“Park? What in the hell are you doing? Put the gun down. We’ve had enough gun encounters with Hank.”

When Brandy got about a foot away from Parker, her friend reached out and grabbed her. He jerked her to a position behind him, making her yelp in surprise, and kept the gun aimed on Reardon.

“Parker?” A curl of something—fear, maybe—uncoiled inside Brandy. It was not in Parker’s nature to tote a gun unless it was a tranq gun or have such a fierce look on his normally friendly face. “What is going on?”

“I don’t know. Let’s ask this…this guy.” Parker motioned to Reardon with the nose of the rifle.

“Please,” Reardon said. “If I could have a word with Brandy—”

“You’re not having anything with Brandy, buddy. You understand me?” Parker took a few steps closer. “Get on the ground.”

“Should I call the police?” Meredith kept Dylan at her side, a little bit behind her, and gaped at Parker with wide eyes.

“Yes,” Parker said.

“No,” Reardon said at the same time.

“You keep answering questions that are not for you.” Brandy stepped out from behind Parker, but he tugged her back by her tank top, and she almost stumbled.

“Do not go near him… whatever he is.” Parker’s grip tightened on the rifle and for a moment Brandy expected him to squeeze off a shot.

“Parker, I don’t understand what’s happening.” And now I’m kind of all out afraid. Which she did not like at all. Being mad at Reardon for not showing up last night was trivial compared to the level of fear rising up inside her now.

“If you’d let me talk to you privately, Brandy, I think things will get clearer.” Reardon’s green-gold gaze beseeched her, and she fell under its spell. As upset as she was about him standing her up, she couldn’t deny what looking at him did to her body. In a pair of jeans and a gray T-shirt that hugged his perfect physique in all the right places, what was a girl to do but want some? Maybe a great deal more than some.

No. Stay strong. He jerked you around last night. He can’t get away with that.

“Brandy is not spending another second alone with you, Reardon… what the hell is your last name anyway?” Parker poked the rifle in the air between himself and Reardon.

“I’ll be happy to tell Brandy if you let me talk to her.” Reardon folded his arms across his chest, looking very intimidating, and for the first time, Brandy realized Reardon could probably crush Parker if he wanted to.

She couldn’t let that happen.

“Let me hear what he was to say, Park. I’ll be fine.” Again, she stepped out from behind Parker.

“Look at this first.” Parker reached his hand to his back pocket and extracted his cell phone. He pushed it into her hands. “Go to the security camera app.”

“I can look at this later.” She wiggled the phone between their faces. “Right now, I want to hear what Reardon thinks is so important that I hear. The sooner I hear it the sooner I can tell him to leave.”

A pained look flitted across Reardon’s face when he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Brandy couldn’t tell if her words had caused that expression or if he hurt physically somewhere.

Shit. What if he didn’t show because he was in an accident of some kind? Maybe he’d gone straight to the hospital and hadn’t needed an ambulance. Colleen wouldn’t have had a record if that had been the case. This notion made her regret the cold shoulder she was giving him.

“Reardon, are you okay?”

“Is he okay? Is he okay?” Parker’s voice had risen in volume and pitch. “Open the damn security camera app, B. Please.” He pointed at Meredith who hadn’t moved with Dylan still glued to her side. “Call the police, Meredith. Do it.”

Meredith ushered Dylan inside as Brandy focused on Parker’s phone. She hit the security camera app, wondering what in the hell was going on. She was about to tell Reardon to start reciting his story of where he was last night, but a grainy, dark image wavered on Parker’s phone, garnering her attention.

“What am I seeing here?” She turned the phone to get the landscape view and brought it closer to her face.

“Keep watching. You’ll see it in a minute.” Parker took a few steps toward Reardon. “Get on the ground. Now.”

Slowly, Reardon lowered to his knees, another wince scrunching up his features. He held his hands out to his sides in a universal I-mean-no-harm gesture.

“Parker, aren’t you going a little overboard here? He only stood me up. He didn’t actually hurt me or anything.” She loved Parker for being so protective, but this was too much. She’d never seen him be… well, crazy.

“Keep watching that screen, B.” He didn’t turn to look at her, as if all his attention was laser-focused on Reardon.

