Wendy and Chandler were both bitten shifters so I couldn’t figure out how I’d just delivered a born female shifter. It made no sense. I thought it was a logical leap since she was a jaguar like Chandler, that the anomaly must be from his side of the gene pool, but it was just a guess. It’s not like there were any medical journals about shifter genetic studies that I could consult.

  Madison knocked on my doorframe. “Want to help me install some car seats for the new parents?”

  “Sure.” I took her hand as I left my office, enjoying the way her fingers laced with mine as we headed outside.

  We unpacked the car seats from the freshly unwrapped boxes and took one to either side to install them. It took me a couple of tries to get mine buckled correctly into the back seat, but it was solid now.

  Madison grinned at me from the other side of the car. “Nice work, Dr. Vega.”

  “I know you got yours installed first.” I chuckled with a wink.

  Chandler and Wendy got the newborns settled into the seats, and we waved as the new parents drove away.

  “She looks awfully pale. Are you sure she’s all right?” Madison asked.

  I nodded. “Her vitals are strong, and werewolves heal pretty fast. She’ll be okay.” I glanced over at Madison as we walked over to my truck. “You must have questions for me, right?”

  She nodded. “And then some.”

  I looked up at the sky and back to her face. “We probably still have a couple hours of daylight left. Are you up for a hike to the swimming hole?”

  She laughed. “I don’t have my swimsuit.”

  “Then we’ll just wade.” I lowered my voice. “Full disclosure, I’m just not ready to take you home yet, and it’ll be safe to talk there without anyone overhearing us.”

  “What about all the dangerous people?”

  At least she was taking my warning seriously. “There are no cameras out there. We’d probably be safer than being spotted in town, and I’d catch their scent before anyone could sneak up on us.”

  She slid her hand into her pocket with a hint of a smile. “Well, if we’re being honest, I’m in no rush to go unpack boxes, either.”

  “Good.” We got into my truck. “Burritos on the way?”

  She nodded with a smile. “Sounds great.”

  By the time we parked at the trailhead near Bell Rock, the twilight shadows were spreading out across the valley. I spent most of the drive on the phone with Adam from the Reno Pack, peppering him with questions. My head was buzzing with new information I couldn’t prove. Yet.

  It sounded like my hunch about the anomaly being from Chandler’s side of the gene pool was probably right, and that meant questioning he and Madison more about their family history. I could wait a couple of days, though. Chandler was busy with newborn twins, and Madison had already told me she’d reached her fill of weirdness for the day.

  She got out of the truck and stretched, eyeing the trail. “You’re sure about this? It’s getting dark. Should we try again tomorrow?”

  “This is the best time to go. The temperature is cooler, and we’ll have the place to ourselves.”

  I wouldn’t have any trouble seeing in the dark, but the full moon was right around the corner so there would be plenty of moonlight shining on us, too. Plus being out here, away from the lights of the city, I could relax a little, knowing we wouldn’t be spotted together. Being with me wasn’t going to add a target to her back.

  “All right.” She walked over to the trailhead. “I guess that’ll give us some time for you to help me wrap my head around shifters being a real thing, and that you…are one.”

  I chuckled. “You can say werewolf.” I took her hand, grateful she didn’t pull away. “I promise you won’t catch it.”

  We started down the trail. “Is it like the movies?” she asked. “Like do you turn into a big wolf and bite people? Or is it like the old legends of drinking water from a werewolf’s paw print?”

  “Wow. I haven’t heard that one in a while. But neither of those examples are right.” I glanced her way. “I do shift into a larger-than-normal-sized wolf during the full moon, but we never go near humans.” The trail angled up slightly, and I kept an eye on Madison. She had no trouble with the incline in the fading light. I cleared my throat and went on. “You already heard us talking about the shifter gene for werewolves and jaguar shifters usually being carried on the Y chromosome from father to son, so I was born a werewolf. For a human to become a werewolf, though, they’d have to be bitten while the werewolf is in his wolf form.”

