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  As he found the perfect spot to undress, Jarvis sensed more than the usual prickling of his flesh right before the change. He had the uncanny sensation he was being watched. Pulling off his shirt, he looked over his shoulder as the cold night air soaked into his bare flesh.

  Toubec’s den was behind him. With lights on inside, many of the windows glowed with flat iridescence, like a soulless creature staring at him. A female stood in an upstairs window watching him. When Jarvis glanced up at her, she moved out of his view. It wasn’t Toubec’s mate.

  The change burned sharp and fierce inside him, ready to take over his human form and ignite his stronger, more primal half. Jarvis growled at the fading figure before unbuttoning his jeans and sliding down the zipper. Shoving his boots off and stripping out of his socks, bones began popping and contorting at the same time as he pushed his jeans to the ground. Jarvis barely made it out of his boxers before his spine crackled and altered in order to hold his new form.

  Once again his skin prickled as it thickened and tightened. Fur covered his new form and his senses heightened. Blood raced through his veins and his heart accelerated, beating faster and pumping harder. The settling darkness shifted from black to different shades of grays. He adjusted to the acute awareness his heightened senses brought on and smelled every insect and disappearing rodent that scurried from him in fright.

  Jarvis turned again, this time his eyesight much stronger. The female had once again stepped up to the window. Her long hair fell around her willowy body, which was covered only by an oversized t-shirt. Most Cariboo lunewulf were blonde, although some of them had red highlights just as they did in their fur. This female’s long, wavy hair was auburn with blonde highlights. Her creamy white flesh contrasted against her darker hair. She had long, thin legs that didn’t look as muscular as most female’s legs.

  Jarvis didn’t question how he knew this was the female he’d seen earlier in her fur. Instead he growled, turning and facing her with a toothy grin. Inside Toubec’s den she was safe but very soon he would hunt her down. Jarvis watched her straighten, sensed the moment she held her breath and remained captive to his stare, and knew she understood.

  Chapter Two

  Katrin Keller stood in the grocery line staring at the items in her cart. The smell of humans was barely tolerable. They stuffed emotions worse than some did a garbage can.

  Katrin missed the mountains and running and laughing with her littermates. They would race to their den. Katrin didn’t always win, but when she did those memories smelled the best. For a moment she swore she could breathe in the smell of her mother’s happiness instead of the fabricated odors of plastic packaging from the items in her cart.

  She missed the ripe aroma of fresh meat that always filled their den. Their mama always made them wait for their sire to return before any of them could eat. They had lived in a small cabin with only two bedrooms, one for their mother and sire, and the other Katrin, Leisa and Magda shared. The huge, fancy Toubec den didn’t hold a flame to the den she’d been whelped in.

  Straightening, she refused to smell of regret or remorse. Life changed. Find the best path and run with honor. Never let your guard down and be ready to kill before you’re killed. Her sire had burned those words into her head before she’d run on her first kill.

  She placed the supplies for the Toubec den on the conveyor belt, ignoring the human who began scanning each item. Her sire was gone. Her den was gone. But his lessons in life remained strong in her mind. They were all she had left to honor him with.

  The human didn’t smell Katrin’s sudden sadness and there weren’t any werewolves nearby. Her life in the mountains wasn’t supposed to have ended. She should have been able to run, hunt, grow old and die in those mountains. Instead she had run from her lifeless den, her mother and sire both dead. Her littermates had left her on this ranch simply because more of her mother’s blood ran through her than her sire’s. Her littermates had run south to America because they had resembled their sire.

  “I don’t want to stay here,” Katrin had complained.

  “This ranch reeks of power and strength. You must smell the truth when I say I would run with you here if I could.” Leisa’s dark, almost black hair was pulled tight on her head and the ball cap she wore hid most of it. “But we’ve been over and over this and Magda is right.”

  “You two have howled about this. I never agreed. Do you think I care what breed I look like?” Katrin glared at both her littermates. It was her last chance to convince them. “We must run together.”

  Magda’s scent was dangerous, aggressive, and had been since the day they’d run from the flames and smells of their parents’ corpses and den burning beyond control. “This is how it will be. Leisa and I aren’t safe here. Don’t be a fool, Kat, you remember our sire’s howling when he told us what the other werewolves did to the Malta werewolves. Now we run from humans and our own kind. But you, you look like Mama.”

  “I’m not leaving my litter.” Katrin had fisted her hands at her waist and stared her oldest littermate down. She didn’t have to try to make her scent defiant. She was pissed. “And you two aren’t leaving me. We’ll survive if we stay together.”

  “There is no discussion. Katrin, go to that ranch, tell them your litter is dead. They will be honor bound to take you in.”

  “I don’t want their fucking honor!” she’d snarled. If there had been any more tears to shed, they would have fallen. Instead Katrin’s eyes burned as outrage soared inside her.

  Magda’s hug was unexpected. Since they’d left the mountains she’d been distant and hadn’t at all smelled like herself. Now, when she pulled Katrin close and pressed their bodies together as if she’d never let go, for a moment Katrin almost believed none of the horrors had happened. Magda smelled like she used to, protective and full of love and concern for her younger littermate.

