Chapter Eleven #5
“You need your eyes checked.” Sasha ducked his head, heat crawling over his cheeks that had nothing to do with the sun. “My hair’s the color of a traffic cone, and these glasses make me look like a disappointed librarian.”
“Your hair’s beautiful.” Each word was even, slow, and devastatingly intimate. “Like autumn leaves. And those glasses? They make your eyes look as blue as this water.”
This couldn’t be real. Sasha glanced away, wondering what the catch was. There was always a catch. At least for him. Every guy he’d ever dated—which could be counted on one hand—had wanted something in return for their affection.
Borrowed bed. Borrowed money. Borrowed Sasha.
But the way Quinn looked at him, steady and sure like Sasha was something worth studying.
It felt real. Felt like maybe, for once, someone actually saw him.
Not as a convenience, not as currency, but as someone inherently valuable.
For the first time, he didn’t feel like the in-between guy, the backup plan, the “good enough for now.”
The waterfall thundered behind him, spray cool against his heated skin. Quinn drifted closer, movements careful like Sasha was some skittish, beautiful thing.
His hand lifted toward Sasha’s face, pausing inches away. A question in the gesture.
Sasha’s brain screamed at him to backstroke away, to crack a joke, to do something other than nod. But that’s exactly what he did, one tiny dip of his chin that felt like jumping off a cliff.
Quinn’s fingers brushed his cheek, thumb sliding along his jaw. Sparks lit up Sasha’s nervous system, trembling hands betraying him even under water.
“Been wanting to do this since you handed me that coffee.” Quinn’s other hand found Sasha’s waist, steadying him in the current. “You smiled at me over the counter and I just…knew.”
“Knew what?” The question came out embarrassingly breathy.
“That you were going to wreck me completely.”
This big stormy-eyed man was confessing that Sasha’s smile had undone him before he even knew his name.
Quinn leaned in. The first press of lips was careful, almost hesitant. Testing. When Sasha didn’t pull away—couldn’t pull away, frozen between flight and whatever this was—Quinn made a soft sound and deepened the kiss, like he was learning Sasha one heartbeat at a time.
The world narrowed to points of contact. Quinn’s mouth, warm despite the cool water. His hands, one cradling Sasha’s face like something precious, the other solid on his hip. The water lapping between them, the waterfall’s roar fading to white noise.
It was a full universe collapsing to the space between them.
Sasha had kissed people before. Quick fumble of lips, awkward contact in the dark. Nothing that made his knees weak and his heart race like crazy. His lips barely left Sasha’s before returning, each kiss a slow claim that left no part of him untouched.
Quinn’s hand found his under the water, fingers lacing. Such a simple touch, but it sent electricity racing up Sasha’s arm.
When they broke apart, Sasha felt dazed. Off-kilter, like the world had shifted while he wasn’t paying attention. Quinn stayed close, forehead nearly touching his, both of them breathing harder than a simple kiss warranted.
Quinn’s thumb stroked along Sasha’s jaw.
“I…you.” Words. He should use more words. Form complete sentences like a functional adult. “That was…”
Quinn smiled softly, a little wonderingly, like he felt as off-balance as Sasha did. “Incredible.”
They stood there in the waterfall’s spray, Quinn’s fingers lacing through his once more, and Sasha never wanted the afternoon to end.
He wanted to stay suspended in this moment where a beautiful man looked at him like he was interested in Sasha and not what he could provide.
Where his biggest worry was pruning fingers instead of angry cousins and mysterious money soaking in his pocket.
Quinn started to lean in again then froze. His hands dropped from Sasha’s face as his whole body went rigid. The transformation happened so fast it left Sasha reeling.
“What—”
“Shh.” Quinn’s attention fixed on something past the trees, eyes narrowed. Every line of his body screamed alertness, tension, like an animal sensing danger. “We need to go.”
“What are you talking about?” Sasha followed his gaze but saw nothing except forest and sky. Had he spotted a wild animal? “Quinn?”
“Now.”
* * * *
The scent of coyotes struck Quinn in all the wrong ways. He cut through the water, putting himself between the threat and Sasha as a pair of strangers emerged onto the path. Something in their easy swagger, the calculated casualness of their approach, made the hair on Quinn’s neck stand rigid.
The taller one’s leather jacket was frayed at the cuffs, his lanky frame coiled with a tension that reminded Quinn of a compressed spring. Beside him, his buddy’s face bore a vicious scar from hairline to chin, twisting his mouth into a permanent sneer.