  She looked my way. “That’s why you were on the phone with Adam tonight. Chandler had a little girl today, which surprised all of you.”

  “Well, yeah. The fact he had a girl at all and then that she’s also a jaguar shifter like her dad were both a big shock.” I shrugged, thinking out loud. “I expected to be delivering twin boys, and I thought they’d either both be werewolves or both be jaguars.” I squeezed her hand. “Finding one of each, and that one is a girl…is pretty rare.”

  “Could she have taken after my brother even though he was bitten? He wasn’t born a shifter like you.”

  I lifted our joined hands, kissing the back of hers. “Truth is, I don’t know for sure.” I glanced over at her. “I thought you were done with shifter weirdness for the day.”

  She chuckled. “I’m also curious, so what can I say? It’s a catch twenty-two.”

  I admired her more every second. “Up in the Reno Pack, Adam and his mate, Lana, were both born shifters. Lana’s mother was part of a breeding experiment from a biotech defense contractor called the Nero Organization. When Lana was born as a shifter, she proved their theory could work, then she passed the shifter gene on to her daughter.”

  Madison stopped walking. “His mate?”

  I blinked. Dammit. I’d been rambling, not thinking. “His wife.”

  “But you said mate.” She looked up into my eyes. “Is that a werewolf thing? Because wolves, in general, have mates.”

  There was no going back now. I wasn’t going to lie to her. Not anymore. “Yes, they do. One mate for life.”

  She took a small step back. “Have you… Do you have one already?”

  “No.” My heightened hearing made it impossible to miss the way her pulse was racing like a damned greyhound. Shit. “I mean, I didn’t.” Her eyes were like saucers now as the scales tipped to information overload. I cleared my throat and struggled to shrug it off. “I thought I’d never find her.”

  That was true enough.

  She swallowed and took another step away from me. “I…I can’t…”

  A whoosh of nervous energy hit me like a solid roundhouse kick to the gut. Anxious sweat beaded on my forehead, and my pulse ratcheted up to match hers. What the fuck was happening to me? I reached for her, but she stumbled backward.

  My wolf howled, vibrating through my spirit, calling to her. Our mate.

  Her eyes widened. “Me? How is this possible?”

  My jaw dropped. Had she heard my thoughts again? I tried to keep my voice low and even, but the panic inside was crushing me. It was getting harder to tell if it was hers or mine. “Talk to me, Madison. I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  “I don’t, either,” she squeaked.

  My breathing was shallow, again mirroring hers. And then I heard it.

  Help me. Locked. Hurts. Dark.

  Madison met my eyes. “Do you hear her, too?”

  I nodded, scanning the horizon even though I was certain I hadn’t heard the voice with my ears.

  She grabbed my hand. “We have to help her.”

  “First, we need to get a grip.” I forced in a deep breath, then another. “Breathe with me.”

  Her gaze locked on mine, and we anchored each other. Her heartbeat gradually slowed until it matched mine, and although the most we’d physically shared was kissing, I’d never been this intimate with anyone in my entire life. Just standing in the gathering darkness, alone in the valley under the watchful gaze of the Red Rocks, staring into her eyes, I felt more connected to her than I ever thought possible.

  “So much for taking things slow,” she whispered. A tentative smile curved her lips. “I’m a million miles off the deep end with you.”

  I pulled her into my arms, kissing the top of her head as I hummed the line from the song we’d sang together at karaoke. “So fucking far from the shallow now.”

  Her laughter saved me. I didn’t have a clue what was happening with our shared connection, or the telepathic voice crying for help, but clinging to her in the twilight, there was a nugget of peace spreading through my chest.

  Whatever the this was, we’d face it together. And for now, that was enough.

  CHAPTER 12

  Madison

  I clung to Cole like a lifeline in a hurricane. Closing my eyes, I drank in his scent, grounding myself in this spot with him. Today I’d learned shifters existed, that my brother and my—I wasn’t sure what Cole was to me yet, but they were both shifters.

