“He looks at you like you’re not only a challenge, but you’re a challenge that he wants to have sex with over and over again.”
“You’re lying,” was all Annie managed to say. She crossed her arms over her chest, feigning indifference even though she felt like her heart was going to burst. She didn’t know Lukas looked at her like that.
“I’m not,” Kato said, finishing his food. “Trust me, as a guy, I know these things. You’re oblivious.”
“I just think it’s all in your head. I’m a halfie, you know,” she said, reminding Kato. Regular shifters were normally turned off by halfies. The only reason Kato had a thing for Annie was because they grew up together and were so close, at least, that’s what Annie always thought. No other shifter ever gave her the time of day when they got wind or scent that she was a halfie.
“Annie, please. Look at yourself. The guy has it bad, and it doesn’t even matter that you’re a halfie. He’s a rogue, and he’s bad news. So, just tell me if he makes any advances. I’ll take care of it.”
Annie laughed at this, playfully punching Kato in the arm. “Oh, look at my big, sweet protector acting like I can’t take care of myself.”
“I’m just warning you, okay,” Kato said, standing up and cleaning up his breakfast mess. “I’m gonna head out to the hospital, but I’ll see you later?”
Annie nodded and smiled bye to him, watching as he left. Kato worked as a doctor in the local hospital, where Thea’s fiancé also worked, even though a lot of shifters didn’t understand why he went to so much trouble to fit into the human world. Kato really loved med school and his job, though, and he considered his job as a doctor saving humans the greatest thing he could ever do. Some shifters didn’t think like that.
Kato couldn’t be right . . . could he? Did Lukas really feel like that for Annie? A part of her dreaded seeing Lukas again, but another part of her was desperate to see him, especially if what Kato said was true. It was almost a relief that Lukas was attracted to her. She felt weird being sexually attracted to a rogue, but if he was able to be sexually attracted to a halfie, maybe they were both wired wrong.
Annie didn’t want to think about it any longer. If she kept on thinking about Lukas . . . well, she’d have to go see Milo and hope he could take care of her.
No, what Annie needed was to run. With the idea already in her head, Annie jotted down a quick note, in case Thea looked for her before she went to work, and took off to the backyard of the house. Annie didn’t have work until later in the afternoon since she was the closing librarian for today.
Peeling off her clothes as she walked in the wet grass, Annie breathed in the early morning air, reveling in the earth and the scents. She began to walk, completely naked at this point, as she felt the shifting coming on. Her toes began to tingle, her body lighting up on the inside. It used to be painful. Now, it was just a little ticklish.
The tingling feeling crept from her toes to her head, leaving goosebumps all over her skin as she began to shift. She began to run, and when her four paws hit the ground instead of her two feet, she howled in triumph.
Chapter 11
Lukas finally finished informing Hann about everything he knew about Kaiser. He was beyond exhausted from his nerves the entire day. He kept waiting for Hann to tell him to stay away from Annie, or worse, to leave town now that he knew everything.
Instead, Hann asked Lukas to come over to his house for dinner tonight. Lukas couldn’t do anything but accept out of sheer shock. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do in a situation like this. Rogues were never supposed to even think about themselves in situations like this, let alone actually find themselves in one.
To relieve some stress, Lukas decided to do another reckless and dumb thing. He decided to shift and run.
The feeling of finally, after days of waiting, shifting to his wolf form made everything better. He felt freer, happier, more in control of his body. And then he heard a wolf howl.
Lukas was deep in the forest surrounding the town by this point. He stopped immediately and sniffed the air, preparing himself for trouble. If one of the pack members stumbled upon him in human form, it would all be over for him.
Lukas tentatively began to walk, nose in the air, trying to locate where the wolf was, so he would know not to go in that direction. Instead, he swore he sensed Annie.
That couldn’t be right . . . could it? Was she out here, in wolf form? Lukas felt his wolf’s desire for her, the need to howl back and join her was almost consuming him. He felt the possessive instinct he had towards her flare up, and he knew the wolf in him wanted to run to her side.
Before he could do anything stupid, Lukas shifted out of his wolf form and back to his human self. He couldn’t risk doing anything like that. He’d be killed instantly for even laying a hand on Annie, let alone having sex with her. Hell, she wouldn’t even let him near her and would probably kill him if he even said he thought she was pretty.
Lukas shook his head as he began to walk back to where he had thrown his clothes before he shifted. He needed to get his head straight. There were much bigger issues at hand. For one, Kaiser was probably somewhat close to Maine by now, killing and pillaging every pack town he passed. He needed to stay focused and forget about Annie. Forget about the way she made him feel. Forget about the sexual desire he had for her every time he saw her.
Before he could get any further, Annie stepped through the forest into the clearing where Lukas was pulling on his clothes.
“I thought it would be you,” was all she said as she walked towards him. She crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him. She was fully clothed, having had enough time to go change before she ran back to yell at Lukas for shifting in an area where any pack member could kill him.
“I thought you had shifted,” Lukas managed to say, his wolf still in his chest and begging for him to walk closer to where Annie stood. He roughly put his shirt on, wanting to be away from her before he did anything.
