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A twig snaps close to me.

I turn, pausing, my breath stalling in my lungs. I wait. My chest is rising and falling rapidly as my hands clasp and unclasp at my side. Slowly, I draw air into my lungs, cataloging every single scent as it comes in. There. Faintly, as if just beyond where I’m standing is something I recognize.

Mine.

The word roars through me as I take my first steps out of the clearing we started in.

My pace picks up, each step measured and deliberate, guided only by my instincts and the unbearable hum. He wants me to give in. Let my wolf take over. He wants me to stop using my human instincts and become what I’m designed to be.

So I do.

Crouching down I press my fingers into the damp soil, cold against the tips of my fingers as they coast along the recently disturbed ground.

My lips twitch. “You’re close.”

Just off to the right, a low laugh.

The bastard’s taunting me. Which can mean only one thing.

“Oh Cal,” I say in a singsong voice. “You make this too easy on me. You better be ready when I catch you.”

Silence.

And then, as if he anticipated all of this, his words whisper across the forest, low, amused, and hungry.

“I’m counting on it.”

My heart rate kicks up, almost taking away my ability to hear as it pulses in my ears. The forest is alive with sounds, but all I can hear was me.

Heavy. Ragged. Hunting.

The blindfold clings to me, damp with sweat, but I refuse to take it off. I made the rules and I’d agreed to the game. If I wanted him, there was only one way to get him. I had to find him and not with my eyes.

His scent clung to everything as I walked through the woods. Nothing was fresh, all of them were meant to distract me from my true target.

I wanted to snarl.

Something’s changed though. The world has quieted. The air thickened as the wind shifted. As if pulled by a thread my nose turns to the right, each breath shallow as I quickly track the scent.

There.

A breath.

So close.

I don’t wait. I don’t think.

My body collides with his, sending both of us to the ground with a humph. His laugh vibrates him below me as I whoop above him. My knees straddle each side of his hips, the moss and needles providing me something soft to kneel against.

He doesn’t fight it or even try to resist as I grab his arms and pin them above his head. No, instead he lays there. As if he's offering himself to me, his body softened below me. Each muscle loose, his heart rate lowering, and his legs spreading.

I lean close to him, our noses only a hair apart.

“Found you.”

His chest rises with a soft chuckle. “Did you?” he rasps. “Or did I let you?”

I reach up and tear the blindfold off. Glancing down I find him with a soft smirk playing on his lips, eyes blown with lust, and his cheeks already red from the adrenaline. His hands are splayed out on each side of him, not even attempting to touch me.