He tilted his head at me, like he was enjoying the weight of my stare. Cocky bastard. At that precise moment, the sun glinted perfectly on his irises and they flashed the palest green, almost white.

“Rourke, your eyes are completely insane.” I swam over to the edge closest to where he was standing and stared, shielding my eyes to the sun as I glanced up. “Humans must comment on them all the time. How do you explain them away?”

He shrugged like having diamonds for eyes was a normal everyday occurrence. “If I think they deserve an answer, I usually tell them I have my mother’s eyes,” he said. “And if I don’t, I tell them it’s none of their goddamn business.”

“And they actually believe you?”

“Humans already know they’re going to have to accept whatever excuse I give them, before they even ask. Thinking I’m ‘Other’ is not an option. So they ask with the idea that they’ll get a logical explanation, and once I give them one, they usually take it without question.” He gave me a lopsided grin, which made him seem more human. “But sometimes it takes a little more finesse on my part to win them over.”

“Are they really your mother’s eyes?” I asked, choosing pointedly to ignore my wolf, who bristled at the “finesse” part. He’s not ours, I scolded. He can finesse anyone he wants. She bit the air.

“I guess you could say that,” he said. “My shifter genes came from my father, like everyone’s do, but my mother had very unusual eyes to begin with, or so I’d been told. I don’t remember her much. It was a very long time ago.” He grabbed his clothes and started around the pool toward the sulfur trickle coming out of the large boulder.

I swam over to where my jacket was hanging and hoisted myself up. I turned away demurely and was about to put it back on to cover myself when Rourke cleared his voice right behind me. “Um, sorry, sweetheart, but I’m going to need that jacket now.”

“Huh?” I asked, dripping wet, arms crossed over my chest.

“Scent trail. Our scent stops at this pool.”

I took my jacket off the branch with my index finger and reluctantly swung it out to him. He took it and walked to the edge of the pool, grabbed a large piece of floating wood and draped my jacket over, and sent it off. I watched with a heavy heart as my coverage floated down the stream. “Wait, you just sent my jacket downstream where we just came from. How is that going to help?”

“It will eventually float to shore. Hopefully that’s where they’ll think we got out. Having a buildup of your scent downstream can only help us.” He headed to the sulfur without looking back, and started cupping the smelly water and splashing it all over his body.

I made my way over to him. “You just sent my modesty downstream for a two-minute diversion?”

“Hey, I’ll take any advantage I can get.”

“That wasn’t an advantage, that was sneaky.” I walked up next to him and started pouring water over my head, cupping my hands tightly to catch it. It smelled awful this close, like rancid eggs right in my nostrils. Rourke stayed focused on his task. At least he wasn’t trying to ogle my breasts. Though it would’ve been easier to dislike him if he had. Instead I was feeling quite the opposite. He was just so … normal. Not at all what I’d been expecting. It was throwing me off. We have to remember he’s dangerous, right? My wolf huffed at me, and instead of agreeing, she flashed me a picture of him getting out of the pool without his jeans. Stop it! You’re not helping! He could snap at any moment and try to kill us. She turned her back on me. Plus, he doesn’t seem to be that into us anyway. Other than a few lighthearted comments, and some dazzling smiles, he hadn’t sent us any real signals.

I cleared my voice and hoped I sounded normal. “Rourke, what kind of werecat are you?”

He seemed genuinely surprised by the question. Then he narrowed his eyes, flashing me a toothy grin. “I never kiss and tell on the first date.”

He turned back to the putrid water and splashed more of it on his chest.

My wolf licked her lips and let out a mew. We don’t mew.

She snuffed at me.

“Come on, you can tell me.” I moved in beside him, cupping more water between my palms. “I won’t spill your secret. I’ve got enough to worry about, why would I have any reason to tell?”

We stood close and heat from him radiated into my body, along with his strong power current. It prickled my skin again like a million tiny pressure points tapping at the same time. Standing this close to him was an at-my-own-risk kind of deal, but I was doing it anyway. Rourke turned, tendrils of water snaking their way down his body, disappearing under the lip of his denim. A spark ignited somewhere deep in his eyes, and chills ran down my spine. That had been a little on the “real” side.

He said, “I haven’t told a single person in over five hundred years what I am, and I’m not planning on breaking my streak now.”

“Why the big cloak-and-dagger?” I asked. “It can’t matter that much if people know what you are.” I poured a palmful of the stink over my head. I tried to face away from him, toward the rock, so my see-through camisole was aimed at something innocuous.

