“No one in this pack runs on his own,” Eli ground out. “No one runs without me knowing about it.”

“You’re sure about that?” Cooper asked in that tone of voice I now recognized as his alpha mode. Official leadership status or no, I didn’t think Eli had much choice in answering truthfully.

“Positive,” Eli said dismissively. “Look, Cooper, if you’re worried about being discovered or being hurt, maybe now would be a good time to think about moving home. You’re protected here. You’re safe. And it would only help the situation with Maggie. She can’t stay mad at you when you’re around all the time.”

“What are you talking about?” Cooper asked.

Eli shrugged. “This is what’s best for everybody, Coop. The pack needs its alpha back, someone with real authority. They follow me, but they love you. You saw how everyone responded to seeing you last night. Just seeing you there was enough to set them at ease. I’m a solid logistics guy, but I’m not you. They need you, Cooper. Sure, you got lost for a little while, but every good leader struggles—”

“Eli, I’m not coming home. I have a life to get back to. Just keep the pack as far away from me and Mo as possible, got it?” He took my hand in his. “We’re going.”

Knowing better than to argue at this point, I slipped into my boots and coat and got a mildly inappropriate kiss from Samson and a long, hard squeeze from Gracie. “Come back anytime,” she told me.

Eli kept his distance, giving me a resigned little wave. This suited me just fine. Cooper took my elbow and wrapped his arm around my shoulders to lead me across the treacherously slick pavement. I tried to convince him that I should drive. Between the two of us, I’d at least had a little sleep, even if it was technically being knocked out. But he just shook his head and lifted me into the passenger seat. He tilted my chin up, taking a long look at my shiner. He gritted his teeth, tucked my legs into the truck, and shut the door.

Cooper was silent on the drive home. I used the time to stew. Had I made a mistake in insisting that I go to the valley? Would he be angry with me? What if he just dropped me off at home and disappeared for a few days . . . oh, my God, what if he didn’t come back? What if he decided he didn’t want me for his mate anymore? Whatever that meant.

I wasn’t used to this sort of anxiety in a relationship. If Tim got mad at me and went back to his place for the night, all that meant was that I got control over the TV. Every once in a while, I would start a fight if I wanted to watch a particularly interesting episode of Bones. Tim couldn’t stand crime procedurals.

This left me unprepared for the growing dread settling in my belly as the miles slipped by. He pulled to a stop in my driveway and cut the engine. I unclipped my seatbelt and waited.

Cooper kept his fingers curled around the steering wheel and stared straight ahead. I slumped back against the seat. What if he really was pissed at me for getting into it with Maggie? Or for getting so damned cozy with his mother that morning? Why wasn’t he saying anything? Should I say something? What if he was waiting for me to talk? Oh, hell.

“Cooper, I’m—mmph!” My apology was cut off as his mouth clamped over mine, pulling the breath from my lungs with the force of his kiss.

Sliding across the seat, Cooper scooped me up and pulled me into his lap. With some effort, he managed to shimmy my jeans over my hips, shoved my panties aside, and plunged his fingers between my warm folds. I wasn’t quite ready for him, and I hissed as a hot sizzle of pleasure-pain barreled through me. He curled his fingers upward, sending an electric shock straight up my spine. He teased my mouth, edging his tongue along my bottom lip, mimicking the movements of his wrist. The heel of his palm ground against my clit with every stroke. I reached back, bracing my hands against the dashboard as Cooper’s other hand snaked up to cup my neck, anchoring me to him. My inner muscles fluttered against his fingers as I wailed in release.

Nearly boneless, I slid onto Cooper’s lap. The denim of his jeans raked deliciously against my oversensitized flesh . . . which was good, because my shaking hands couldn’t seem to master his belt buckle. Through the postorgasm fog, it struck me as funny that this was the first time Cooper’s clothing was an obstacle. But I didn’t laugh, I didn’t have time to get past the initial thought. Cooper was moving too fast.

I heard the faint slide of a zipper as my head lolled on his shoulder. I gasped as he pulled me close. By now, I was so wet, so ready for him, that I slid onto him easily, right to the hilt, until I was fully seated on him. His hands stayed on my hips, guiding me up and down, setting a furious pace. And when that wasn’t enough, he edged forward on the seat, arching up and wedging me against the steering wheel as he slammed his hips into mine.

There was no tenderness, no gentle touches, nothing to make the moment last. He was pouring all of his grief and heartache into my body, and I absorbed it. He ran his lips down the line of my neck, stopping to graze my throat with his teeth.

He reached between us, his fingers tracing the lines of our joined flesh. His thumb circled my clit, bringing me with him as he growled and bucked under me. I threw my head back again, whacking my head against the windshield. He took my chin in his hands and turned my head away. His teeth brushed along my neck to my shoulder and struck deep. I yelped as his canines broke the skin, marking me.

When Cooper stilled, I leaned my forehead against his, breathing heavily. He seemed to come back to himself, taking in the flush in my cheeks, the disheveled clothes. He pressed his ear to my chest, breathed in my scent, and listened to the beat of my heart.

When I leaned back, he traced the bite mark with his fingertips. His eyes focused, and his lip trembled.

“I should run.”

I cocked my head, sure that I’d heard him wrong. “I’m sorry?”

He gently pulled me out of his lap and fastened my jeans. “I need to run. Clear my head a little. There are some things I need to work through, and I don’t want to be around you when I do it.” He helped me out of the truck, carrying me to the front door, as I seemed to have lost my boots in the cab somewhere.

