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One of the other wolves is shifting, and a now topless Olga is petting one of the lycans who’s remained in animal form.

I glance back at Kane, who has moved closer, his eyes fixed on me and his snout lifted as he scents the air.

I swallow, sure that he’s smelling me. My scent and the wetness that’s soaked my panties.

“Kane.” I lick my dry lips “I’m not…”

At the worst possible moment, another surge of desire floods my body, and I gasp, locking my knees to keep myself upright.

Kane’s lupine form stills as though he’s aware of exactly what’s going on with me. Abruptly, he swings around to the rest of the group and growls menacingly at them, his hackles rising.

My heart ratchets up at the sound, and I begin backing up. Maybe, while he’s busy being weirdly territorial, I can just…disappear.

At the sound of Kane’s growl, a freshly shifted lycan steps in front of Olga, guarding her with his body and slowly backing the both of them up.

“Relax, Halloway, we’re leaving.”

Leaving?

“Wait! No one needs to go!” But even as I speak, my coven sisters and the shifters who’ve caught their eyes slip away into the darkness. I hear a couple breathy laughs, a handful of whispered words, a moan, then—nothing.

Un-fucking-believable.

I turn my attention back to Kane, who’s studying me with those glinting blue eyes of his. My breath picks up, this time for entirely nonsexual reasons. It was distressing enough to face down my crush’s wolf when he was injured, but now, when the two of us are alone in the woods and Kane’s under the sway of the moon and his beast’s instincts, it’s somehow worse.

It doesn’t help that I’m very drunk and even more aroused.

Kane approaches me, his eyes tracking my every move. The witch’s brew is still hitting my system, and I can feel heat and need and magic moving through my blood. It’s overwhelming my misgivings.

I put my hands out in a placating gesture. “I don’t know how much you can understand, Kane, but we’re friends, and I know I smell…weird.” Read: like a horny badger. “I honestly just want to get back to my coven’s festivities,” I say, fighting the urge to back up. “If you let me, I’ll leave?—”

At that, Kane gives a low growl.

“Or I could stay,” I add.

His growl dies down.

I guess he wants company.

I try again, breathing through the throb of my desire. “Kane, I know we didn’t get our moment,” I say, now edging back a little.

He prowls forward, aware of the distance I’m trying to create. He’s having none of it.

“And,” I continue, “I like you—a lot—but…” My words lapse into a moan as my arousal spikes once more. My breasts feel so heavy, and my core keeps clenching around nothing. “But it’s still the Sacred Seven, and I’m waiting for someone else?—”

At the mention of someone else, Kane begins to growl again.

If I weren’t so drunk on witch’s brew, and if Kane weren’t an actual wolf at the moment, I’d know what to do. Instead, I edgeback a little more, my heart thundering. I cringe when I feel my pussy pounding in time to it.

The lycan moves forward again, eating up the distance between us and then some. He’s so close—close enough to touch. The thought has me backing up faster.

A low, warning sound rumbles in the shifter’s throat.

“Kane, I know I’m on your territory, but you’re making me nervous. Can you?—”

I yelp when the back of my foot catches on a tree root, and I tumble to the ground. My hip hits the earth hard, and I hiss in a breath.

One moment, I’m laid out on the ground, and in the next, a massive wolf looms over me.