One week before Kukunniwi…

They began breaking the rules almost immediately after they posted them on his kitchen wall.

Never more than 48-hour notice, unless you’re drunk…

L-heart took the full-time job at DWCS, which meant she was occasionally on call, too. Plus, his schedule got even more hectic with his residency wind-down and nationwide fellowship search. Their work demands increased so much that they didn’t see each other for an entire week in April because he was either on call, or she’d made plans during his days off. Six days apart was more than his wolf could take. And his human decided it was easier to let her know in advance which days he’d be off. Not because they were girlfriend and boyfriend, he told his wolf sternly—they could and would never be that—but simply so she could keep her calendar clear for possible hook up nights.

No meals other than the very occasional brunch…

That rule got broken in May when she showed up at his door late one Saturday afternoon.

Four days had passed since they’d seen each other last, and three days had passed since he’d texted her on a whim before his fellowship interview with St. Louis Children’s Hospital: “new rule: no masturbating while I’m away.”

As it turned out, she’d adhered to this latest rule because mere moments after he opened the door to let her in, she’d kissed him, filling his nose with the sweet and heavy scent of her arousal as she rubbed her long body into his, and murmured “Level ten, please” against his lips.

“Strip and wait for me on the bed,” he answered in a gruff voice.

She did as she was told with almost comical speed.

Only to have him crawl into bed beside her, still fully clothed and holding his work touchpad. A few minutes passed while she silently watched him sift through his never-ending mountain of paperwork. Until she finally asked, “When will we—?”

“Those words aren’t on your list,” he reminded her, without glancing up from the screen.

“Please?” she asked prettily.

Only to get ignored.

At first, her “pleases” were gracious and gentle. But then they became more and more insistent, delivered with kisses on his cheek and small licks and nips on his neck. He didn’t respond to anything she said or did—which was easy for his human who liked the cruel teasing, but torturous for his wolf who’d missed her.

But both his wolf and human bit out a sharp “don’t” when her hand wandered to close to her naked sex. “I’ll have to send you home if you can’t follow the rules,” he warned.

By the time he switched from work to some old entertainment content called Stargate Atlantis, she was full-on begging. Rubbing herself against the side of his body like a desperate she-wolf—

Fuck. Like a desperate feline. He’d meant to think feline. Because L-heart wasn’t a she-wolf. She was human. And he took a few seconds to firmly remind his wolf of that fact. For the gazillionth time.

Perhaps because of his “Freudian slip,” he didn’t punish her when, after snatching a foil package from his box of wrappers, she pulled the touchpad out of his hands and threw it across the bed.

“Please…please…please…” she chanted as she pulled his joggers down and off his legs.

Fighting to keep his face impassive, he watched her stretch the wrapper over his long cock. “I didn’t give you permission to do that,” he said when she climbed on top of him.

The look she gave him in response turned his dick to concrete in her hand. Desperate, apologetic, completely riddled with helpless lust as she lifted her hips and lined herself up over him.

“Please…” she whimpered. Then, before he could stop her, she slid down and sheathed his erection with her warm pussy. It was so wet he could feel hot liquid dripping from her onto his balls.

“Please,” she moaned again. He watched as she began to move up and down the length of his shaft, but she was too dazed with lust to find a rhythm.

Alright, no more games.

He flipped her over, somehow managing to keep them joined at the waist. Then he punished her hard for ending their game before he was ready. His hips pistoning between her legs, he fucked her without mercy, filthy words about what a nasty girl she was spilling unfiltered from his mouth until her body tightened beneath his and she came with a final, “Please!”

This time he didn’t fight it. He just let his body soar with her off the cliff until they both landed, panting hard, back in the bed. He should have rolled off her then, business done. But he didn’t. Instead, he stayed there, holding her tight until his dick softened inside her. Then, and only then, did he unknot, taking the wrapper with him as he did.

Pull out, said his wolf.

What?

You said “unknot.” You can’t knot inside a human, and she’s not a she-wolf in heat. You pulled out.

He cursed inwardly. Now his wolf was reminding him of all the places their relationship could never go.

You like her but don’t want to admit it, his wolf said, staring straight into his soul.

“Wanna order something to eat?” he asked out loud, trying to drown the wolf out. Trying to focus on something other than all the contradictory wants and needs messing with his mind.

“That sounds lovely,” she answered.

So that’s what they did, because he’d already kept her there for so long, and couldn’t fuck her a second time without at least feeding her. At least that’s what he told himself the first time it happened. The next few times he simply ignored his wary human and his smug wolf.

But rules were definitely being broken. And once they started eating dinners together whenever she stayed over, things began to change.

He began calling her L-heart on the regular, and her “Hey, Buddy!” greeting took on a whole different meaning. Mostly because it was often delivered with a sensual kiss the moment he walked in the door. (Yes, “he.” She now had a key to his place and was often waiting inside for him to return from another long work shift.)

