Nina should have known that she wouldn’t be left alone. What was up with her and her always taking a liking to men who didn’t know when to call it quits and leave her be? Her phone had been ringing off the hook since before the crack of dawn this morning when she’d made the decision to leave town. Between phone calls from Raoulf and a string of calls from blocked numbers and unknown callers, she was being driven crazy. She needed to get away to think all of this through. She needed to decompress. But she was well aware that if she didn’t take care of this now, that Warren would never leave her alone.

As she waited under a traffic light, her gaze flittered to the printed driving directions of Chestnut Holdings LLP. In three hours, maybe less, she’d be at the corporate offices of the man who she’d come to despise. She had only brought a week’s worth of clothes because she fully intended to do what needed to be done and then return with the promise of peace this time.

The roads were fairly clear this time in the morning and she didn’t expect anyone to be at the bakery when she got there. She’d leave the keys to the post office box and a further explanation for Charlie inside the office. She’d called him this morning and told him that she was in a bind and would be away for about a week. He had been sincere when he told her to take all the time she needed. She had a feeling that Charlie knew she was a wreck and that something had happened in her past that she wasn’t particularly proud of. She was grateful that.

Her belly began to rumble reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything since this morning. She had put most of her efforts in packing and her mind had drifted as she contemplated what she’d say to Warren. She didn’t even want to see him. Didn’t want to reunite with him at all. He represented her failure—a past she never wanted to repeat. She didn’t trust Warren at all, the man who would stand by and watch someone that he claimed to used to care about suffer and live in fear because she decided not to marry him. She wasn’t ready to trust him at all, and she wouldn’t. But if she wanted to put this behind her, she had to face him again. The passage of time and distance between them hadn’t made a difference. It was time to settle the score once and for all.

Nina pulled into the shopping center and circled around to the back. She glanced around at her surroundings before cutting the engine and shoving the car keys down in her handbag. She had to admit that she was still on edge and even shaking from what she’d discovered last night and what she planned to do over the next few days.

She was still unprepared. Her decision to track Warren Chestnut down and call him had fueled immediate rage within her, but she had to do this to move on with her life.

Even now, she cringed as she recalled her conversation with him only hours before.

“I never thought you’d call me after all this time. Are you done running?”

“I still don’t know why I’m calling you. I don’t owe you anything,” she said.

“Ah, but you do…don’t you remember our deal?” Of course, he’d bring it up again. He would never let her forget.

“I can’t and don’t want to marry you. Not for money,” she told him.

“You know that I really cared about you,” he replied. “We could’ve had the perfect business partnership. I had plans for us.”

“You had plans to use me because I was a willing human woman and a possible participant to help bring your little scheme to fruition.”

He laughed. “Little scheme? No…there is no scheme. I do what’s right for my family and my company in the long run. If that means making deals with humans so we never have to worry about being put out in the doghouse, that’s what I do. Do you know what it’s like living as an inferior being? Too many people, such as yourself, already know about us. Too many people are coming onto us…”

“And let me guess? You’re preparing in the event that your family is exposed?”

“You were always a smart girl until you declined the deal and the large amounts of money I practically threw at you. Money that would have without a doubt helped you with your situation. My friends over at the bank tell me that you were seeking a loan.”

It was no surprise that Warren Chestnut knew many colleagues in the business world. What was a mystery was that with all of his easy access to information and influence in the business and political arena, how he hadn’t found her any sooner in the first place.

“I decided it was better to work for what I wanted,” she told him. “I don’t need handouts. That’s none of your concern anyway.”

“Okay…but of course I don’t get it.”

“You don’t get it because you barely work. What do you want from me?” she asked him.

“I need your signature on something, like we did before. I need you to relinquish your right to the asset we talked about.”

“You mean Ronald’s five hundred acre farming land that he abandoned years ago when police found his best friend dead on the property—”

“That was an accident. He—”

“Isn’t that the asset you’re talking about?” She continued, pushing his limits. “The land that would have been seized by the state of Texas if you hadn’t created a fake human alias to buy it. How many aliases do you and your brother have now, Warren? Or is your name Pete? Or Christopher?”

“You overheard lots of things while you were in my home, didn’t you?” Warren’s tone of voice had changed from patronizing to resentful.

“Of course I did,” she told him. “You trusted me, remember? We were friends until Ronald found out how much you had confided in me about what was going on.”

“But you ran…you promised to help us and then you ran.”

“How could you have expected me to help you after labeling me as a tool?” She still hadn’t gotten over being disrespected. “As far as I’m concerned, I kept my end of the bargain by not breaking confidentiality. I just didn’t want to be a part of that mess you created so you can live the lie that is your life. I had no idea how deep your treachery reached until I overheard everything.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to get what I want,” he stated.