“You don’t have to go,” I told him as he shrugged out of his shirt.

He kissed my cheek. “I’ll be home soon.”

I heard his clothes fall to the porch and the soft thump of his paws hitting the ground after he leaped off the porch. I rolled my eyes at the ceiling.

Werewolves could be so melodramatic.

I WALKED INTO the bedroom and peeled off my clothes, which were now suspiciously stained and smelled of raw steak and sautéed onions. The house seemed so empty, even with the turtlenecked Oscar yipping and yapping at my heels. I’d become accustomed all too quickly to midnight snacks, communal showering (for water conservation, of course), and going to bed together. As tired as I was, the idea of crawling under cold sheets alone was depressing.

I slipped into one of Cooper’s T-shirts, pulled Oscar into my lap, and fired up my computer. I’d been dealing with this werewolf issue from the wrong angle, trying to apply stuff I’d learned from movies and myths or Mutual of Omaha specials. I was dealing with real people. Cooper said there were packs all over the world. There had to be other bewildered were-girlfriends out there. I just had to find them.

Unfortunately, you get a lot of weird results when you Google “werewolf girlfriend.”

Gingerly touching my spanking-new bite mark, I waded through pages of results before finding a Web site for some occult book shop in Kentucky called Specialty Books. It was the only online store I could find that carried relationship-advice books for people dating were-creatures. It’s not as if they carry this stuff on Amazon.com. I bought four hundred dollars’ worth of books and agreed to the outrageous shipping prices.

I continued to surf, trying to distinguish the “could be factual” from the “total crap.” A lot of stuff I already knew from experience. For instance, according to WerewolvesDebunked.com, werewolves were far more in touch with their natural instincts than most humanoid supernatural creatures, which also made them impulsive, temperamental, fiercely territorial, and intensely physical. Sound like anyone I know?

And I learned why Cooper ate so much and never gained a damn ounce. Shifting from human to wolf requires huge amounts of energy. Younger werewolves have to scarf down calories all day to keep their bodies fueled and ready to change. There’s also a bit of instinctual hard-wiring to keep fed, because real wolves never really know when their next meal will be.

I didn’t know, however, that there was no “magic bullet” solution—silver or otherwise—to kill a werewolf. While they do have increased healing abilities to cope with their rough-and-tumble lifestyle, wolves are as vulnerable as any creature. So if it will kill a real person or wolf, it will kill a werewolf. I couldn’t explain why, but that made me feel both more and less safe.

I was surprised to find that there were many kinds of were-creatures. Bears, horses, lions, skunks, cats, dogs. Name any animal, and there is likely a person out there who can change into it.

At this point, I eyed Oscar suspiciously. “If you turn out to be a potbellied, middle-aged accountant, I will be supremely annoyed.”

Oscar huffed, as if the very idea offended him.

16

Moroseville, Population: Me

FOR THE NEXT FEW days, my face felt as if I’d been head-butted by a cement truck and didn’t look much better. I spent most of the next day in the kitchen to avoid questioning looks from customers. The last thing I needed was domestic-abuse rumors running rampant in Grundy. Alan might clamp a bear trap on Cooper intentionally.

Cooper was reverting to his previous “grumpy bastard” persona to everyone but me. He seemed to want to pretend we’d never gone to the valley. Other than giving me updates on Pops and occasionally inspecting my injured eye, he didn’t comment on his family. He was, however, snapping at the general population and being overprotective to the point of annoying me.

It didn’t help that he was leaving town for the next few days to escort a group of Tennessee lawyers interested in hunting caribou about seventy miles south of Grundy. I wasn’t anxious. I knew he had to work. He’d taken fewer guide jobs since we’d “taken up together,” as Abner called it. But he seemed afraid to leave me alone, unwilling to be away from me. It was sweet, but knowing I had that sort of pull over someone was strangely uncomfortable. I was used to my parents’ overbearing attention, but it was something I’d worked to avoid. The emotional growing pains were starting to freak me out.

“I want you to promise me that you won’t take Oscar out at night by yourself,” he said in a voice that sounded so dangerously close to a command I considered threatening several of his orifices with a spatula. He was keeping pace with me as I crossed from the stove to the pass, back and forth, more like a caged animal than I’d ever seen him. I didn’t think provoking him with kitchen utensils was a great idea at this juncture. “Don’t get out of sight of the cabin. Lock up tight at night.”

“OK, but you’re ruining my plans. Evie and I were going to order pizza, raid the liquor cabinet, and invite some boys over to play Spin the Bottle.”

“I’m not kidding, Mo,” he said, shooting a snarling glare toward where Alan sat devouring pancakes.

“I lived alone for years before you came along,” I told him, taking his chin in my hands and giving him a stern look.

He countered, “Within six months of moving here, you were robbed at knifepoint and stumbled into the path of an angry bear.”

I shrugged. “So if the laws of probability hold, the chance of anything else happening to me is pretty low.”

He growled, a low rumble that started deep in his chest. “Mo.”

“Honey, I know this is all part of that instinctual protective alpha-male thing, but you’re pissing me off. You’re the one who’s going to be stuck in the woods with a bunch of drunk, armed attorneys. Frankly, I’m more concerned for your safety.” I snickered, kissing his chin where I’d swiped flour across his skin. “But I promise, I will not go out alone, tell unknown callers I’m home by myself, or accept candy from men driving unmarked vans.”