Brandy squinted at the phone in her hands. The clarity had improved a little though the footage was in that blue-black night vision lighting. She made out the images of several wolves around the entrance gate. Someone was leading them.

Someone tall.

Someone male.

Someone naked aside from a bandage around his left calf.

Someone who the wolves were rubbing against as if they knew this person.

“Who…” Her voice fell away as the naked man faced the wolves and she recognized the rugged, bearded, handsome face. She shot her gaze to Reardon. “Why—?”

“Keep watching,” Parker insisted.

She focused back on the screen and let out a gasp when the man, now on the other side of the entrance gates, got to the ground and changed into… into a huge, black wolf.

Alator?

The phone slipped from her fingers and bounced on the dirt between her feet.

“Fucked up, right?” Parker kept the gun on Reardon, but reached down for his phone. He dusted it off on his T-shirt and shoved it back into his pocket.

Brandy stood there with her mouth opening and closing, but no sound came out. What she’d seen on the phone had literally taken her breath away. The woods spun around her and she blinked rapidly, fighting off the waves of dizziness cresting over her. Rising up. Crashing. Rising up. Crashing. She couldn’t get any air into her lungs.

Black spots danced at the edges of her vision and she knew she was going down. As much as she didn’t want to pass out, there was nothing she could do to stop it.

She’d just seen a man turn into a wolf. This man. The one on his knees at gunpoint in front of her this very moment. The one she’d slept with.

Oh, God…

She hit the ground. The last thing she heard was Parker and Reardon both calling her name.

****

Reardon shot to his feet to go to Brandy, her body prone on the ground, but Parker got in his path.

“You don’t touch her. Do you hear me? You. Don’t. Touch. Her.” The smaller man held that rifle steady and Reardon had no doubt Parker wouldn’t hesitate to put another bullet in him.

“What did she watch?” He held his hands up, trying to look defenseless, but his brain was running through all the different ways he could get that gun from Parker. He didn’t want to hurt the veterinarian. After all, the man had taken good care of him on several occasions now. That wasn’t enough to keep Reardon from going to Brandy, however.

“As if you don’t know what you did in the cover of darkness last night by the entrance gates.” Parker raised his eyebrows then shook his head. “I mean, what did you do, man? I watched it with my own two eyes, and Brandy obviously witnessed the same thing. Otherwise she wouldn’t be out cold right now.”

Reardon paused for a moment, trying to put the pieces together while deciding which course of action to take next. “These security cameras. What do they do?”

Parker let out a noise of utter disbelief. “What do they do? Are you from Mars, dude? They do what security cameras do—record everything they’re pointed at. In this case, they were pointed at you. You walking toward the entrance gates. Naked, I might add. The wolves rubbing against you and circling around you as if you were their leader or some shit. You opening the gates. You…” Here, Parker squeezed his eyes shut for an instant. When he opened them, his hands were white knuckled on the rifle. He raised it, poised to pull the trigger. “You changed. Into Alator. How?” His voice was only a whisper now.

Dammit. Reardon hadn’t known about the security cameras. What madness captures everything a man—or a wolf—does for all to view? He supposed it made sense for catching people like Hank Swift lurking around, up to no good.

But him? He wasn’t out to harm anyone. In fact, just the opposite. He only wanted Brandy’s total acceptance.

Brandy.

He peered around Parker at Brandy still sprawled on the ground. Even unconscious with dirt marring her bare legs, she was a vision.

And now she knew what he could do. Before he’d been able to tell her himself.

This was not good.

“The police are on their way,” Meredith called from the house.

This was really not good.

“Great,” Parker said. “Get back in the house and keep Dylan in there.”

“What happened to Brandy?” Meredith stepped outside.

“She’s okay, Meredith. She passed out. I’ve got it under control.” Parker widened his stance, keeping that rifle trained on Reardon. “Go back inside.”

Meredith disappeared back into the house, which surprised Reardon. She wasn’t one to take orders from what he’d seen, and he knew how much her family meant to her. If her daughter was on the ground, she’d want to go to her. If she thought Reardon was a threat, she’d make every attempt to protect her kin.