“Of course you would. I’ll come sign this paperwork, but after this I want you to stop looking for me. We’re done.”

“I can do that.”

“And I’d want to meet you in a public place. Just you and no one else.”

“What for? I’m not going to shift and bite you?” He laughed.

“Of course you won’t. You’re too much of a coward.”

“I’m no coward, but it’s okay if you’re still afraid of me. There’s a library up the street from my house. Shall I call them to reserve a meeting room?”

“You do that.”

“Are you still in Alastar?”

“I’m on my out of it.”

Nina shook her head, jolting herself from the memory. When she looked down, her fingers were shaking against the steering wheel. She took a few deep breaths and mentally told herself there was nothing to fear, and then grabbed the post office keys and notes and headed toward the bakery. She entered through the back door since the shop wouldn’t be open for business for a few hours. It didn’t take her long to store the post office box key and note in a secure place for Charlie to find when he arrived around 9 a.m.

Her stomach rumbled again while she was on the way out the door. Lucky for her she found the lunch she’d never gotten around to eating from a few days ago and stuffed it down in her handbag. She locked up the shop and started back toward her car.

Nina stopped dead in her tracks when she noticed that the driver’s side door was open. Had she…? She would never leave her car door open. In fact, she’d remembered locking it with extra shaky fingers and almost dropping the keys. As intuition began to kick in, more than Nina’s fingers started to tremble…her whole body tensed.

She wildly glanced around her as she approached her Honda. There were broken pieces of glass on the pavement by her car. Someone had broken inside. Her handbag had been rummaged through and her credit cards and IDs were scattered all over the driver’s side seat and some of her belongings were even lying on the ground. A cell phone rang and she followed the source to her car. The black device was lying on the ground by a package of tic-tacs and a headset.

Had she just been robbed?

Her legs felt like jello but she moved quickly across the lot to get to her phone.

She never made it to her phone.

The leaves rustled to the right of her near the wooded area separating two shopping centers. Something that sounded like a branch cracking ripped through the air. She thought she heard a motor running near the front entrance of the store, but her eyesight was focused on a dark shadow moving in the distance. The shadow began to separate from the trees. Out pounced a wolf so big, it couldn’t have been any ordinary natural wolf.

Her hands flew to her mouth and her breath caught in her throat.

The wolf growled right at her. The wolf stalked toward her slowly at first as if she were mere prey and then the thing started to break off into a full run.

She took off running too, reaching her car just in time to dive in and pull the door close.

“Shit…shit,” she exclaimed when she realized that the window had been completely busted out.

The wolf was big, but there was no telling at what lengths it would go to get inside the car. If she didn’t get out of here fast enough…

With her fingers trembling like crazy, she dipped her hands into her bag and grabbed her car keys. The key she stuck into the engine wouldn’t fit.

The wolf reached the car and rammed his body into the driver’s side door.

She screamed and shuffled the key chain around until she finally found the car keys. She shoved the key inside the engine and turned. The car engine stuttered but failed to start.

“No…no…this can’t be happening now.”

The wolf had lifted himself on hind legs. His big paws gripped her doorframe. His entire head was inside her car as he growled at her viciously.

She grabbed a half empty can of soda that had been in her car since yesterday and threw it forcefully at its face. The can and the contents of it busted him in the nose. Pepsi spewed everywhere, but that only angered the beast more. She had been right. The wolf couldn’t fit his large frame through the broken window, but he was damn sure trying.

While she was looking for another weapon to defend herself with, she heard the sound of an engine again. She’d heard it earlier…

A motorcycle came flying around the corner. The bike shot past the building so quickly, the whole scene was like a flash before her eyes. The motorcycle came to a screeching slide across the pavement. The rider hopped off the seat prematurely, but the bike went careening into the side of the building. It sounded like a terrible accident. Metal crashing onto brick and mortar.

The rider tore off his shirt and yanked his belt from the loops. It was a man. Just before the man pulled off his helmet, Nina had already identified him. It was Raoulf. The velvety black hair flying out behind him as he came rushing toward the Honda and the many scars riddling his chest gave him away. She blinked once, maybe twice…

Raoulf’s body started morphing and folding into something surreal. In a cloud of mist, she saw black and green whirling together. As if by magic, out of the dust pounced a second wolf.

The two wolves started fighting. Viciously. She heard bones cracking. Teeth gnashing. She even thought she saw blood flying up from the mist. It was chaos.

“Oh Jesus Christ,” she screamed. She’d never seen anything like this before.

She thought to call the cops but her cell phone was nowhere in sight. There as no way in motherfucking hell she was leaving the safety of this car. She tried to start her car again. No success.

