was true to his word—he didn’t push her away. He pulled her closer instead.

Relief.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you yesterday, Tenlee. I think there are going to be a million misunderstandings between us until I figure you out and you figure me out because I’m more man and you’re more animal. But I don’t want you running. I want you to stick with me when we have a misunderstanding and figure out who done what wrong, okay?”

Tenlee sighed and answered by pressing her lips onto his neck. She murmured, “Can I tell you my last compliment now?”

The cheek that rested against hers swelled up with his smile. “Sure.”

“You are a real good dad.”

The second she uttered the last word, Kurt made a soft purring sound in his throat that lifted gooseflesh on her arms.

“Cold?” he asked, dragging soft fingertips up and down her spine.

“I never get cold. I just like that sound in your throat. It’s your happy sound, isn’t it?”

“Yes, and do you want to know somethin’ crazy?”

“I want to know everything.”

Another purr. “I haven’t made this sound in a very long time.”

Tenlee leaned back and searched his eyes to make sure he was telling the truth, and there it was. Sad honesty lingered there. She cupped his cheeks because it felt right to touch him like this right now. And as he leaned into her touch, she asked, “You didn’t make that sound because of the loneliness?”

“I don’t fit in like I’m supposed to.”

“Supposed to,” she repeated, confused. Kurt wasn’t supposed to do anything. He was a big, dominant mountain lion shifter. He could live however he wanted.

“For a shifter like me, we are supposed to be brought up in a Clan, and when we’re old enough, or too dominant for the Alpha to keep us, we find a new Clan or start our own. But when I was a kid, I didn’t have a Clan. Not officially. My mom was human, and my dad got her pregnant and left her to raise a shifter on her own, only she didn’t know any mountain lion shifters like me, so she took me where I could get help. The only shifter she could track down was this old grizzly named Sam who lived up in the mountains. And the more he helped her with me and my Changes, the more time she spent with him. And eventually she decided to move us in. And we were a family, but it didn’t look like other people’s. They were friends. Teammates. He is a very good man. I was used to being around a bear shifter, not mountain lions, so when I got old enough and got those dominant urges to claim territory and take over a Clan, I was confused by other mountain lions. I didn’t fit in. Not even close. I don’t even really like what I am after spending time with them. A lot of them are raised in their culture to be selfish, kill easily, and treat women badly. Some are okay, like Trina and Cooper who still live in town, but most are unsalvageable. And they could tell I was different from day one. I questioned Alpha’s decisions and fought constantly. Fought everyone. Got arrested for more public brawls than I can even count. I stuck out and had to coast the outskirts of any Clans I tried to join. Eventually, I landed in Wyoming, in a Clan called the Neck Breakers. Their Alpha was soft, and I was a mature male and knew I could take that Clan from him. I met Laney in the same town while I was there, but the Clan wouldn’t allow our pairing. It made me want the power to make all the decisions for the Clan so I could keep her safe. So I could keep…her. Only the more I fought to keep her as a mate, the bigger my bloodlust got. And over time, I got power hungry with the idea of changing every mountain lion in that Clan from the inside out. Change like that don’t come easy though and I moved too fast. I went from stalking the outskirts to putting myself right in the middle of Clan politics, and I brought Laney and my little cub right into the middle of it with me. And it killed her. The lions killed her to teach me a lesson. My decisions to try and change them killed her. I killed her.”

“It’s not your fault your people were monsters,” Tenlee whispered, stroking the dark scruff on his jaw with her thumbs.

Kurt’s eyes filled with ghosts, and he swallowed a couple times before he said hoarsely, “It don’t matter whose fault it is. It matters whose responsibility it is, and I was charged with her protection the day I took her as a mate. I failed her. And then I went after the cougar who killed her, and I got locked up, so I failed my son, too. He was with my mom and Sam for eighteen months. And when I got out, I spiraled. Couldn’t stop fighting, because that’s all I fuckin’ did when I was locked up. People don’t know about shifters, so I got sent to this secret facility, and all you do is fight other shifters. All day every day, you’re proving who is the biggest, baddest monster in there. I got stronger, and my animal got bloated with bloodlust, and when I finally got out of there, none of me had survived it. I was just as bad as all the other mountain lion shifters. I was a bad one. I didn’t care about nothin’. Just my kid, but I wasn’t fit to keep him. I didn’t deserve him. Gunner was this…angel. I would go visit him almost every single day, and he was happy and talkative, so much like his momma. But what could I give him? I’d already cursed him with the cougar in his middle. Already cursed him to end up just like me. And I hated myself that I’d failed him and kept failing him, but I couldn’t stop the spiral. I was drinking and hanging around a local Clan that was into riding Harleys, and I heard about some MCs up north. Shifter MCs. I got recruited, but I wasn’t interested in Red Dead Mayhem or the Devil Cats.”