Neither smiled, but their eyes swept over the scene with the focused attention. They moved in perfect tandem, like hunters who knew their prey was already trapped.
Quinn pulled himself out of the pool in one fluid motion, water dripping from his clothes. His wet jeans clung uncomfortably to his legs, but the discomfort barely registered as his wolf surged forward, sensing the danger.
“Private party, fellas,” Quinn said, keeping his voice casual despite the tension coiling through his muscles.
Scarface smirked, gaze flicking past Quinn. “Nice spot you found. Even nicer company.”
Behind him, water sloshed as Sasha climbed, his breath coming in quick, shallow gasps. Quinn could smell his mate’s confusion and the first tendrils of fear, sharp and acrid beneath the clean scent of water and cherry blossoms.
“Quinn?” Sasha’s voice was low, uncertain. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he answered, reaching back to squeeze Sasha’s hand briefly. “Just a misunderstanding these gentlemen are about to correct by leaving.”
Scarface tilted his head, nostrils flaring slightly. “Smells like you’ve got yourself a pet. Sweet little thing, too.”
The casual threat in those words made Quinn’s wolf claw at his control. He tamped it down with effort, acutely aware of Sasha standing behind him, still oblivious to the supernatural showdown unfolding.
“Last chance,” Quinn warned, voice dropping to a register that made Sasha inhale sharply behind him. “Walk away.”
The coyotes exchanged glances, some silent communication passing between them. Lanky’s smile widened, revealing teeth that seemed too sharp for a human mouth.
“I don’t think so,” he said, rolling his shoulders like a boxer preparing to strike. “We like it here.”
Sasha tugged at Quinn’s arm. “Let’s just go. This isn’t worth fighting over.”
If only it were that simple. Quinn knew the coyotes wouldn’t let them leave without a confrontation. Not when they’d found a wolf with his vulnerable, human companion. So far, the coyotes didn’t know Sasha was his mate, and Quinn wanted to keep it that way.
Silently, he prayed Sasha would stay behind him, that he wouldn’t have to shift in front of his mate who had no idea preternatural existed outside of horror movies. The last thing he wanted was to terrify the man he’d just found, but these coyotes didn’t look as if they would back down.
Without warning, Scarface lunged toward Quinn, while Lanky darted around them, making a grab for Sasha who’d just taken a startled step backward.
With a deep snarl, Quinn shoved Sasha back then shifted.
Chapter Four
Everything happened at once. The man with the scar lunged toward Quinn, while the skinny one darted around them, heading straight for Sasha. Quinn shoved Sasha back with enough force to send him stumbling then turned to meet the attack.
What happened next broke Sasha’s understanding of reality.
Where a man had stood a split second before, a massive wolf now crouched, fur dark as midnight and wet from the pool. The transformation happened without warning, human to animal in the space between blinks.
“Holy fuck!” The scream tore from Sasha’s throat, high and broken. His knees buckled, sending him sprawling backward onto the rocky shore. His mind refused to process what his eyes were seeing.
Not real, not real, not real.
The strangers shifted in response, their human forms melting away to reveal smaller, leaner predators with tawny coats. Coyotes. Actual freaking coyotes! They circled, yipping and snapping.
Sasha’s brain short-circuited.
People didn’t turn into animals. That wasn’t a thing that happened outside of movies with bad CGI and worse plots. Yet here he was, watching as Quinn—the guy who’d kissed him senseless minutes ago—lunged at the coyotes with bared fangs.
One of the coyotes lunged at Sasha, who scrambled backward, tripping over the uneven ground.
Quinn launched himself through the air, intercepting the coyote mid-leap.
They crashed to the ground in a tangle of fur and teeth, snarling and snapping.
The other coyote circled, looking for an opening, then darted forward to snap at Quinn’s flank.
Quinn’s jaws closed around the coyote’s scruff, shaking hard enough to make the smaller animal yelp. He flung it aside just as the second coyote attacked from behind, teeth sinking into Quinn’s flank.
Sasha backed away until his legs hit the same fallen log he’d been sitting on earlier. His glasses were slipping down his nose from the water still dripping off his hair, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the impossible scene before him.
The sounds alone would haunt his nightmares. Growls and snarls seemed to vibrate the very air, along with the thud of bodies hitting the ground, the snap of jaws.
Quinn broke free from his attacker and intercepted the first one who’d recovered quickly, his larger body slamming the coyote away from Sasha. Teeth flashed in the sunlight. Blood spattered across rocks.
The coyotes worked as a team, one distracting while the other darted in to strike.