A loud yip wretched through the air on the other side of the parking lot. One of the animals—the brown wolf—wailed and stumbled over into the grassy area. The black wolf—Raoulf’s wolf—followed the injured animal into a clearing. Raoulf’s canines were barred and he growled ferociously at his opponent as if to send a message. The brown wolf dipped its snout downward, nearly burying his nose into the ground. The black wolf pounced again clamping his thick jaws around the brown wolf’s neck.

Nina pushed the car door open and jumped out of the car. “Raoulf! No.”

Her command must have reached him because the black wolf jumped back, leaving the brown wolf panting on the ground. As the black wolf with jade green eyes turned around to peer across the lot at her, the badly injured wolf slithered away back through the thick bushes. He was so injured he could barely stand. If it hadn’t been for Nina intervening, Raoulf probably would have killed him.

The black wolf was beautiful. Massive. Big and strong.

Nina couldn’t tell if the blood that marred his fur and stained his snout belonged to Raoulf or her would-be attacker.

“Raoulf?” she whispered.

Right before her eyes, he changed into human form. It was the most magnificent thing she’d ever seen in her life. He prowled slowly toward her as if tested whether she’d receive him like this or not. He picked up the shirt he had torn off upon arrival and wiped most of the blood from his skin and mouth, revealing some nasty bites and scratches.

When he reached Nina, she couldn’t help herself. She threw herself against his chest and pressed her face against his rapidly beating heart. She couldn’t stay mad at him. She was so glad that he was alive.

“I’m all dirty,” he said.

“I don’t care,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll live. I’m sorry this happened to you, Nina.”

She parted from him and caught his gaze. “I guess that’s what I get.”

“It’s not what you deserve,” he said

“The other wolf…will he be okay?”

Raoulf growled. “He’ll be okay once he heals. Could take days though.”

“Was that…?”

“No, it wasn’t Warren. I caught a whiff of some familiar scents on him. Maybe Warren, possibly even a blood relative of Warren, so it’s pretty clear who sent him.”

Nina shook her head. “He won’t stop. I have to go and do what he wants—”

“No.” Raoulf put his hands gently on her shoulders. “You can’t go to him. Ever. He sent someone else here to inflict pain on you today. He’s obviously disgruntled and he’s playing games. If he wants to pick battles, he needs to pick battles with someone his own size. I’m going to put a stop to it.”

Nina bit her lip and then said, “I called him this morning and told him I’d meet him to sign the reversal. I said some things that…I think I angered him. I shouldn’t have called him.”

Raoulf pulled her close to his chest again, comforting her. “We’ll fix this, but you won’t be involved in this violence. I need you to trust me, Nina.”

She swallowed. “I do. And that’s what scares me. Why do I feel this way with you?”

“It’s possible that we’re linked in ways you could never imagine.”

“You mean this imprinting thing? Where the male shifter releases some kind of pheromone that attracts the woman?”

Raoulf laughed and then cringed in pain.

“You’re still hurt,” she said, her fingers skirting gently over some of his wounds.

“It’s possible the imprinting has started, but we haven’t…you know…had sex. It’s very possible that a bond between us already existed.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It has something to do with the horseshoe birthmark on your pretty little hip. We’ll talk about this, but first I want to get you someplace safe. I still have work to do. I won’t have you living in fear, so my job isn’t done yet.”

“What will you do?” she asked.

“Depends on how crazy Warren Chestnut and his brother Ronald are. Don’t worry. But you have to promise me, that you’ll never make any more plans with him. He’ll use whatever information he manages to get from you to track you down like he did here today.”

Nina nodded. “I understand that now.”

“I need to get you far away from here. At least for a little while, until I do what has to be done,” Raoulf said.

She shrugged and frowned. “Won’t be the first time. I’m used to running.”

“It’s not running. It’s ensuring your safety while I eliminate the threat. And make no mistake, Warren Chestnut is a threat to both of our societies. We can’t live in this type of violence. It’s my civic duty to handle this.”

“Where do you suggest I go?”

“I can make arrangements to get you on safer territory. My Pack’s territory. No one will bother you there.”

“Why do I get the impression that this involves me leaving you behind?”

He grinned. “Don’t worry about me. You know I always come back. I can’t leave you alone.”

She smiled. “It would be a shame if I didn’t have anyone to taste test my dishes anymore.”

“And it would be a shame if I lost the woman I was never meant to live without. Speaking of…we better clean up out here and make some moves. I’ve been in touch with someone at the airport about getting you on a private plane to Aspen Valley. I tried calling you all morning.”

“Yeah, I know…sorry about that.”

“We’ll talk about your punishment later.”

“I’ll see if I can dissuade you with dessert.”