“Thanks for reminding me”—she marched past me—“that I have a bone to pick with Allegra. Just because she’s all loved up doesn’t mean she should let some strange guy haul me away like a sack of potatoes.”
When her hand wrapped around the knob, I came up behind her and crowded her against the door. “There’s a flaw in your logic.”
Her lungs expanded, her back brushing against my chest. She held perfectly still as she asked, “How so?”
“I’m not just some strange guy.” I wound a stray lock of her hair around my finger and let it drop down her back. My wolf wanted to mark her bare neck, and my canines pressed against my gums as I rasped, “Your best friend already trusts Zeke, and he knows you’re safe with me because I’m his alpha.”
“Alpha?” she echoed, twisting her head to meet my eyes. “Do you guys have a whole different vocabulary or something? Zeke wished me luck with his alpha, but I didn’t know what he meant.”
I knew a few shifters besides my beta who’d mated humans, and I’d heard stories about how they’d broken the news to them. Learning from their experiences, I figured it was best to spit it out sooner rather than later. Otherwise, I was running the risk of her discovering my secret when I shifted in front of her without any warning, which was the worst-case scenario when it came to her accepting who and what I was. With no better choice, I said, “It’s fair to say shifters have our own language since we need words for things that don’t exist in the human world.”
Her eyes widened, and the wrinkle popped up on her forehead again. “What in the ever-loving heck do you mean?”
“The residents of Timber Ridge aren’t fully human,” I confessed, my muscles tensing as I waited for her reaction. “We’re able to shift into animal form.”
3
Larissa
I blinked up at him before turning to face the door and letting my forehead drop against the hard surface. For a little bit there, I’d thought maybe Allegra had stumbled across an awesome town full of hot guys, and I was looking forward to visiting her on the regular. And that was after being kidnapped, which just went to show how good-looking these guys were.
Zeke was attractive enough to make any woman look twice, but the guy who’d dared to snatch me out of his house was the one who called to me. He was a good nine to ten inches taller than me and had muscles on top of his muscles. His light brown hair was long enough for me to run my fingers through it, and his eyes were a rich chocolate brown. It really was too bad he was the one who caught my attention since he was completely out of touch with reality. And lucky me…I was trapped inside his house with him. “Why me?”
It was a rhetorical question, but the guy who thought he was part animal decided to answer anyway. “Because you’re my fated mate.”
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me.” Squeezing my eyes shut, I lifted my head and banged it against the door again.
Gently gripping my shoulder, he turned me to face him. Then he cupped the back of my head so his hand was protecting me from the door. “Stop, you’re going to hurt yourself.”
Startled laughter burst from my lips. “Oh, that’s just great. The guy who kidnapped me because he thinks he can turn into an animal and I’m supposedly fated to be with him is worried that I’ll bruise my head or something during my perfectly reasonable reaction.”
“Kace.”
He stared at me as though I’d know what his random, one-word response meant. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I figured it’d be easier for you to refer to me if you knew my name.” His lips curved up in a sexy grin, and I wanted to kick my own butt for reacting to it. “Kace Lowell.”
My dad had drilled the importance of a firm handshake so deeply into my head that my response was automatic. Stretching out my arm, I replied, “Larissa Nash.”
Kace’s palm slid against mine, and I felt his touch all the way to my core. “Larissa,” he repeated in a low, raspy tone. “A unique name for a beautiful woman.”
I tried to tug my hand from his hold, but he didn’t let go. “Oh, sure. Now you pour on the charm after you already showed me your faults.”
“I can be a fuck of a lot more charming where you’re concerned,” he promised with a sexy smirk. “And being a shifter isn’t a fault. It should go in the plus column because you’ll never have to worry about how I’ll treat you. You are the center of my world. The one person I put above my pack.”