A soft click sounded behind him, but before he could take his gaze off Parker’s rifle, a sharp jab got him in the shoulder blade. When he turned his head, Meredith stood on the front step, a tranq gun still raised in her hands.

“Sorry, kid, but I don’t know what’s going on here. My daughter’s on the ground, a man who is usually pretty level-headed has you at gunpoint, and my grandson is visibly upset inside. We all need a minute. A minute in which you are not able to fight back.”

By the time Meredith was finished, everything around Reardon had grown fuzzy and his body didn’t feel like his own. A numbness crawled throughout him and he sank to his knees. When his arms were unable to move, he crashed face first into the dirt at Parker’s feet.

“He should be out for a while, but let’s tie him up until the police get here.” Meredith’s words all ran into each other in Reardon’s ears.

He heaved in a breath. Brandy was close enough that her fragrance filled his nostrils and he relished the scent.

Even if it was probably the last time he’d ever smell it.

****

Brandy snapped awake and her body jolted in the recliner. Her living room. She had somehow gotten to her living room from outside.

Outside where she’d seen footage of something that could not be real.

Could it? What if it was? What if everything she’d researched about lycanthropy was… real? What if Reardon was Alator and Alator was Reardon?

She stood and marched into the kitchen. “Parker? Mom?” She poked her head into the dining room. “Dylan?”

No one answered so she opened the front door only to see Parker and Meredith walking up from the entrance gates.

“Brandy, are you okay?” Meredith jogged over and gave her a hug, but Brandy couldn’t manage to get her arms to reciprocate. “You want something to drink, kiddo?” Meredith stepped back and studied Brandy.

“No.” Brandy got in front of Parker. “I want to see that footage again.”

Parker shook his head. “I don’t think that’s necessary.” He still held the rifle.

“I do think it’s necessary, Parker. I need to be sure about what I saw.”

“It has to be a trick or something,” Meredith said.

“You saw it?” How long had she been unconscious? Brandy squinted up at the sky and figured it was still morning.

“Damn straight, I saw it. I needed to know what caused my daughter to end up flat on her back in the dirt.”

“Let’s go inside.” Parker corralled her toward the house, but Brandy sidestepped out of his reach.

“No. I have to… I have to talk to Reardon. Where is he?” She turned in a tight circle as if he might magically appear.

“Sheriff Olsen sent two officers out to pick him up, B,” Parker said, still trying to edge her toward the house. “We’ll let them sort it out.”

“You didn’t… oh my God, Parker, you didn’t give the sheriff that security cam footage, did you?” She had a strong feeling that if what she’d seen was true, Reardon didn’t necessarily want the whole world to know what he… could do.

Parker rubbed his temples. “No, I didn’t. I’m not sure what to think of all that yet. I told the sheriff Reardon was trespassing on Silver Moon land. That’s enough for them to hold him for some questioning, but we have to come up with something more if we want them to press any kind of charges.”

“What charges? There are no charges.” Brandy paced away and came back. “Reardon hasn’t done anything wrong.” Except keep a mammoth secret. A secret he’d been trying to tell her this morning. A secret that would change the world as Brandy knew it.

For the better? For the worse? She wasn’t entirely sure yet.

“If what we saw was real, B, that guy could be a danger to you and Dylan.” Parker put his free hand on her shoulder and shook her a little, his frustration growing. “Surely you see this. I can’t let him hurt you or Dylan.”

“Dylan,” Brandy said. “Where is he?” She looked to Meredith.

“Chella came and got him,” Meredith said. “Parker thought it best if he wasn’t around for whatever happened next.”

Brandy ground her teeth. Chella wasn’t exactly her ideal babysitter choice. The woman wasn’t going to play outside, endure a chess match, or engage in conversation about comic book characters with a ten-year old. On the other hand, Parker was right. Dylan shouldn’t be around until they knew all the facts.

So that was where she’d start. The facts. It was what scientists did.

“I have to go to the police station and talk to Reardon.” She sprinted toward the house with Meredith and Parker right on her heels.

“Brandy, I don’t think talking to him is a good idea right now,” Meredith said. “Let things cool down. Let’s figure this out amongst ourselves first.”