“If they know what I am, they can better anticipate how I may react in a certain situation. Secrecy may aid me only a little in that respect, but the unknown tends to be more frightening than reality anyway.” He grinned. “As a rule.”

He literally towered over me, but the weird thing was, I didn’t feel threatened by him at all. It bugged me, because he was a predator, most likely a natural enemy of mine. I should feel threatened nonstop. My hackles should be raised and I should be baring my teeth. Shifters rarely got along with other shifters. We were animals. Animals fought. They didn’t hang out in a creek together splashing around. My wolf should want to rip her canines into him and sever his jugular, not mew at him like a lovestruck teenager.

Instead of ripping his heart out, her tongue lolled out while she enjoyed the view. Put your tongue back in your mouth. You’re embarrassing me.

I stopped dumping water over my head to take in what he’d just said. “So, let me get this straight. If people think you may be … let’s say, a saber-toothed tiger, they’ll be more afraid of you than say … if they found out you were a common house cat? Is that the real reasoning behind all your mysterious mystique?”

Rourke chuckled. “Jessica, you’re no shrinking violet, that’s for damn sure.” He shook his head back and forth, water spraying us both. “My ‘mysterious mystique,’ as you so nicely put it, has gone a long way in facilitating my reputation as a resident badass. If you build up the rumors and the fear, it makes your job a hell of a lot easier. I like easy.” He pinned me with his eyes. “And I can promise you I am most certainly not a house cat.” He chuckled again.

I stopped moving.

When he’d used my name in the familiar, blood had thundered around in my brain. My wolf and I had both snapped to immediate attention, the effect of his words had been physical. My blood pumped wildly and little tremors broke out all over my body, making me twitch. I don’t even know this guy. He shouldn’t have any effect on us. What just happened? Why is our body doing that? My wolf was too busy running in circles excitedly yipping to answer me. Plus I was having trouble focusing on what I’d just been saying as Rourke raised his arms over his head again. Water coated his face and ran freely down his body. A low sound emerged in the back of my throat. I brought a hand to my neck. Jesus, you have to stop doing that. Calm yourself down! I seriously hoped that sound had not been uttered out loud. Listen, you have to get a hold of this. We’re not sleeping with every single person we meet. My wolf was just short of jumping up and down. You can’t be into this guy like that. He’s a mercenary who was hired to stalk us, possibly even kidnap us. We are not going there. Do you hear me? She wasn’t listening because she was lost to her own personal frenzy.

I left her there.

We climbed straight up. Our wet clothes and shoes dried fairly quickly in the heat—thank goodness. Rourke had taken the lead and so far hadn’t glanced back. I had no idea if he was being chivalrous or if he was just anxious to reach a safer location. After a couple hours, I picked up my pace and lessened the gap between us.

The sulfur had definitely helped mask us for a while, but as it dissipated I clearly smelled the deep clove musk emanating from every pore on Rourke’s body.

There was no way to get rid of it. Our scent was intrinsic to us; you couldn’t turn it off.

The wolves had it in their memory banks and could absolutely track it, it was just a matter of time. We had a day at most.

Rourke paused beneath a tall tree. I trailed behind him, coming to a halt right as my stomach grumbled like rocks were being ground up in my intestines. Rourke arched an eyebrow.

I shrugged. “What? I’m hungry.” Another rumble. “Actually, scratch that, I could eat an entire restaurant full of food.”

“We’re almost there, and there’s food at the cabin.” He started walking again. “When I made my first change, I was insatiable for a solid year.” His voice held a soft purr. “In more ways than one.”

I caught my footing in time and managed not to nosedive into the ground as I followed after him. “So I have this to look forward to for a full year?”

“Pretty much.”

I complained after him. “You know … It’s not like a normal hunger. It’s more like I’m trying to feed something else—something craving so much more than I can give it. Food doesn’t fill it. It’s like a gigantic void and nothing I seem to do can satiate it.”

“You’re craving fresh blood.”

I stopped in my tracks. “What do you mean, ‘fresh blood’? I’m not killing someone just to calm my irritable stomach. That’s not happening, like ever.”

“No, I mean you need to hunt.” He slowed, turning around. “You know, rabbits and squirrels? The hunt is what your body is craving, and a fresh kill staves off true hunger. Your body craves the blood.” He squinted back at me, bringing his hand up. When I didn’t respond, he said, “You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”