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Howls go up across the space, the sound raising my gooseflesh. Instinct is screaming at me to flee, but my magic comes alive at the noise. It spills out of me, moving about the room and weaving in between shifters.

I meet Kane’s lupine gaze. Though there’s a hard set to his jaw, he smiles at me, then howls along with the rest of them.

Only once the noise dies down do the lycans rise. One by one, they come up and greet me, giving me a hug and rubbing their cheeks against mine. It happens over and over, the entire pack marking me with their scents as they recognize me as their own.

It’s not the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced, but it’s definitely not your normal fucking Wednesday either.

After the last shifter has embraced and marked me, drinks and food are brought out, and the wolves begin to mingle. Before I can so much as attempt to slip away, I’m whisked into a conversation with an older lycanthrope woman who likes to crochet scarves and doilies, then I’m speaking to a bear of a man with a bushy, strawberry-blond beard and kind eyes who insists that Nero is welcome to hunt on their land.

Then I’m chatting with younger female shifters who are looking at me with round, admiring eyes, and I feel entirely like an imposter.

On and on the conversations go until Kane grabs my free hand and physically hauls me away from his pack mates. He doesn’t release his hold until he’s led me out the rear of the house and onto a secluded back porch.

Night has already fallen out here. Frogs and insects call out from the darkness, and it’s such a shift from the high-energy conversations inside that my body relaxes.

Kane closes the door behind us, and the noise inside quiets to a dull background murmur.

“I thought you might need a break,” he says by way of explanation.

I give a shaky laugh, my breath misting. “I did. Thank you.”

Kane smiles tightly. “I love my pack mates—would give my life for them—but they can be a lot.” He moves over to the pine railing, leaning on it.

For a moment, I stare after him, my breath hitching. I’m unsure where the two of us are at or where the relationship goes from here.

“Relax, Selene,” he says, not bothering to turn around. “I’m not going to bite you. That’s what you’ve been worried about, right?”

Maybe I thanked Kane too soon. This conversation is already harder than any of the ones I had inside.

“Do you love him?” he asks.

Memnon, he means.

I step up to the railing next to him and lean against it. “I did once.”

“Once,” he echoes. His gaze returns to me. “But not anymore.”

I lift a shoulder. “He’s my soul mate—but no, I don’t.” If I did, the binding spell Memnon invoked would break.

“You don’t have to be with an asshole just because your magic is joined,” Kane says.

“I’m not with him,” I remind Kane. “Last night was … just sex.” I try to ignore the fact that it was the most searing, erotic sex I’ve had in this life.

“Just sex,” Kane echoes, his voice bitter. “Tell me, if he hadn’t shown up, would you have spent the night with me? Would you have hadjust sexwith me?”

I open my mouth, but I genuinely have no idea what in the seven hells I’m supposed to say.

“You were worried about me biting you,” he continues. His eyes drop to my neck before returning to mine. “Was that it?”

I remember how it felt kissing him last night.Wrong, wrong, wrong.

“That was partly it,” I say, hoping to avoid discussing all the ways my bond betrays me when I’m with people other than Memnon.

“Would that really have been so bad? WouldIhave been so bad?”

I frown, flustered by this entire conversation. “Kane, I’m sorry if I unlocked some secret insecurity?—”

He laughs hollowly at that. “An insecurity? Selene, I’m all butbeggingyou to actually consider me instead of the menace who thinks you belong to him. This isn’t me being insecure. This is me wanting you and wanting you to want me back the way you did a few weeks ago.”