One thought penetrated Wyatt's consciousness as he caught sight and scent of the paling human male with Bryony: Bryony was his, no one else's. He damn well was going to throttle the hell out of any pathetic pipsqueak who thought otherwise.

Didn't matter that Wyatt had only ever kissed Bryony once in his life. Last week, under the half-moonlight along this very riverwalk after a most unexpected dinner spent with her. Didn't matter that she was a wild child who itched to leave Serenity in her dust as soon as her doctor or whatever decided her leg was healed enough that she could go back to her job. Didn't matter that attacking a human was definitely verboten in the shiften world. Fuck that. This was one dead male for daring to just breathe in Bryony's space, let alone touch her like he was allowed to do so.

Wyatt was the only one who could touch her, ever again. Bryony was his—his—

Shit. She was his what, exactly? His mind warily circled the possibility even as his attention was snagged by the shrieking reality of the moment. Literally shrieking.

Apparently, Bryony was his furious, yelling, angry something right now, was what.

“Wyatt Watson, stop! What the hell are you doing?” She'd lunged forward to grab his hands, which were satisfactorily almost closed around the terrified guy's throat. “Don't!”

Wyatt felt bright rage grip him harder in his desire to simply protect what was his. But he held it in check. Using every ounce of strength, he forced himself to listen to Bryony's outrage and stand down.

"Who the hell made you the head caveman around here anyway?” Bryony stood with her arms down at her sides, fists clenched, her impressive breasts heaving as she yelled. Scrappy and strong. Just like she'd always been.

Even when furious, damn, she was gorgeous. Her long, dark hair was caught back in a braid, with small strands clinging to her damp forehead. Eyes the color of caramel mocha, which was what she smelled like, too, were stunning even though they snapped with her shocked anger. And that body. The curves he'd been able to touch and stroke for far too short a time the other night taunted him now, displayed under her clinging running pants and a tank top he was almost jealous of for the way it could mold itself to her.

Damn, this woman made him crazy. Wyatt literally bit his own tongue to shake himself out of it and force his hands to relax down. The man he'd been about to strangle let out a terrified squeal and hid behind Bryony.

As if echoing his thoughts, Bryony said in that creamy-smooth voice that about brought him to his knees each time he heard it, “You're acting like a psycho! Shelton could call the cops and have you charged with assault if you touch him." Her pretty brown eyes narrowed at him. “Of course, since you're a wannabe cop here yourself, your po-po buddies would make sure the charges wouldn't stick."

Po-po? Despite himself, Wyatt snorted.

Bryony's gorgeous eyes narrowed even more.

From safely behind her, the man said in a nervous wheeze, "There won't be any charges." He put his hands up in the air as if he were the one who should be arrested. “I'm engaged. To her best friend. Whom I love dearly and have eyes only for.” His voice stuttered in its nervousness. “I don't want anything to do with Bryony. She's all yours. Ah," he stammered and cast a dubious glance at the back of Bryony's head. "That is, if she wants you. Which at the moment seems kind of doubtful.”

Wyatt clenched his jaw at the rambling human. Enough. “There won't be any trouble as long as you stay away from her. Do you understand me?” His voice was gravel. He could hear the edge of his pissed off wolf in it.

The man shook his head so vigorously his brains probably bounced.

"Excellent." Wyatt dismissed the man and moved his gaze back to Bryony.

She looked back at him with her chin tipped up a bit, an unconsciously defiant stance that made him want to smile at how fierce she was. Which was very fierce. And strong. The night they'd had dinner, she'd told him about her badass job, her breathtaking accident, the sheer grit and determination of her healing journey ever since. She was as strong as she was sexy. It turned him on to a ridiculous degree. Turned him on so much he wanted to grab the woman, right here and now, and pull her close to him while he aimed his lengthening canines for the sweet flesh of her shoulder.

So he could bite her and make her his.

Wyatt ground his lower jaw at the bizarre, completely unexpected thoughts that had been dogging him ever since he'd reconnected with her. Desperate to get around it, he instead blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "So since we've made sure your tagalong here isn't a problem, you agree to have dinner with me again? Tonight." His tone said he expected nothing but a yes answer.

Her eyes now widened as her mouth dropped open. Then fire stormed back into her expression. Hell, maybe she was right. He was turning into a damned caveman with no manners whatsoever.

Before he could get open his mouth to try and salvage what was probably a much too cocky attitude, he was jostled from behind. Whipping around to level a glare at the other wolfen who had just smacked into him, Wyatt desperately tried to signal with his eyes. Too bad using ruhi, the mind speak some shiften employed on occasion, never had been his strong suit. Looking at him like he was crazy—yeah, okay, there was a theme here—his running buddy tilted his body so he could see past Wyatt, then made a grunting noise of understanding.

"Hey, Bryony. This dickhead giving you any trouble?"

Wyatt snapped his head around just in time to see something that looked suspiciously like a smile twitch on Bryony's full lips. She snorted, then shook her head. “Just trouble for himself, Mac. Same as when we were kids. He never grew out of it.”

Mac gravely shook his head back at Bryony. “Yeah. Fatal disease for him, troublemaking for himself. You hear that, World Wide Web?” He jabbed Wyatt in the side and gave him a hard glare. “You're going to troublemake yourself to an early grave.”

Bryony's eyebrows rose. “You guys still call him that?” A sudden, reminiscent smile turned her lips up more as her irritation seemed to drain away.