This also had nothing to do with them being boyfriend and girlfriend, he reminded his wolf as he handed over a copy of the old-fashioned key. DWCS was about equidistance between both their places and she didn’t like driverless cars. It seemed stupid for her to walk all the way back to her place on agreed upon hook up nights and then come over later because he didn’t get off work until the evening.

No cuddling…

Around the time he gave her the key to his apartment, she began asking for level five sex about once or twice a week. Level five required him to be gentler. No dirty talk. Just quiet, but weirdly intense sex that was often accompanied by orgasms bigger than any he’d ever experienced. With her, with others, or with his hand. Afterwards, it felt impossible not to drag her into his arms, settling in for a good night’s sleep, free of nightmares.

Whatever. It worked for both of them. That was all that mattered.

At least that was what he told himself. Until the Friday night when she texted, “I know I slept over last night, but may I come over tonight, too? And if the answer is yes, I’d be very grateful if you could pick up ice cream.”

No sleeping over more than two nights in a row…

He was in the middle of dictating his post-op paperwork on the Riverez boy’s umbilical hernia repair, but he dropped everything to text back, “gotta work late had back-to-back surgeries today but come over and wait for me.” His thumb hovered over the send icon then at the last moment he added, “what’s wrong?”

Grey dots immediately appeared on the phone’s old-fashioned text messaging interface, but they lingered for a long time before a short message popped up on his screen: “I’ve had a long day.”

High Media-understatement bullshit, he sensed, before impatiently typing back, “why long day?”

“I accompanied the police to pull two children from a hot car. They were left inside by their mother while she went to score oxy. One child made it out alive, the other did not. He was a baby.”

Fuck. He didn’t like to think too much about her job requirements. He could barely look parents in the eyes when he lost a kid. But what she had to deal with; kids and parents at their worst…

“want me to get some beer too?” he texted back.

“Yes, please.” she answered.

“anything else?”

Grey dot…dot…dot…then, “Nothing else is required, just you.”

He smiled down at his phone. Smiling was another thing he didn’t do much of—at least not until she showed up. “k be there soon as I can.”

“Thank you.”

He finished his surgery play-by-play, then rushed through the rest of his paperwork, his fingers flying over the touchpad only to stop again when his phone sounded. It was an innocuous ripple, though, not the twinkle he’d assigned to L-heart’s contact number.

He didn’t recognize the number. At first, he thought it might be his younger triplet, Nago. He’d texted him a heads-up earlier that morning about an old girlfriend of Nago’s. And although he’d gone through a lot of trouble to mask his number. But if anyone could figure out how to find him, it was his brilliant brother.

But it wasn’t Nago. It was from the phone he’d sent to Oklahoma.

“Hello, Knud?”

Knud. Seeing his name in text unsettled him. He’d been Dr. Rasmussen “Dr. Thug” Knight for so long, he’d almost forgotten there were still those who knew him by another name.

“yeah uncle grady it’s me,” he typed back in the all-lowercase, no-punctuation style that never failed to send his mother on a rant about his “generation.”

“Sorry it took me so long to write back. Put the phone in my desk and only just checking it now. But it’s good to hear from you!”

So many emojis followed his uncle’s text that Knight was again struck by how different his huge deaf uncle appeared in writing versus in person. Grady’s wife, his Aunt Tu, frequently remarked that the person who spoke inside her head was much different from the quiet deaf-mute who could only communicate with his hands to all but his mate. Uncle Grady also spoke a rough, very informal version of ASL he’d taught himself. It was nothing like his son Qim’s sophisticated flow, or what they’d been taught when Aunt Tu insisted on making ASL a required class at summer camp.

Knight hesitated, his thumbs hovering over the phone’s touchscreen and his heart accelerating. He’d put a lot of work into escaping his past; into reinventing himself as someone other than the professional killer he’d been only a few years ago. He’d taken lives longer than he’d saved them. And it felt way too soon to return to even a fragment of the life he used to know.

But then the image of Jandro pushed into his head. Of the boy shaking in the bathtub as he came down from the withdrawal, then nearly losing it because a wolf had gifted him new clothes. And holy fuck, the kid was scrawny.

A full moon had already passed, and another was due next Friday. He couldn’t just sit and wait while Olcan continued to look for a placement. And besides, a placement was nothing more than a band-aid. A reluctant foster family who may or may not know ASL wasn’t what the kid needed to survive and thrive.

Knight took a deep breath and typed, “found deaf cub in kansas…9 years. parents dead. kansas pack can’t take him…social worker can’t find a family. need advice.”

To his surprise, his Uncle’s answer came back immediately in all caps: “SEND HIM TO US.”

He expelled a sigh of relief. “yeah that’s what I want to do...send him to the oklahoma pack…thanks.” Wolf Haven was not only one of the richest kingdom towns in the country, but it was also home to the sole boarding school for deaf wolves in North America. They’d be able to help Jandro there. And maybe Grady could help find Jandro a foster family who knew ASL for the summers—

But before Knight could type another message, his uncle texted back, “No, not to the Oklahoma pack. Send him to US.”