  The moment she put Katrin at arm’s length, the old Magda was gone. Katrin barely had the strength to hold herself up when Magda let her go, took Leisa’s arm and pulled her away from their youngest littermate.

  “Good hunting, Katrin. Never let your guard down and be ready to kill before you’re killed.”

  Katrin remembered her littermate’s parting words. Their sire’s mantra was what she would live by today. The human told her the total, which was already displayed on the register’s screen in front of Katrin’s face. For a moment, she thought of letting her teeth grow and snapping at the store employee just to see her fear and smell her panic. She hated humans! They had destroyed her litter, her den and her life.

  Pulling the bills out of her back pocket, Katrin waited for the change, then took the items that Simone Toubec, the queen bitch on the ranch, had asked her to buy. Pain and hatred might be trying to eat her alive but she wouldn’t let the raw emotions cloud her ability to protect herself. Especially in a human world mixed with rogue werewolves.

  Taking her bagged items outside, Katrin hurried to the old truck she’d driven into Prince George. She sniffed the air, searching for any aggressors that might be nearby. In the mountains, Katrin had known how to protect herself since she’d been a cub. Other Cariboo lunewulf, large bears and even some smaller creatures on the mountain would attack a cub, or as she grew older, a single female. Katrin learned to fight to the death before she learned to drive. She wasn’t in the mountains anymore. Prince George as well as Toubec’s ranch held just as many dangers.

  Katrin glanced around the parking lot. The large grocery store shared the lot with numerous other stores. Cars came and went. The exhaust, gasoline and diesel created enough stench to make it hard to rely on smell to spot danger.

  Humans held on to enough conflicting aromas to confuse the truth of what Katrin might actually smell. They were only half of a whole, unable to change and therefore every emotion they experienced trapped in their one form. Most humans walked around feeling happy and sad, angry and content all at the same time. It was scary how real of a danger they could still be.

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nbsp; She loaded the groceries into the back of the truck and continued sniffing the air, processing every scent she breathed in while continuing to glance around her. When she picked up the smell of lunewulf, Katrin lifted and closed the back hatch then hurried to the driver’s side door.

  Two lunewulf males, easily spotted because of their pale blond hair and thin, wiry build—a runt of a breed in comparison to Cariboo lunewulf—crossed the parking lot and sauntered up to her as if they had the right to howl at her without asking permission first.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before,” whispered a male, who was the same height as Katrin, although possibly a good fifty pounds heavier. He grabbed the door handle of the truck before Katrin could open it. “What’s your name, little Cariboo?”

  “You know every female in Prince George?” she countered and sized up the male.

  “Why do you smell so hostile, little female?” The second male moved in alongside her so that she was between him and the side of the truck. “We’re just trying to be friendly.”

  “You don’t smell too friendly.” Katrin controlled the change even as sparks shot up her spine. A little muscle might not hurt though. After all, it was two against one. She growled as her blood boiled through her veins. When she grabbed the male’s hand and yanked it off the truck handle, her elongated fingernails scraped open the surface of his skin. “And get your paws off my truck.”

  “Little bitch,” he hissed as he stepped back and shook his hand. When he smiled, his incisors were a bit sharper than should be in his human form. “I heard the howlings of a rabid female out on Toubec’s land.” A drop of blood ran along the back of his hand when he slapped the side of the truck. “I hear she likes taking on as many males as possible,” he snarled and stepped into her space.

  Katrin breathed in his lust and the smell of whiskey. “Maybe you should go find her and leave me alone,” she growled, the urge to rid the world of two useless werewolves almost overwhelming her.

  Katrin barely had time to register a dark blur behind the male in her face when he was being dragged backward. It was the male she’d seen undressing in the trees and he was as imposing and incredibly sexy as he’d seemed every night that she’d watched him undress and change. As he now as he stood in front of her. Katrin managed not to drool.

  There had been Cariboo lunewulf on her mountains. They were a large breed, probably the largest of all werewolves, although she wasn’t certain. What she did know was that the male snarling at these two lunewulfs was a very big male, well over six feet. He had to be. She had been five feet and ten inches the last time her mother had measured her and her littermates. This male towered over her.

  He was muscular, which was obvious in the way his shirt clung to his well-sculptured body. Not that she needed to look at him now to see how well built he was. This was the Cariboo she’d watched change outside her bedroom window at the Toubecs’ den every night. Katrin knew firsthand how perfect his body was. In fact, she’d put damn near every inch of him to memory.

  She’d dreamed about him, fantasized about him, and even made love to him in her imagination. Katrin felt no remorse or regret over any of the times she’d obsessed over him. She knew a perfect werewolf when she saw one, and what was the point of enjoying a male in her thoughts who ran any less than that?

  He stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at the lunewulf males. They looked like runts facing him. Katrin studied his tousled blond curls, which fell just above those rock-hard shoulders. His eyes blazed blue the way the sky would just before turning the violent shades from a pending storm. Katrin wanted to breathe in his scent, the only part of him she lacked in recreating him in her imagination. She was instantly angrier when his spicy outrage prevented her from doing so.

