childhood friend in the role of attentive father. Linus was one whipped puppy when it came to Karly. There wasn’t anything that he wouldn’t do for her. Once more, Michael felt like he was destined to be alone forever.
And then he saw her.
Heaven in a short skirt.
Near the tent-covered arena where the boxing matches were going to take place in a couple hours, the sweet, heavenly beauty was chatting up a few men, laughing and casually touching their arms. His beast sat up and whined. Immediately, everything in his body went on alert.
Without even realizing that his feet were moving, he was suddenly next to her as the other men left with brochures in their hands and smiles on their faces. He looked down into her face as she looked up into his.
“Hey, sweetie, like to work out?” She smiled sweetly, a lush movement that made him picture that mouth on his cock.
He looked up at the booth. It read “Stone’s Gym”.
He remembered to answer her. “Sure.”
“I’m Shyne. I teach group fitness at the gym, but it’s a lot more than just me bouncing around in tight shorts.”
Now that he’d like to see.
“I’m Michael.” He felt like a total idiot. Like he’d never spoken to a woman before. Come on man, get it together!
She handed him a brochure, and their fingers touched for a moment. She straightened slightly and blinked at him. Beautiful dark brown eyes flecked with gold looked up at him. Their fingers stayed like that for long enough that he was sure of three things. One: she was gorgeous. Two: she was not a wolf but human. Three: she was his mate.
She pulled her fingers away and blushed. Her skin was a lovely shade of coffee with cream, darkly tanned enough to speak of a parent that wasn’t white. Her jet black hair was long and tied back into a high ponytail. The white golf shirt she wore highlighted the lovely shade of her skin and showed off her fit physique. Short, about five and a half feet of gorgeous, she had curves everywhere and great legs that peeked out from under the black skirt.
He looked at the brochure. The gym was in Dalton. That was only about a half hour north of Allen. He could totally swing going there and working out. A rumbling growl suddenly alerted him to the three hulking men behind the counter of the booth. Glancing at them, he felt his wolf’s hackles rise, and he scented them discreetly. Hyenas. All three of them.
Completely oblivious, Shyne said, “These are the owners, Dante, Cairo and Mason. Cairo’s boxing in the match tonight. Are you going?”
“Yeah.”
“Great, I’ll see you there, then.” She gave him another smile, and it was more genuine than the first one. Suddenly, the man she’d called Dante was at her side with his arm on her shoulder. He whispered something to her, and she nodded and then seemed to try to extract herself from under his hand. Michael wanted to break his hand off for touching her.
Dante was taller than Michael by several inches. And wider. He gave Michael a hard look as Shyne turned away from them and went back into the booth and rummaged through a box.
Michael gave the stare back as good as it was given to him. He didn’t blink until the hyena turned with a snort of derision and went back into the booth. Michael turned and walked away to find his family and friends and read over the brochure. He figured a good way to get to know Shyne was to spend time at the gym. The hyenas seemed possessive of her, but he knew a little something about their kind, and they obviously hadn’t claimed her yet. There was no way that a hyena clan would let their mate touch other men so casually like that. And more than that, she didn’t seem to want Dante to touch her either, which told Michael that she wasn’t in a relationship of any sort with them. That was a very good thing.
He watched Shyne during the boxing match. She stood off to the side in the