“Why not?”

Kurt huffed a breath. “Because I saw Trigger and Colt get in a bar fight and lay everyone on the ground. They were like two grenades. No one was left standing when they were done, and they’d barely broken a sweat. And I thought…” Kurt gripped her hips. “I thought there’s my ticket to a real good spiral. There’s my ticket to rock bottom. So, I followed those boys home. Only you don’t hunt Hairpin Trigger, and you sure as fuck don’t hunt the Peacemaker, as they called him back then. They pulled to the shoulder of the road and got out of their truck midway to the ranch, and I stopped behind them, ready to fight. I’ll never forget the look on Trigger’s face as he climbed out of his old Ford, shotgun in his hand, gold eyes glowing in my headlights, a look on his face that said he didn’t care about anything in the whole world. I recognized myself in him in an instant. ‘What do you want?’ he asked me. I climbed out of my truck, leaned against it, and I said, ‘I think you’re gonna be the one to end me.’ He dropped that shotgun to his side and gave me this what-the-fuck look. And then he asked, ‘Are you bad off?’ I nodded and said, ‘I’ve been bad off for a while.’ Then he asked, ‘What do you have to live for?’ I couldn’t bring myself to say Gunner because I knew deep in my heart that cub was better off without me. And on the other side of the truck, Colt looked like hell. He was newly Turned and white as a sheet, all scarred on his face, and his eyes were changing gold, green, gold, green, like he didn’t have no control at all. I got that. I understood it. I told them I was raised by a bear and didn’t have no problem with their animals. They asked questions, and I answered. Eventually, Trig pulled the tailgate down on his truck, and we all sat on it for a while, not saying anything. I learned that night that Trig wasn’t just a brawler like me. He was wise. He could see into people’s souls and their intentions better than anyone I ever met. He called me out and said, ‘I think you came to me because you’re stuck. Because you think the only way to get un-stuck is to find someone who can match you in a fight. So you can lose and get relief from a hard life. Well, fuck that, Kurt. I ain’t gonna make it that easy on you. I’m gonna challenge you instead. Make you rise up and be a better man. And if you can’t handle that? You can be on your way.’ I didn’t like it. That’s not why I had come after them. I’d wanted a fight in the woods alone with those bears. Wanted an honorable death so my son wouldn’t see what a fuck-up his dad was. So his story would be that his dad died when he was young, not that his dad had fucked up his entire life from birth. But Trig was offering me something else. He was offering me a chance to find my old self. To fight for my old self maybe. To fight for my kid. And so that night, I pledged to his MC on the off-chance that I could be a salvageable mountain lion shifter.”

“Did Trig fix you?”

“Nah. He wouldn’t make anything easy on me. He made me fix myself. If I messed up, he whooped my ass, or worse, he got disappointed in me. And over time, he and Colt became really important to me. They pushed me relentlessly, and yeah, we did some messed-up shit. We were in an MC, but at the same time, I was finding my feet again and didn’t want to be put down anymore. I was finding joy in improving for my son. He became my motivation, and I worked, and finally I took him back and provided for him, got some confidence built up in taking care of him. I made my mom and Sam proud, but I would never forgive myself for all my failures when Gunner was tiny. The man you see today is not the man I always was.”

“There is shame in your voice when you say that.”

“Well, it ain’t something to be proud of. The MC got dissolved, Trig had his reasons, but I was pissed because I’d been doing good and was steady. Trig had actually made the changes I had tried to with the mountain lions. His MC was a mash-up of shifter animals, and we worked. And I was happy for the first time in a long time, and then all the sudden it wasn’t there anymore. It was like my legs got knocked clean out from under me. And I still wanted to be okay, and steady, so I had to find some kind of support system. I pledged to the Darby Clan for companionship, but it was like taking a step back. I was back to square one, wishing for change, wishing we weren’t going after every shifter animal who didn’t look like us. I didn’t fit in, as usual, because I was back to having a moral compass, thanks to Hairpin and the Peacemaker. They gave me the compass back and then threw me away. With the Darby Clan, I was trying so hard to stay a good man for my son, but I ended up disagreeing with everything the Alpha did, and I killed him.”

“To save Ava.”

“Don’t matter the reasons, Tenlee. I killed the Alpha but didn’t take over the Clan. I left all those broken bonds to rot those cats from the inside out. Including myself. And now look what being different got me?” Kurt leaned back on a locked arm, lifted up his shirt and gave her a clear view of the wrecked skin of his torso and neck. Two of the cuts were trickling blood. “You know what happens to a dominant shifter who breaks bonds and doesn’t repair them? They die slow.”

