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written endanger you or any other were, especially if it means
the federal government will come hunting you down.” She combed her fingers
through her unruly hair and blew out a tired breath. “I’ll write up a bullshit
report debunking all the extraordinary claims about A217, say I haven’t been
able to locate him for a couple of weeks, point people in the wrong direction.
Maybe I can even convince them the wolf died trying to attack the bear that’s
been causing us so much trouble in the park. I’ll drop it off on Northrup’s
desk with my resignation at eight sharp.”
    Will stepped up over his mate, watching her
face, reading her reaction, gauging whether she was ready for this, for him.
“Make it 7:45. We leave for upstate New York at eight.”
     

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
     
    T hat quickly. Kim’s life was changing that quickly, or so she
thought before she hurried down from the porch of her cabin only to have Will
catch her by the arm at the foot of the steps.
    “Not yet,” he said, his handsome face
anxious and hollow-cheeked.
    “What? I thought you said….” Kim recognized
a soul-deep dread inside her, a fear that she’d been foolish to believe Will
really intended to take her away with him, to think someone like him wanted
someone like her. He’d just been caught up in the moment, in a rash fancy at a
time when returning to human form has overwhelmed him, but now….
    “I’m asking you to walk away from your whole
life here to come into my world with me. It’s sudden and dangerous and clear
across the country from everything and everyone you’ve ever known. Before I do
that, I have to know.”
    Now he was scaring Kim, not just his words
but the melancholy weighing down his tone. “Know what?” she asked.
    “If I’m really free of the wilding.”
    A chill flowed down Kim’s spine in a stream
like ice water. “You said I’d brought you back. You felt that, right?”
    “I felt that, but I have to try, Kim. I have
to change back again, just once more before we go, to know the wilding won’t
take me the next time I have to shift. And there will be a next time, little
one. I’m an alpha. I’ll be expected to lead again, to fight.”
    All of which was too much for Kim to absorb
at one time. She hid her eyes behind her hands, rubbing at her eyelids roughly,
until she felt Will moving away from her. He was walking around behind the
cabin, into the forest. “Now? You have to do this now? I haven’t even….” She
bit her tongue.
    Will slowed to a stop, then looked over his
shoulder at his mate. “Haven’t even said goodbye? Just in case?”
    It took her a moment, only a moment, to
straighten her shoulders and march up to the man. “Kissed you for good luck,”
she insisted and came up as high as she could on tiptoes to put her mouth to
his. Salty earth, she thought again at the taste of the man. Sex and musk. Her
mate. Breathless after sucking at his full lips, she rasped, “Now let’s get
this over with. We have to be down the mountain to the ranger station in twenty
minutes.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    The shifter was wearing old clothes, a snug
gray t-shirt and jeans left behind by an old boyfriend, and filling them out a
hell of a lot better than the original owner. What an ass the man had. Kim
concentrated on that, not on the anxiety she felt, not on all the terrible
possibilities, as Will paused in the shade of a tree and started to strip as
naked as she’d found him.
    Her body stirred at the sight of his perfect
body, contoured like a Roman statue. He couldn’t lose that body, she thought. She couldn’t lose him, not after just one night. He had even refused to take her
again the night before, afraid he’d hurt her if he didn’t give her time to
recover from the joining and himself time to come to grips with the renewed
appetites of his human form.
    Kim almost couldn’t watch as he stilled
himself, lowered his head, started to shiver and sweat. It was so quick it took
her breath away,