“Figure it out ourselves?” Brandy whipped around and stared at Meredith. “Mom, we can’t figure this out ourselves. You saw the footage. We have no explanation for that. No scientific one anyway.”

“A scientific one is the only one I’ll accept,” Parker said.

“I don’t think it’s the one we’re going to get, but the only person who can give us any kind of explanation is Reardon.” Brandy grabbed her purse and headed for the door again.

“Wait.” Parker hooked his arm around Brandy’s, halting her progress. “We’ll all go.”

“Whatever.” She squirmed out of Parker’s hold and ran back outside, stopping at Meredith’s car because she hadn’t replaced her SUV yet. “Keys?”

Meredith shook her head. “I’ll drive. You’re a little distracted.” She slid into the driver’s seat.

In an attempt not to waste any more time, Brandy let out a huff but climbed into the passenger seat while Parker, still toting the rifle, took the seat behind her.

The drive to the police station was quiet as Brandy reviewed the footage from the security camera she demanded Parker send to her phone. No matter how many times she viewed it, she couldn’t deny that Reardon had gone from man to wolf. Right there. On her land. Among her wolves. Alator, her favorite wolf, and Reardon, the man who’d saved her and Dylan from being crushed by that runaway car—the man who had made love to her as if she were something he couldn’t get enough of—were one in the same.

“Good Lord,” she said and wrenched around to look at Parker. “What if all the wolves at Silver Moon can do this?”

Parker frowned as if it were a ridiculous notion, but Brandy could tell by the way his eyes darted back and forth as he looked up at the roof of the car that he was considering it.

“Lycanthropy could be a real thing, Parker!” An excited buzz zipped through her like a live current. What a discovery!

“Let’s all calm down.” Meredith turned the car into the police station parking lot.

Calm down? Brandy could barely contain herself. She was desperate to see Reardon, to speak to him, to confirm that the topic of her secret research was, in fact, not nonsense.

To confirm he hadn’t stood her up last night. He’d quite possibly been with her all night, just in a form she hadn’t recognized.

When the car was barely parked, Brandy shot out of the passenger seat and bolted for the door to the police station. Meredith and Parker called for her, but she wasn’t stopping. Not when a mystery of this size was waiting for her inside.

She nearly tripped to the front desk where she started babbling. “Hi. I’m Dr. Brandy Wendon. A man was taken into custody a short while ago for trespassing on Silver Moon Sanctuary land. I need to talk to him. Right away.” She blew her hair out of her face then added, “Please. May I talk to him, please?”

The officer at the front desk dragged her gaze from a tablet and blinked slowly at her then narrowed her gray eyes. A frown creased her lips as she took in the sight of Meredith and Parker stumbling in behind Brandy.

“Are you all under the influence or something?” she asked. “Because I can get you all a cozy cell together.”

“Drunk?” Brandy shook her head. “We’re not drunk. I just need to speak with Reardon. Please. I beg you.”

“Because I look like a person who folds in the face of begging.” The officer picked up her tablet and tapped the screen, completely ignoring Brandy, Meredith, and Parker.

Brandy was about to make her plea again. She didn’t care what she had to do to see Reardon. She’d do anything, but Sheriff Olsen came out of his office and leaned against the front desk next to Brandy.

“Why do you want to talk to the man we picked up from your land?” he asked. “Meredith and Parker said he was trespassing. You got something else on him? Something bookable?”

“No. I think there’s been a misunderstanding and I need a few minutes with him.”

The sheriff nodded. “Okay, you can all come back this way. If we can sort this out in a civil manner, that works for me. And don’t mind Edna here.” He gestured to the officer at the desk. “She woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.”

Edna growled at the sheriff, and that made Brandy wonder if the noises Reardon had made when they’d made love had actually been wolf growls.

She turned to face Meredith and Parker. “Look, I need to talk to him alone. You guys stay here.”

“Hell, no.” Parker grabbed her bicep. “You are not going in there without me.”

“Parker. I’ve got this. Honestly. Call Chella and tell her to meet us back at Silver Moon with Dylan.” She gave his forearm a squeeze and he let go of her arm.

“I don’t like this, B.”

“Me neither,” Meredith added.

“I know, but you have to trust me. Okay?” She took her mother’s hand and squeezed that too. “I’ll be fine.”