  And I was…his mate? I closed my eyes again.

  He kissed the top of my head. “Want to go back to the truck? I can take you home.”

  “No.” I pulled back to see his face. “We came this far; I want to see the Beaver Crack.”

  “The Crack at Beaver Creek.” He chuckled.

  “Whatever it’s called.” I smirked. His smile buoyed me. My entire world kept shifting beneath my feet but having Cole beside me helped me stay upright.

  He took my hand, leading the way without prodding me with questions about my freak-out earlier. Cole seemed to have a second sense about when I needed time and space to breathe. I didn’t understand how, but he did.

  And right now, my bandwidth for the otherworldly was strained. A single question kept spiraling through my head over and over. Why me?

  Why could I hear this telepathic cry from a woman trapped someplace dark? Why would I be able to hear Cole’s thoughts sometimes? And as unbelievable as it seemed, as soon as he’d told me about mates, I’d known I was his.

  No. All of this was impossible. It didn’t make any sense rationally. But seriously, if werewolves were real and I was falling for one, my line for impossible had moved miles from where it used to be.

  All of it circled back to me. Why me of all people?

  I came from dysfunctional and distant parents, and had set the bar so high for a relationship that I’d never had one. I’d bet that wasn’t so far off from the rest of the world, though. None of that seemed to point to a penchant for telepathy or being a werewolf’s mate.

  Yet, here I was, hiking to a creek in the middle of nowhere with a shifter who understood me better than any man I’d ever known.

  We crested a hill, and Cole stopped and pointed. “See that tower of rocks over there?”

  The moonlight cast a dreamy filter of blue light over the red landscape, but the shape of the rocks was clear. I nodded. “Is that it?”

  “That’s Wet Beaver Creek.” He smirked and added, “The Crack is the swimming hole on the other side of those rocks.”

  He slid his arm around my waist as if we’d known each other forever. “I’ve never brought anyone here before.”

  I looked up at him, surprised by his admission, although I wasn’t sure why. “How did you find it?”

  “My brother and I used to come up with our high school friends. After that, I started coming up every once in a while when I need to think.”

  Moments like this reminded me that even though this weird bond between us felt natural, I didn’t really know much about Cole. “You have a brother?”

  He nodded and turned to meet my gaze. Pain shone in his eyes, and suddenly, I heard his voice in my head.

  Chase.

  What did that mean? I frowned. “You chased him?”

  His eyes widened a little. “No. His name was Chase. How did you…”

  His voice trailed off as my vision blurred. “Sorry. I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I heard you thinking about Chase. How come this keeps happening? How is it even possible?”

  “I don’t know yet.” He drew me into his arms, embracing me tightly. “But we’ll figure it out.”

  My heart pounded as adrenaline scorched my frazzled nerves. I whispered against his chest. “This is all too much.”

  I couldn’t be hearing Cole’s thoughts, but there was no possible way I could’ve guessed his brother’s name. Until this week, I didn’t think telepathy could be a real thing or that people could shift into animals. My head throbbed. This had to be a bizarre dream. But I wasn’t waking up.

  I pulled back, boxing up the panic welling inside me. “Tell me about Chase.” Anything to distract me from considering that I might have a psychic ability I’d never realized existed.

  He took my hand, our fingers threading together as we started down the trail again. “He was my best friend. He died in a fight to free the pack from our old Alpha. I miss him every day.” His tone was raw, honest, and full of pain. “Chase could look at any situation and find a solution. Whenever anyone in the pack had a problem, they went to my brother.” A soft smile curved his lips as he glanced my way. “And the guy could tell a dirty joke.” He faced forward again. “Damn, I miss laughing with him.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

  He didn’t look my way, but his thumb stroked my hand, silently acknowledging me. We were quiet the rest of the way until we reached the rocks. As we rounded the bend, the swimming hole came into view below us. The moonlight sparkled on the water. A creek bubbled, feeding out of the main body of water. Bathed in the faint light, the area seemed ethereal, as if we’d stepped into another world.