“I was, but when I sensed you, I shifted back,” she told him. “My house is only a few blocks from here, so I went and changed, so I could yell at you without you getting turned on by my amazing body.”
Lukas only laughed when he realized the slight smirk and sparkle in her eyes meant she was joking. She was right, though, if he saw her naked after just shifting from her wolf, he would definitely lose it. Hell, he was about to lose it right now, and she was ten feet away from him and fully clothed. He needed to get his shit together or else he was going to get himself killed by either her or her father. Or really anyone else in the pack.
“You know, you can come closer,” he told her. “I don’t bite.” He immediately regretted his words, yet he couldn’t help himself. He wanted her closer to him, even if that did mean his wolf would howl for her.
“I’m fine here,” was all she said, though he could swear she glanced at his body, his lower half, his everything, before her eyes quickly shifted back up to meet his. He raised an eyebrow questioningly at her, taking a step forward, his wolf loving every second of it. She took a step back and laughed shortly. “Just don’t shift again unless you tell me so that I can make sure none of the pack are around.”
And then she turned around and left, leaving Lukas staring longingly as the forest engulfed her.
Chapter 12
Annie didn’t know what the hell had gotten into her. She found herself walking straight to Milo’s apartment after she got off of work. Work was a slow torment in hell, as she found herself consistently thinking about Lukas and what it would be like to kiss him, to feel his body, to beg him to have sex with her.
She regretted her choice to confront him about shifting, but she was happy that she put some clothes on before she did it. God knows what would’ve happened. Just the glimpse of his abs that she saw before he put on his shirt was enough to turn her on.
And now, to try to get him out of her system again, Annie was briskly walking up the stairs to Milo’s place. Pounding on the doo
r, she tried to steady her breathing even though her mind was racing with new ways she could throw herself at Lukas the next time she saw him. She shook her head, as if to shake the ideas out of her mind.
“Annie?” Milo smiled, opening the door as he saw her standing there. She rushed in, throwing her bag on the couch and pulling off her jacket. It wasn’t until she threw her shirt off and was about to grab Milo when she turned around and saw a naked girl standing in the kitchen.
“Oh,” was all Annie could say. It wasn’t as if they were dating or anything. Milo and Annie had made it clear that they were strictly friends that occasionally hooked up. Annie wanted it that way, and so did Milo.
But for some reason, seeing a gorgeous, petite blonde with curves standing naked in his kitchen made Annie want to cry. She smiled and looked back to Milo, who shrugged as if it was no biggie.
“I didn’t know you were coming over, babe,” he said, smiling and not at all embarrassed by the situation. Annie glanced back at the goddess, who was leaning against the kitchen counter smiling as if this was really no big deal.
“You can join us, if you’d like,” the girl put in. Annie laughed and put her clothes back on, grabbed her bag and walked to the door.
“Don’t be mad,” Milo grabbed her arm, stopping her from leaving.
“I’m not mad, Milo,” Annie insisted. “I just . . . I just should leave. Have fun, though.”
Annie walked through the door, slamming it shut. She knew she had absolutely no reason to be mad at Milo. Milo always told Annie that what they had was just a fun thing with absolutely no strings attached. But she was horny, angry, and a little sad that Milo had another girl in his apartment.
Maybe Annie was just being a stereotypical woman in her mid-twenties that longed for a real relationship, not one that was just sex. She got in her car and sighed, knowing she needed to pull herself together. It’s not like she hadn’t used Milo either, she’d used him for sex since the day she met Lukas. And now that she wasn’t getting that sexual relief that she needed, her thoughts immediately went back to Lukas.
She sighed, wondering how her life had managed to flip upside down in a matter of days. When she wasn’t thinking about Lukas, she was worried about her father being killed by Kaiser. Her father still hadn’t talked to her about who Kaiser was, or who Kaiser’s father was, and it was getting on Annie’s nerves. Why wouldn’t her father inform her about these things? She thought they were closer than this.
With a new determination in her sight, Annie decided to forget her sexual frustration, get a coffee, and then confront her father about Kaiser and his plan for protecting the pack. It was time she got off her ass and started doing something. Who knew where Kaiser was at this point? Maybe he was only a few miles away, prancing his way to kill them all and bathe in their blood. Annie didn’t know because neither her father nor Lukas would tell her anything.
Annie got to her father’s house, walking in without knocking and making her way to his garden where he probably was. When he wasn’t at the bar or meeting with the pack, her dad was tending to his garden or reading a new book among his flowers and plants. She became a librarian solely because her father raised her on fairy tales and stories about dragons. They both had their own enormous libraries that they praised.
Sure enough, Annie walked out to the garden in his backyard and saw him sitting on a bench, his feet up on a huge rock, attentively reading a huge book. Annie smiled when she saw him, his gray hair all messed up and his glasses on so he could read.
“Hello, darling,” Hann called to her without even looking up from his book. Annie wished she had his sense of everything. It seemed like his senses were so much stronger than any shifter or human she knew. Maybe she had dull shifter senses, and her human side was to blame.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” Annie said, sitting down beside him as he closed his book and put it aside, setting his attention on her.