“No,” she whispered in horror. “You won’t die. I won’t let you.”

Kurt huffed a laugh. “Ain’t nothin’ you or anyone can do. Even if I wanted to fix the bonds, the Two Claws Clan killed every one of those cougars but two. I’m poisoned. I was too different. I went against everything, and my decisions led me here. I made all that improvement for my boy, and look what will happen? He’ll be alone in this world anyway.”

“You stop. Stop it right now, Kurt. You aren’t going anywhere. You can’t just live a life full of grit and there be no happy ending for you. Or for Gunner. Or for…for…”

“For what?”

“Me!” Stupid, stupid tears. They burned her eyes, and she didn’t like feeling weak. “You don’t fit with anyone else, and I don’t fit in with anyone else, but we fit together. And if you don’t exist…then how will I?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I was so sad when you left with Gunner. I just…” She dropped her gaze to one of the seeping, gaping gashes on his chest. “I know you didn’t know me. You didn’t know I liked watching you or I was protective of you and Gunner. But when you left, I just laid around all day, wishing I could sleep my whole life away so I didn’t feel empty anymore.”

“Tenlee,” he murmured, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. “I’m sorry I left. I didn’t know. If I would’ve known you existed, I would’ve questioned…” Kurt frowned. “Wait, did you write me the note?”

“The one that said you should go?”

Kurt nodded. “Yeah, that one.”

She smiled uncertainly. “I learned how to talk and read and write after I Changed and found Momma Crow. That’s what I called her.”

“Why did you write that note, Tenlee? I left Ava and Karis unprotected that night.”

“I was there. I protected them for you.”

“But…” Kurt looked baffled, and his cheeks were flushing red. “Tenlee, that wasn’t good.”

“It was good,” she argued stubbornly.

Kurt pursed his lips and shook his head. “I don’t understand why you did that.”

“Because I spy in town. No one notices a little squirrel. I go there and see who is a threat to my people, to Trig and Colt and their mates, but mostly for you and Gunner. The mountain lions were talking about you too much, like they were going to come for you. They knew you were staying here. And the more they talked, the worse it was getting for you. They were going to hurt you. And hurt Gunner. So I made you go away.”

“Because you thought you were keeping us safe?”

Tenlee nodded curtly. “I always keep you safe. I grant wishes and keep people safe. That’s my secret job. It makes me happy. Well…mostly. I got tear-stains on the note when I was writing it for you. I didn’t want you to go. I wanted to make it a love note and tell you how much I liked you, but I had to make you leave me instead, and I cried the whole time. Hate crying. I do that too much, and it’s weak. But I dotted the I’s with hearts as a secret I-like-you.”

Kurt sat there frozen, looking stunned. “Do you know what that’s called?”

“What?”

“When you care about someone above yourself?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“That’s love, Tenlee.”

Love? Oh, she’d heard lots about love, but never before had she understood it. Ramsey had talked about love like it was the same as loyalty, but it wasn’t. She hadn’t felt love and loyalty back then. But what Kurt said made sense. She’d never had a word for how she felt when she watched him work as he hummed to himself, or when he protected his people or played with Gunner. Her heart always filled with utter joy just being around him, even when he hadn’t known she was there. He placed his palm on her chest, right over her pounding heartbeat. She smiled at him and hoped he understood.

Kurt’s shoulders moved with his quick breaths, his eyes so bright as he stared at his hand. Bum-bum, bum-bum, bum-bum. Her heart was racing under his touch. “Nothing is what it seemed,” he murmured.

She didn’t understand so she shook her head slightly.

“You are a really good surprise, Tenlee. One of those surprises that changes a life. You feel important.”

And now she was stunned. Important? Her? “Because I’m an Origin?”

Kurt shook his head. “I don’t care about that. This…” He pressed his hand harder over her heart. “This is important. You are important.”

It was the single best combination of words in the whole world. You. Are. Important. How many years since that first Change had she wished someone felt that for her? Ramsey only thought her important because of what she was. Not who. And here was this man, this good man, built on a lifetime of hard decisions, who was looking her dead in the eyes and telling her the exact thing she needed to hear to stitch up her aching soul.

In this moment, right here, she knew she wasn’t alone anymore.

But her Kurt smelled like blood, and there were lines of crimson seeping through his white T-shirt. Though he was a powerful and capable man, he was right. His decisions had poisoned him.

And so now she had a new secret job. She had to figure out how to keep the crows from her people, but also how to take the poison from the man who made her heart smile.

“Make a wish that I save you,” she whispered, clutching onto his hand over her heart. “Wish that I save you so you can stay here with me and Gunner.”