  Just us.

  “It’s beautiful, right?” he whispered.

  “Yeah.” I looked up at him, studying his profile in the soft hue of the moon. He wasn’t human. I toyed with the thought, testing the waters to see if anxiety flared again. There was a connection between us that I didn’t understand, or maybe I understood more than I wanted to admit. “Describe it to me through your wolf senses.”

  He tensed beside me and finally met my eyes. “You sure?”

  Was I? My pulse wasn’t racing. I could breathe. “Yeah.”

  He pointed down at the pool of water below us. “My night vision isn’t as great as your brother’s, but there’s a deer in the shadows down there.” He pulled in a deep breath and added, “My sense of smell is much stronger than my vision. There’s a pack of coyotes just north of us, and judging by the faint scent of perfume, sweat, and beer, I’d guess the last group of humans left this spot about two hours before we got here.”

  “You’re amazing.” I searched his eyes as a bewildered chuckle escaped my lips. “I still can’t quite pinpoint the second that my reality took such a sharp turn into the realm of things I always thought were impossible. Two days ago, my life seemed so ordinary, and then you drove up to my barn and lifted some kind of veil I never realized was there.”

  His lips curved into a sexy, crooked smile. “To be fair, I didn’t tell you the truth about shifters until a few hours ago. I was just a large-animal vet taking care of cattle the day we met.”

  I bit my lower lip as I slid my arms around his waist. “I’m still glad I met you.”

  He chuckled, moving his rough hands up my arms to cup my face. “I can’t believe I found you.”

  Found.

  A lump formed in my throat. I really was his fairy tale. How was this possible? A hoarse whisper was all I could muster, but he was a werewolf. He’d hear me anyway. “I’m your mate. Are you sure?”

  He sobered, taking in every inch of my face. “Yes. I know you are.”

  I sighed, shaking my head. “How can this be real? I’ve led a totally ordinary life until the past few days. Now I’m hearing people’s thoughts, standing in the middle of nowhere at night with a werewolf and probably no cell signal, and I keep circling back to that one question. If fate really did choose me for your mate, then…why?”

  He kissed me, tender and heart-stoppingly slow until I ached for more. His kisses were like a drug. He finally drew back, his gaze locked on mine. “Nothing about you is ordinary, Madison. You uprooted your life and started a new one here because you loved your brother and you wanted to be a part of his new family. That’s fearless. Most people wouldn’t do that, not even for family.”

  I wasn’t sure I agreed with him, but he went on before I could debate it.

  “You have been honest about everything from being new at your job, to your ambition to attend that fundraiser, to your promise not to give your heart unless it was forever.” He searched my eyes. “I’ve never been open like that in my entire life. You don’t play pretend. You’re all in.” He shook his head, his thumb stroking my cheek. “Even before you grabbed my hand and my wolf howled in my soul, recognizing you as our mate, I was bewitched by you.”

  And there was the look I’d seen while we were singing, the intensity in his eyes that said I was the only thing in the world that mattered. Was it just the wolf instinct making him look at me like that?

  I took a step back, unable to think straight while he was touching me. “We’ve only known each other for a few days. Is this just wolf instinct? Do you get any choice in it at all?”

  He pressed his lips together and finally shrugged. “You’ve been honest with me, and I promised myself no more secrets, so the truth is, I don’t know. I can’t give you a guarantee. But I was interested in you before you ever touched me. I was struggling to stay away even though you were Chandler’s sister and off-limits. That had nothing to do with my wolf.” He sighed, his gaze lifting to my face again. “When you dragged me up to sing karaoke, something happened. Like the words were being torn out from our souls. It sounds like something I’d laugh off in a movie, except I was there. I felt it.” He paused. “Did you?”

  “Yes.” The word fell out of my mouth before I could examine my answer, but it was true. I had. “Maybe you are my fairy tale, too. I’ve been holding out for forever. I just never dreamed I’d spend it with a werewolf.”