CHAPTER 6
Staring at Michael, I didn’t know if I should be terrified or thrilled.
My more evolved instincts were screaming at me to get the hell out of the shower stall and put some space between us, while my wolf brain wanted to howl in celebration.
Not only was my mate my near-equal in both size and strength, but he packed the magical equivalent of an atomic bomb.
One unfortunate side effect of being the product of hundreds of years of selective breeding was that along with increased size and strength and super-scary wolf powers, I was also a little more primitive than most other shifters.
I fought my instincts constantly, and even after decades of shackling my more troublesome desires, I still struggled sometimes.
If someone looked at me funny, my first instinct was to snap my teeth in their face in a show of dominance.
Anytime something ran past me, whether that be a squirrel or a deer or even some unsuspecting human out for an early morning jog, I wanted to chase them down.
I might not ever do any of those things, but the desire never really went away.
My birth pack only allowed the biggest and the baddest among their kind to breed, and I’d learned over the years that I was hardwired to seek out the same thing.
Up until Michael, my boyfriends had been some of the largest males in my adoptive pack, men who towered head and shoulders above me and had the bodies of Olympic wrestlers.
Now here Michael was, and even though he wasn’t as physically imposing as my past partners, between the abilities he’d inherited from me and his inborn magic, he was the biggest, baddest werewolf I’d ever laid eyes on.
He took a step toward me, still smiling that beatific smile. “Layla.”
A shiver ran up my spine. His voice was imbued with magic, and it confused my senses. It was like being back at the bonding ritual and listening to the mystic address the crowd, like he’d spoken my name from far away and whispered it into my ear at the same time.
“Michael?” I said, wary.
He didn’t seem like himself right now. Hell, he didn’t even look like himself.
There was something so ancient in his gaze that it was almost alien.
Every muscle in my body tensed, waiting for him to snap.
The last time he hadn’t seemed like himself, he hadn’t been himself, and he’d tried to attack me.
He made a low, pleased sound and took another step forward, his gaze falling to my lips. His voice gained a husky edge. “I like it when you say my name.”
I let out a shaky breath and took a step back, trying to keep some space between us.
Despite the fact that he was setting off my defensive instincts, heat gathered low in my belly.
He’d stopped suppressing his emotions sometime in the past few minutes.
I’d been desperately trying to keep a cool head on my shoulders, but the smell of his arousal and the soft, caressing feel of lust coursing through the bond threatened to undo me.
With one more shrug of his massive shoulders, the bars caging his newly gained wolf powers fell away, and I faced my unbound mate for the first time since we’d bonded.
Amber rolled over his irises, the iridescence of his wolf sight overlaying the deep black of night in a way that was both inhuman and unwolflike.
Holy shit.
He took another step, his thick cock lifting from where it lay against his thigh to swell to full arousal.
I licked my lips and raised my gaze back to his.
Here was my mate, the most dangerous wolf I had ever met, whom I had yet to consummate my bond with, and we were alone and relatively safe for the first time in days thanks to his ward.
He lifted a hand and stroked it through the air near my arm, his fingers an inch off my skin.
That strange, ghostly sheen surrounded his hand again, pearlescing between his fingers, and even though he wasn’t physically touching me, I felt the impression of his caress slipping over my skin.
The only feeling I could compare it to was electricity, like I’d walked past a downed live wire in the middle of a storm.
“Why are you shielding?” he asked, still speaking in that strange, unsettling voice.
“Because I’m afraid of what will happen if I stop,” I said. “You don’t seem like yourself right now, Michael.”
His gaze had been downcast, watching the movement of his hand up my arm, but he stilled and lifted his eyes to mine. “I am more myself right now than I have ever been around you.”
I sucked in a deep breath, trying to search out the truth in that statement.
Aside from the lust rolling off him and the tangy, burnt smell of blood and magic, he seemed…
relaxed. Fully at peace. For the first time since I’d met him.
There was no lingering anxiety about what waited for us outside these walls, no fear for what his mother might try to do to us, because when you had this much raw power coursing through your veins, what was there to be afraid of?
My perception of him shifted with the force of a landslide.
This was why Michael was so in control all of the time.
This was why he kept himself locked down and hidden from everyone around him.
He wore three-piece suits like armor. He spoke slowly, carefully, enunciating every large word in his vocabulary, not just because he wanted to lull his enemies into a false sense of security by hiding his wolf powers and presenting the front of the tame, cultured near-human, but because if anyone ever found out how much power he packed, it would paint a target on his back the size of the city.
Every preternatural the Kolbecks had ever wronged would come after him, hell-bent on taking out the threat he posed.
And I was just beginning to inherit his powers.
No wonder Anna showed up to warn us. It seemed less altruistic now and more self-serving.
Because this kind of power paired with my total lack of control over it came with the serious risk of exposure, and above all else, the humans could never, ever know of our existence.
There were billions of them to our millions.
Even with all our combined preternatural abilities, we couldn’t win against such odds.
Michael’s hands closed around my biceps, jerking me from my thoughts as he pulled me forward into that big, hard body.
Oh, Goddess. My will to keep a clear head began to crumble.
We were always so careful about touching each other.
In public, we rarely did. Even alone, we kept it to a minimum, still unused to the way the bond magnified everything between us.
The gentlest brush of fingertips exploded my awareness of him and came with a delicious rush of heat that felt like little bolts of lightning streaking beneath my skin.
And now we were both fully nude, plastered together, with his thick cock trapped between us.
It was too much. My wolf brain wanted Michael on an instinctual level, but the human side of me wanted him for so much more than that.
He was kind to me, treated me as his equal in all things, had an endearing number of quirks, wanted me with uncomplicated intensity, and looked just as devastating in a three-piece suit as he did an old pair of jeans and a faded T-shirt.
He stepped forward, pushing into me, and my back hit the cold wall of the shower. A gentle brush alighted on my psyche, like fingers stroking across my consciousness. Those impossible eyes gazed into mine from an inch away, and then Michael closed them and leaned his forehead against mine.
His hands fell to my hips, stroking and kneading my skin. “Let me in, Layla.”
It was only then that I realized how hard I’d shielded myself, using the trick he taught me in the cave of infusing the bars that guarded my powers with titanium and then drawing them in close, so there wasn’t enough room to penetrate through them.
I’d been afraid he might snap, and had subconsciously protected myself against the threat of his lunacy affecting me over the bond.
Holding it so tightly took effort. Effort I was unused to, which strained my abilities.
I couldn’t see any harm in relaxing my grip over my powers, not when I was in the middle of a ward so powerful that it had cut access to my phone, and with a sigh of release, I relaxed my shield and let my power roll out of me.
My senses exploded into life. It was like I’d been sleeping and suddenly jolted wide awake.
Colors bloomed into their full spectrum.
Smells grew richer. My synapses flared, my nerve endings sparked, and now I could feel every place Michael and I were connected in minute detail, both mentally and physically. It was both too much and not enough.
I felt another tug on my psyche.
“Let me in, Layla,” Michael crooned, sounding more wolf than man.
I hesitated. Should I let him in right now?
Was it safe to? I took a deep breath through my nose, testing the air.
His scent had stabilized, and I felt none of the madness of lunacy coming over the bond.
He’d just told me he was more himself than ever before, and if I trusted him, truly trusted him as much as I claimed to, then I needed to take him at his word.