His smile was sad, like a ghost’s, and he shook his head slightly. “That kinda pressure on you ain’t fair to ask.” Kurt lifted his palm to her cheek, and his touch felt so good that she nuzzled against it.

He was happiness-maker.

“I wish I could purr, too.”

His smile was slow, and he leaned forward and let her taste it. He kissed her like he’d been made to know exactly what she liked. Exactly what she hadn’t even realized she liked. He nibbled on her bottom lip, so she bit his top one gently. He’s mine. Mine, mine, mine. A shiver ran up her spine, but not from chills. It was from how good his hand felt brushing up and down her back. She rocked against him since he was already hard and thick between them.

He spun her quick. One moment she was straddling his lap, and the next her back was on the mossy ground. Her stomach dipped with the movement, and she gasped. Injured or not, Kurt was astonishingly strong. As she peeled his shirt over his head, he cupped her sex.

“Ffffuuuck, Tenlee,” he whispered, resting his forehead against hers as he dragged his fingers through the wetness between her legs.

It felt so good, she whimpered. More, more, more. She wanted more. She wanted everything.

She was mesmerized by him. By his movement, the way his chest muscles rippled as he rocked forward with the rhythm of rubbing her clit. By his flexed triceps on his locked arm by her face. By the bulge of his bicep as he stroked her. By the heat he created in her middle. By the fire in his eyes as he eased back to look at her.

Love. This was what love felt like, right? When the light was too bright and everything was blurry but that one person. Kurt’s dark hair was messy, he was unshaven, and he bore the marks of a terrible battle on his body, but that only made him look like a warrior. He was perfect, scars and all.

He rolled his eyes closed for a moment as he pushed his finger into her. Tenlee was floating. God, how could anything feel this good? She spread her knees wider and rolled against his hand, begging him to push in deeper. And then his bright eyes were back on her, devouring the look on her face. Her heart was pounding so hard, so loud. It almost drowned out the soft, sexy snarl in his throat.

With clumsy fingers, she reached for his jeans and unsnapped the button, then pushed them down his hips. He helped her, pushing his pants down, but he didn’t slide his dick into her right away. Instead, he laid between her legs, resting his weight on her as he rolled his hips against her, his thick shaft rubbing her clit over and over. He pulled her hair gently and then gripped the back of her neck as he kissed her, never letting up on the rhythm he set. She was getting wetter the longer he took, and she was getting close, panting with his every stroke against her body.

“You gonna take this dick?” he murmured against her lips.

“Yes, yes,” she panted, spreading her knees wider. She’d never wanted anything more than him inside of her.

Against his back, she clawed her nails as she chased his strokes, pleading for him to stop teasing her. Kurt eased back and pushed the very tip of his cock into her, but didn’t go deeper. Stroke after stroke, he stayed right there, easing in farther each time, stretching her slowly until she was arching her back against the ground at how good he felt inside of her.

He sucked hard on her throat and pushed in deep, sliding easily since he’d prepared her. And for a moment, they just lay like that, him inside her to the hilt, filling her completely, connected. Connected. Had she ever been connected to any single person like she felt with Kurt? She couldn’t recall anyone before him. He eased back and pushed into her again, and there he was, brushing her clit just right. Ease back, push in, ease back, push in until his arms were shaking, until her breath trembled, and she uttered his name. Faster. Faster. Harder. Harder.

The depth of her pleasure was overwhelming. God, that feral sound in his throat was so sexy. She clawed his back, so close. He arched, rolling his eyes closed as he slammed into her again. And then his attention was back on her, eyes locked as he bucked into her hard, over and over. Pressure, pressure, so much pressure and it felt so good. The intensity grew until she had no choice but to cry out his name. And then her body broke apart. It throbbed with such pleasure she had to close her eyes. Kurt pushed into her deep and paused, his dick throbbing hard inside of her, streaming warmth. Ease back, push in, but shallower now, slower, still throbbing like her body. They matched. He grunted low with every pulse, with every shot of warmth.

And as he stilled on top of her, she expected him to get restless and leave her lying there wondering what the hell he’d just done to her body, but he didn’t. He rolled onto his side, taking her with him, not in a hurry to break their connection. He didn’t even flinch as he dragged her tight against his chest. It was as if he felt no pain at all.

“Tenlee?” he asked as he drew slow circles against her backbone with his fingertips.

“Yeah?”

Soft as a breath, he whispered, “I wish you could save me.”

Tenlee smiled against his chest and hugged him tighter. Thata man. There was a little fight. He didn’t know her well enough yet, so he didn’t realize what he’d asked of her, but she would keep him safe from his fate.

She didn’t know how, but she would.

Simple as that.