“Can I leave the township?”
“Of course. You can go wherever you choose, but I’d advise talking with your wolf brothers first. We like to know when one of us is leaving so we can be found quickly if something happens.”
Wolf brothers. It wasn’t a phrase Devan had ever imagined would be relevant in his life, supernatural or otherwise, but it wasn’t as offensive as he might’ve assumed.
Dressed in Varian’s rich voice, he liked it.
Chapter Six
Zio lurked behind Emma’s favourite apple tree. It had a broad trunk and was the only tree in her small orchard that reliably bore fruit. Not that there was much fruit around at this time of year. Winter was cold, grey, and wet, and it suited Zio’s mood. Shifting had calmed his frantic thoughts, but the fact remained that even if the Shadow Clan healer wasn’t the unknown shifter he’d dropped his pants for in the club, he still had to share his home—and Emma’s space—with a stranger.
A stranger he was waiting for behind a tree despite the fact that any approaching supernatural being would catch his scent on the wind.
Loser.
But in this strange new world, Zio needed a few more moments out of sight.
The wind picked up. He sniffed the air, and his blood began to burn as the fragrance haunting his dreams reached him, faint but unmistakable. Sweet and perfect. Zio braced himself for impact, to run if the draw he’d felt in the club overwhelmed him again, but as footsteps trod the path leading to the bungalow, he didn’t flee. Couldn’t.I have to see him.
He saw Gale first, stone-faced and earnest as ever. He was senior beta in the pack, and fuck, if he didn’t take it seriously.You wouldn’t catch him losing his shit in a club.
Of course you wouldn’t. Gale was selfless and a good man. The best. Zio was... something else.
Gale’s companion stepped out of the shadows. His white-blond hair caught the light of the streetlamp, and even from a distance, Zio’s sharp wolf gaze picked up his ocean-blue eyes, so typical of Shadow Clan, or so he’d been told—that their eyes morphed with the change. He’d never seen one to test the rumour. Only heard tall tales of their famous alphas—the supreme healer and his vampire-turned-shifter mate.
Those eyes, though.Overcome, Zio fell to his knees. He hadn’t seen the healer’s face in the club. Hadn’t catalogued his lithe frame and glorious cheekbones. He was smaller than Zio had imagined him, but he was glorious in every way... except his damn-fucking genes.If he was a wolf—
But he wasn’t a wolf. He was Shadow Clan, and he was here to take Emma’s place. To sleep in her bed and erase her scent from Zio’s home once and for all.
Zio staggered to his feet, testing the gravitating pull in his gut. It was still there, had been ever since he’d first encountered the healer—Devan. His name is Devan—but muted by grief and unenhanced by booze, it simmered at a level Zio could handle. He took a deep breath, absorbing Devan’s scent as he drew nearer to Zio’s hiding place. A shiver ran through Zio, but he steeled himself against it, blocking out whatever sensation it had meant to leave behind.
A growl rumbled out of his chest.Fuck you, healer. You won’t get me like that again.
“I knew it was you.”
Zio blinked.
Devan was somehow in front of him, arms folded across his chest, Gale nowhere in sight.
“How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Sneak up on me. You were twenty feet away a split second ago.”
“No, I wasn’t. You spaced out, and I took advantage of your distraction. Do you want to fight me, Zio?”
“What?”
Devan tilted his head sideways. “You were growling. Your brother says you’re like that with everyone, but I wondered if it was personal, considering we’ve met before.”
“That didn’t happen.”
Devan nodded. “Suits me.”
He turned on his heel and walked away, his booted feet leaving no imprint on the orchard ground.
Zio watched him go, astonishment warring with a crippling disappointment he couldn’t decipher. It felt like an anti-climax. A painful one, and it shouldn’t have done, because he’d already established that his reaction to Devan the first time around had nothing to do with Devan himself and everything to do with Zio.