“I won’t unlock the suspect,” Sheriff Olsen said. “They can have their talk with a set of steel bars between them. He won’t be able to lay a hand on Brandy.”

Parker nodded his thanks to the sheriff and guided Meredith to a bench across from the front desk. He pulled out his phone, and Brandy assumed he was calling Chella as she’d suggested.

“This way.” The sheriff guided her down a hallway and into the cell block. The Canville Police and Fire Department was small, but it had six jail cells, three on each side of a long corridor. They walked past five empty ones and Sheriff Olsen stopped at the last one.

Brandy still had to take another step in order to see into the cell. To see Reardon. Her heart raced and thoughts pinballed around in her brain. She wasn’t sure she was ready to hear what he had to say. She wasn’t sure she could not hear what he had to say.

“Brandy?” Reardon’s voice was low and a little hoarse, but it called to her like the Pied Piper’s flute.

“I’ll be right on the other side of this door if you need me,” Sheriff Olsen said. “Give it a good bang.” He met her gaze and, seeing she’d heard him, he slipped out of the corridor.

“I can smell you, Brandy.” Again Reardon’s voice had a magnetic pull on her, tearing her from her position and making her take that one final step.

“And what do I smell like?” Her breath caught in her throat when she peered into the cell to find him sitting in the middle of a cot, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands cradling his head as he looked down at the cement floor.

He turned that green-gold gaze up to her, and yeah, like how couldn’t she have known he was Alator? Dylan had been spot on. The man and the wolf had the same unusual eyes. And that crop of black hair and that black stubble around his jaw was the exact shade of Alator’s silky fur.

And those big man hands were as massive and solid as Alator’s paws.

A shiver worked its way through Brandy as all the connections sewed together. She dug out her phone and started the video. At the sound of the footage, Reardon got up from the cot and approached her. Those big hands curled around the bars as he watched the phone screen in silence.

When the video was finished, Reardon’s green-gold eyes turned to her. “I was trying to tell you.” His words were uttered on a whisper.

Slowly, Brandy wrapped her hand around his on the bars, noting that he no longer wore a bandage around his knuckles. His totally not scraped knuckles. “I know. Tell me now.”

Reardon peered out the cell, down the corridor, then toward the door the sheriff had gone through.

“We’re alone,” Brandy said. “Just keep your voice low. I assume you don’t want the entire town to know what you’re capable of doing.”

Nodding, Reardon moved his hand so his was now covering hers. A vision of Alator’s paw on her thigh last night flashed into her mind, and she knew that whatever Reardon was about to tell her, she’d believe.

“I’m not entirely human,” he began.

“No shit.” Brandy sifted out a breath as she wiggled her phone then stuffed it into her pocket. She brought her other hand up to rest on the bars and Reardon covered that hand, too, with his. “So are you… are you an actual werewolf?” She whispered that last word so it was barely audible.

“Aye.”

“How?”

“By birth. I’m the Seventh Son of a werewolf, born on a December full moon. It’s the way of things where I come from.”

“And where is that exactly?”

At that question, Reardon looked at their joined hands, his thumbs rubbing along her knuckles in a way that made her want rubbing elsewhere, everywhere. “Ireland. Ireland of the past.”

“Of the past?” Brandy’s ears rung from the force of trying to listen so hard and to understand what he was saying. “Like time travel stuff?”

Reardon nodded. “I’m not from your time, Brandy.”

“You can time travel.” Her brain was definitely about to explode in her skull.

“No. I can’t. Flidae, the Celtic goddess of—”

“Wild things,” Brandy finished.

“You know of her?”

“I have a book of Celtic gods and goddesses. It’s what Dylan and I use to name the wolves at Silver Moon sometimes. Midir was almost Flidae, but Dylan changed his mind.”

“She is my protector. Was my protector I should say. Until I angered her and earned banishment from my home.”

“What did you do to anger her?” If Reardon’s face wasn’t so serious she’d call bullshit on everything he was saying right now. The firm set of his lips, the furrow of his brow, the tension in his jaw, however, all told her none of this was a joke or make believe. He was telling her the truth.