Yes. Now she did finally smile, full and open. Right at Wyatt. He felt the rage and possessiveness leak away in the face of the sweet, stunning beauty that was Bryony when she smiled. Not even the idiot human guy, still nervously peeking out from behind her shoulder as he kept a suspicious eye on Wyatt, asking, “World Wide Web? Why do you call him that?” could dampen his spirits now.

Bryony's face bloomed like a gorgeous flower when she smiled. It was genuine, too. She wasn't as pissed anymore, and she wasn't mocking him. “Childhood nickname. Because his name is Wyatt Walker Watson.”

Wyatt felt a shiver of delight tiptoe up and down his spine at the sound of his full name rolled in her mouth, kissed by her lips.

“It got turned into World Wide Web when we were all kids. I guess it stuck,” she added softly.

The guy nodded, his gaze now flipping between Wyatt and Mac, his trepidation still evident. Wyatt grunted under his breath. He and Mac were both big, strong wolven. Huge male wolf shifters. They probably looked scary as hell to this guy. That, and they were both cops. Well, Wyatt was almost a cop here in Serenity. He was just waiting for the paperwork to clear from his old department back in Ohio. He snorted again. He and his fellow po-po couldn't go around terrorizing the very citizens they were supposed to protect. He needed to chill. Now that Bryony was smiling at him—and why did that make him so stupidly happy, anyway?—Wyatt could let himself chill like a rock star.

“Look, I'm sorry I was a dick earlier.” He ignored Mac's knowing jab into his ribs. Mac always called him dick anyway, like it was his name or something. “But I was thinking about—”

Wyatt heard his own voice cut off so suddenly it was like someone had sliced it out of the air with a knife. Bryony, now relaxed, had stepped to the side to let the human guy more into the small circle of conversation. As she did, she turned slightly to him, smiling encouragement. Her shoulders, bare under the bright white tank top, flashed tan beneath the sliding dapples of the sun as the maple branches overhead whispered back and forth in the small breeze. One shoulder, her right one, was smooth and unblemished.

But her left shoulder was marked, branded by a tattoo as intricate as it was obvious. It snagged Wyatt's eyes and stifled his words.

Mac sucked in a sudden breath, his entire body tensing. “No fucking way.” His deep voice dropped into the sudden silence, seeming to echo through it. “Bry, where did you get that tattoo? How long have you had it?”

Wyatt thought his head might explode. It felt like a vise gripped him there as his vision tunneled down to see only what was on Bryony's shoulder.

The tattoo seemed almost like a living thing, so fluid and perfect and beautiful it was. It rippled on Bryony's shoulder as she frowned back at Mac's sharp tone, at Wyatt's eyes boring into her flesh. Golden brown with an iridescence shimmering beneath it, the tattoo showed a wolf snarling in one direction while a beautiful angel gazed in the other. Twined together by an intricate design, the two images complemented one another in a balanced way, despite the fierceness of the wolf and soft strength of the angel.

Clearly puzzled, Bryony answered Mac although she kept her gazed locked on Wyatt. “Since a trip to Nepal a few years ago. I met a sage, like an actual wise man, and he gave me this really cool necklace with a pendant. He said it was a gift to remind me of my true self.” She smiled in some self-deprecation at the memory. “That sounds silly, but I do always feel more centered when I think about it. It's just like my tattoo.” She raised her hand up to lightly skim the tattoo with her fingers.

As she did so, Wyatt felt his renqua flare into hot life on his own left shoulder. The bright, sweet heat seared him and he made a small noise of startlement. Mac ground his sneakered foot onto Wyatt's.

“I adore that pendant,” Bryony went on in the smooth, musical voice Wyatt could listen to forever, “but with my work, I couldn't wear it all the time. I'd lose it, or it would get broken.” She shrugged. “So I got a tattoo that looks exactly like it. Well, the pendant itself is gold, but that's hard to recreate in a permanent tattoo. I found an artist who did a pretty good job, though. I love it. It makes me feel...whole.” Her voice dropped as she again lightly stroked the tattoo, almost unconsciously.

Mac rounded on Wyatt. “You didn't tell me about that. It changes everything.”

Wyatt shrugged one shoulder, irritated at the commanding tone in Mac's voice. “I didn't know.”

Bryony stared at them both, her friend once again trying to melt behind her as even he with his puny senses recognized the burst of testosterone and unease that exploded into the air from Wyatt and Mac. “Are you both crazy? Is this crazy cop day or something? You guys are both being weird. What's going on?”

But Wyatt just stared back at her, any words he could use to explain dying away as a true growl threatened to rattle its way out of his throat.

Bryony had a tattoo of a mingled wolf and angel. Bryony also had a pendant of a mingled wolf and angel. A gold pendant. Given to her by some guy, some wise man, who told her it would remind her of who she really was.

A pendant, just like all of the...

Staring at the tattoo, then into the confused, beautiful brown eyes looking back at him, Wyatt felt his world shrink and explode at once. No fucking way indeed. Bryony just might be one of the women he only recently had found out was real.

A one true mate.

Half human, half angel, and precious beyond belief in a world where all the female shiften had been killed by the demon Khain. Killed like Wyatt's own mother, many years ago. One of those who'd been thought unreal, impossible, until the first one had shown up right here in Serenity and been claimed by her wolfen mate.

A one true mate, who could help the decimated shiften population by bringing love and passion back into their lives. By bearing their children and re-introducing a lineage and force that might finally stop Khain in his tracks. A lineage that would ensure the shiften would not die out.

Wyatt's burning renqua, not to mention his nearly unstoppable desire to protect this woman, to claim her, told him even more.

Sexy, fiery, amazing Bryony just might be his one true mate.