My belly quivered at the admission and the implication. He anticipated—planned—that I’d meet the Pack. Not just as a Sullivan or a vampire or an Ombud. Because somehow, despite years of pushing it away, we’d found something important between us.
Connor tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, and I could all but feel my heart melting. Then he dipped his head toward mine.
“Elisa,”he said, so softly that the word was nearly a breath, hardly a prayer. My eyes drifted shut, awaiting the kiss I knew would follow. Eager for it.
“Just remember,” he said, moving his lips to hover near my ear, “that shifters can manipulate people, too.”
Then he pulled back, turned away, and threw a leg over the bike.
I gave him a narrow-eyed stare. “That was really mean.” But I liked the way my heart thudded in response.
“And effective,” he said with a cocky smile. “Let’s go for a ride.”
I climbed on behind him and planned my revenge.
***
We rode northeast, dipping away from Lake Superior and into the hinterlands of Minnesota. The road became curvier and steeper, forest giving way to rocky hills and striking drops. We disappeared into a tunnel carved into hard rock, the orange lights along the wall flashing as we sped past them.
After ten or fifteen miles, we left the divided highway, and Connor slowed the bike to pick over a gravel road bordered by evergreen trees and steel gray boulders.
He came to a stop at the end of a line of vehicles—bikes, trucks, and SUVs—parked along both sides of the road. We dismounted, removed helmets, ran fingers through tangled hair. And, without the bike’s rumble, could hear the sounds of happy children and chatting adults through the whisper of leaves.
A few muscular men and women stood around in black shirts and pants, casting suspicious gazes at us before looking away.
“Security?” I asked.
“It’s a private event,” Connor said. “Especially since humans don’t know what they are.”
“Where are we going?” I asked. I’d expected to see a park shelter with coolers and balloons, or an overlook where shifters hadswagged streamers and drank beers. Instead, trees made a canyon on both sides of the road.
“You’ll see,” he said with a smile, and offered his hand.
I took his hand, enjoyed the satisfaction that flashed in his eyes when I linked our fingers together.
Connor ducked into the trees, and we followed a well-worn trail I probably wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t been with him. We walked maybe a quarter mile, and I was glad I’d opted for boots without stiletto heels, which wouldn’t have worked well over uneven ground and loamy leaves. As the sounds of celebration grew louder, we passed birch trees with curled silver bark, hard-edged boulders that looked like they’d been spewed from a volcano, and delicate white flowers sprouting in blank spaces in the undergrowth. And behind it all, a soft static that it took me much too long to realize was water.
A long, dark shape slithered across the trail, and I stopped short, only just managed not to squeak.
“What?” Connor asked, fingers tensing around mine. “What’s wrong?”
“Snake.”
“It was harmless. Just a garter snake.”
“Don’t care. I don’t like snakes.”
He looked at me. “How do you not like snakes?”
“Biological mandate,” I said. “They slither. I don’t like things that slither.”
“But you both have fangs.”
I slid my gaze to him. “Shifters and skunks both have fur.”
“Fair point.”
“You have no issues with animals?”