“I told you I was a soldier, and you assumed I was one in your time’s military. You believed I was something honorable, but I am not.” He turned his face away from her. “I’m actually a warrior. A fierce one who shows no mercy. I led a band of equally brutal warriors and kings hired us to battle for them.”

“Like mercenaries?”

“Exactly. We fought for riches, for glory, and we did quite well until we finally met our match. The king of Spain hired us to fight his enemy, but they were more savage than we were. They were crushing us. So I turned some of my men into wolves and we destroyed them.”

“But not without catching Flidae’s attention.”

“Aye. She was furious that I’d used what she called a gift to kill and make other killers. She banished me and my men from Ireland and scattered us to the four winds.”

“And you ended up outside my fence, in my time, stuck in a trap.”

“I did.”

Well, that certainly explained why Brandy hadn’t been able to figure out where Alator had come from.

“Do you have the chance to go back to your time, your home?” She wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to this question.

“I will be sent back as soon as I do something worthy.”

“You saved Dylan and me. That wasn’t worthy enough?”

“No. That was a test from Flidae herself.”

“She’s here?” A Celtic goddess walked among them? What good was science if all this fantasy stuff was actually happening around them and they didn’t even know it?

“In some form, aye. I’ve only seen her appear as a nearly transparent apparition, but her power is strong here.”

“So if you don’t do something she considers worthy, do you get to stay in my time?” Did he want to stay in her time? Would she be able to let him go back to his? Did she have any choice in the matter?

“I sense that the answer to that is no. Flidae isn’t going to let me win this one. I’m to be punished and she will see that I am.” He stared directly into her eyes now. “In the meantime, however, I want to be with you, Brandy. I feel complete with you.”

“Complete. But we don’t know each other.” She’d only slept with this man once. “Jesus, I don’t even know your last name.”

“McAlator.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny.” She pursed her lips and let her hands slide out from under his as she took a step away from the bars.

“I’m not joking, Brandy. My full name is Reardon Douglas McAlator. Dylan named my wolf form well.”

“God of war. I suppose, given what you’ve told me about your former life, it was a fitting name.”

“Are you afraid of me?” His beautiful eyes were so pained, so sad.

“Afraid of you? No. I don’t even know you.”

Reardon shook his head. “You don’t know me as a man, but think about it, fairy lass. You know me as a wolf. You’ve cared for me when I was injured. You’ve fed me, sheltered me, given me a pack. You’ve invited me into your home, your bedroom, your heart, as a wolf. And that wolf has protected you, has he not? He’s returned your love, has he not? Everything you feel for that wolf and that wolf feels for you doesn’t change now that I’ve got two arms and two legs.”

Brandy studied the man behind the bars and had to agree that there was a certain level of familiarity she couldn’t explain with any logic other than what he had said. He was right. She did love the wolf. Was it such a stretch to love the man as well?

“We did have some chemistry together as humans, I suppose,” she said.

“You suppose?” Reardon offered her a heart-stopping grin. “Fairy lass, what we shared was destiny. You’re my soul mate. I’m certain of it.”

Soul mate. Completely unscientific, but it felt like the right label. She couldn’t deny that. She wanted to be his soul mate. But how could it last if he wasn’t from her time? How could they build something together when he’d have to return home eventually?

How could she waste another minute if this thing had a time limit on it?

Brandy turned and pounded a fist on the door the sheriff had left through. In a second, the door whipped open, and Sheriff Olsen looked ready to subdue anyone who needed subduing.

“You can release him. He wasn’t trespassing on Silver Moon property. It was a misunderstanding,” she said.

The sheriff eyed her for a good long moment. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Well, because it was Silver Moon that called him in, it’s Silver Moon who can call him out.” Sheriff Olsen removed keys from his utility belt and unlocked Reardon’s cell. “I’ll get the paperwork for his release. Follow me.”

Reardon pushed open the door to the cell and stepped into the corridor. Gently, he cupped Brandy’s cheek and she pressed her face into his palm. Not able to resist, she leaned into his big, strong, hard body and let out a sigh when he wrapped his arms around her.

“This feels no different than when you hugged me as a wolf, right?” he whispered in her ear.

And it didn’t. It truly didn’t.