  “Leave this female alone,” he barked, his tone fierce. The large Cariboo dwarfed the two lunewulfs. No sooner had he let go of the male he’d dragged out of her face than he lunged at the second male. “Leave now!” he ordered.

  There wasn’t time to announce she was capable of taking care of herself before the two lunewulf males backed off then hurried away from Katrin, leaving her alone with the Cariboo lunewulf male. She tried reaching for her door handle once again. The male grabbed it first and when he found it locked, gripped her shoulder and stared at her with dark-blue eyes.

  “Keys.” He uttered the one word with an effort, as if still reining in his temper.

  “I can unlock my own door.”

  “I’m sure you can.” His gaze left hers and traveled down her body. “Give me the keys or I’ll find them myself.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to dare him to try. No male would shove her around or tell her what to do. When she opened her mouth to speak, his attention snapped to her face. Katrin got a strange sensation that he knew what she was about to say. The corner of his mouth curved as his fingers brushed over her shoulder.

  “Give me the keys,” he said, his tone softer.

  “Fine.” She shoved out of his grip and turned slightly when she dug the keys out of her jeans pocket. It wasn’t enough time to regain composure before his much larger hand scooped them out of hers. “If you want the truck, take it,” she tried.

  Katrin wasn’t able to back away. The male unlocked the truck door, opened it and grabbed her in what seemed one fluid movement. She found herself with her back against the side of the driver’s seat. The door shielded them from onlookers, and his incredibly virile body trapped her in the limited space. She fought for breath.

  “I don’t want the truck.” The sudden hunger in his eyes made his meaning clear.

  As she sucked in air it was filled with his scent. This was what he smelled like. The acknowledgment that she now had a well-rounded knowledge of him from all her senses brought her pause. It took her a moment to realize she was damn near panting while staring at the incredible muscular structure of his shoulders and chest.

  He smelled of timber and the woods. There was a saltiness in his scent, possibly from body sweat dried on his flesh. She breathed in the scent of laundry soap on his clothes, body soap and the slightest hint of aftershave, although the hint of whiskers on his jaw made it look as if he hadn’t shaved that day.

  None of those smells she breathed in mattered as much as what else she inhaled. Katrin picked up on his determination, which was tart but not unpleasant at all. His spicy anger definitely lingered. There was also a hint of something sweet mixed in with the rest. She raised her gaze to those captivating blue eyes. It was sexual arousal.

  No way would he guess that she’d imagined fucking him over the past few nights. She fought to stop the pressure growing between her legs. Her pussy began throbbing. The air didn’t smell of hostility anymore.

  “Who are you?” she asked, her voice raspy when it became hard to breathe normally.

  “You know who I am.”

  It was possible the male saw her in her bedroom window the first night he’d undressed and changed for his run. Katrin had made sure her lights were out and she’d lingered near the edge of the large window after that. Each night this male had come to the same tree, stripped naked and changed into the most glorious Cariboo lunewulf she’d ever laid eyes on. Now she knew his scent.

  There hadn’t been much challenge in learning Jarvis Alger’s name. After she’d been hunted down by those stupid males and simply defended herself, Rock and Simone Toubec wouldn’t allow her out of their sight. It had caused her physical pain making a show of being happy and content. She had submitted every time either Rock or Simone growled, until finally they allowed her to move around outside their den. That’s when she’d learned Jarvis’ name.

  Today had been her first taste of a bit more freedom, but only after Katrin had cut the leash and freed herself of the old bitch who had been sent into Prince George as her escort.

  “I know you’re full of yourself, male,” she grumbled, and tried backing up into the driver’s seat behind her.

  Jarvis grabbed her waist. “Katrin Ke
ller.” He said her name in a low baritone. “You won’t fear me.”

  Before she had time to inform him she wasn’t afraid, his arms were around her and he crushed her against him. All breath left her lungs. Jarvis didn’t just kiss her, he devoured her mouth, demanding entrance and impaling her with the same rough aggressiveness he seemed to do everything else.

  Katrin grabbed his shoulders. She wasn’t able to shove him away from her. Maybe she didn’t want to end the kiss. Her mind was too fogged. Her pussy was suddenly soaked and the ripe smell of her desire mixed with his, creating an aroma equivalent to a strong drug. It was one she might become addicted to real fast.

  Jarvis allowed her to breathe when he left her mouth and nipped at her jaw, then her neck.

  “Say my name,” he growled.

  She moaned instead. His hands weren’t on her waist any longer but underneath her sweater. His touch scorched her skin, fueling the lustful fire already burning inside her.

  “Say it,” he demanded as he tortured the flesh just above her collarbone with his breath.

  “Jarvis,” she whispered.

  He raised his head and looked down at her with smoldering blue eyes laced with silver. When car tires screeched to a stop behind him, Katrin jumped from the sudden sound. Her fingernails dug into his shirt. She smelled his blood at the same time as he growled from deep in his throat. Katrin instinctively growled in return.

  Jarvis lifted her into the truck. She plopped onto the seat, panting from what he’d just done to her, and had barely gotten her wits about her when she realized a Prince George police car had pulled up alongside them. Jarvis had closed her inside the cab but he still had the keys.