“Of course not,” he waved her off. “This is my third time reading that book. I already know what happens. So, what brings you by, other than to spend quality time with your favorite person in the whole world?”
Annie chuckled and put her feet up on the stone as well, both of them relaxing among the greenery and the sun’s descent. The moon would be out soon, and Annie wanted to run again since her own run earlier was interrupted.
“I thought that maybe now would be a good time for you to tell me more about Kaiser,” she told him tentatively. “And maybe more about his father as well.”
Hann sighed, stroking the beard that he found himself growing. “I warn you, Anastasia. You won’t like this story.”
“I love you, Dad,” Annie said, shoving him slightly to lighten the mood. “I’ll always have your back. Always.”
“I met Pavel when I was traveling through Europe when I was younger,” he started after a pause, his gaze going fuzzy as he remembered decades ago. “We were friends and got along greatly. I was able to stay with his pack while traveling, his father was the alpha. As you know, your grandfather was known throughout the shifter world, even in that small town in the Czech Republic, something that always amazed me. I always wanted to be as strong and known as my father.
“Anyway, that’s where we met. A few years later, I was back here in Maine, and my father was ill from old age. I became the alpha of this pack younger than anticipated, but I took on this role with my heart, and every strength in my body, prepared. I wanted to lead our members in the right way. Of course, there were many who thought that I wouldn’t be as great as my father, since I had yet to pick a mate. They thought that I was childish and young, sleeping around with every shifter I wanted to . . . .”
“And then you fell in love with a human, and I suppose they regretted shitting on you?” Annie asked, laughing.
“Yes, I met your mother,” Hann said, sadness filling his eyes. He clasped his hands and then unclasped them, making Annie’s heart break. Her father truly loved her mother, and he had never gotten over her untimely death from complications after delivering Annie. Annie always thought it was her fault, even though her father assured her it wasn’t.
“How does Kaiser and his father fit into this?” Annie gently asked, bringing her father out of his misery for a moment.
“Pavel came around to visit with a wife and son about the time your mother and I were married. He, like everyone else, couldn’t believe that I, an alpha, could ever fall in love with a human, let alone mate with her. Of course, I tried to explain to everyone that we shifters just know when they find their mate. It’s no different if it’s a human or another shifter, the signs are all the same. Maybe I’m wrong or messed up in the head because I never found another shifter that I fell for, but I knew from the moment I met your mother that I was to mate and marry her, regardless of who or what she was.
“Pavel tried to talk me out of it. He said that no good would come of it. I told him that if he was so offended by what I was doing, he could get the hell out of my territory. And so he left. Time flew and then, before I knew it, your mother was pregnant . . . and, well, you know the story.”
“Yeah,” Annie sighed, her father going silent for a moment.
“Before I continue, I need to apologize for what I’m about to say, darling,” Hann told her, clutching her hand.
“What do you mean?” Annie was beyond confused. What could her father have to apologize for? What happened with Pavel, Kaiser’s father?
“Your mother gave birth to you, a healthy, baby girl. It was the happiest moment of my life. And your mother recovered phenomenally well, surviving the whole procedure. No one saw it coming, but I felt that I had someone on my side. I thought that this was the universe saying . . . well, I don’t know, saying something.”
“Wait, Mom survived? I thought she . . . I thought she died during delivery,” Annie felt like she couldn’t breathe.
“I know. That’s what I told everyone. We were in her house, the house you live in now, for a week after birth, not
letting anyone from the pack in, except Ross. We wanted to keep everything calm. But then Pavel showed up out of nowhere, visiting again. I didn’t want him anywhere near you or your mother after everything he said last time. I went outside to meet him, and he looked mad, completely insane. He heard that I had a child that was half human, half shifter, and was ranting and raving about how it wasn’t right.
“I don’t know what happened in the years from when we met as teens to that night in front of the house. I don’t know if it’s because his father chose someone else to be the alpha of his pack, if he’d always been crazy, or if something happened that made his views change. But he became one of those shifters that thought anything less than pure was an abomination. So, he decided to take matters into his own hands.”
“What do you mean?” Annie mumbled, lost, confused, and scared at what her father was about to tell her.
“I don’t know how he got in the house. I don’t know how anything happened, but he managed to get to where you and your mother were sleeping . . . and I had to kill him. I had to stop him from hurting you. Or from hurting your mother,” his voice trembled, and Annie’s tears finally fell, her heart breaking from her father reliving the memory.
“So, Mom . . . she died from Pavel? He killed her?” Annie asked, clutching her father’s hand. Her mother was murdered all those years ago?
“Not quite,” her father said. Annie stared at him, beyond confused. If her mother didn’t die from childbirth, or from Pavel, then how did she die?
“What do you mean?”
“No, your mother didn’t die from Pavel, darling,” he mumbled. “This is where I apologize again to you, I’m afraid.”
“Tell me,” was all Annie could say.
“Your mother isn’t dead, my darling,” her father told her, his eyes shining and unblinking. “However, the Elders got to her.”
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