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“Option?” I’m lost in her eyes and confused about what she’s referring to.

“You said you could stay out of the water if I wished. What if I didn’t wish that…”

She leaves it hanging.

“Well,” I say, feigning a casualness I do not feel. “I could get in the bathing pool with you.”

She sucks the bottom lip between her teeth, and it takes every bit of my control to keep my cock in check.

“Are you playing coy, Fawn?”

“No.” She glances toward the bedroom doorway as though expecting her Wolf to storm in at any moment.

“Your protector will not interfere. I believe him when he says he will rip my antlers off and shove them up my ass if I cause you even a moment’s distress.”

She giggles, shrugs the silk robe over her shoulders, and gloriously naked steps into the pool.

I close my eyes, but the vision remains of her plump, heart-shaped ass just before she slipped underneath the water.

When I open my eyes again, she is up to her neck, and her long, honey-blonde hair makes a fan in the water.

She glances back at me with those big brown eyes, and I know I am gone for her even without her enticing scent.Adorable. Her actions are not practiced. Some does make courting a game. Fawn’s ways are pervasive to who she is: sweet, playful, and saucy.

How I want her to like me, to approve of me.

“What are you waiting for?” she says in the manner of a challenge.

I flash a shift. It takes the edge off my hardening cock and leaves my clothes in a rumpled pile on the floor. Then I wade into the pool before my cock can get any ideas, displacing water everywhere.

“Oh,” she says. “That was cheating. I wanted to see your stag.”

Only she is peering down through the water, and I do not believe it was my stag she was trying to get a look at, at least, not only him.

“Not today,” I say.

“Then when?”

She floats a little distance away, but when I hold out my hand, she takes it and, blushing, glides right up next to me.

My hands go to her waist. I wade deeper into the pool, drawing her with me. “My stag is a little ornery,” I say—a wild understatement of the truth.

Her hands settle on my shoulders. “How so?”

“He is not like me. While my human side is an omega, my stag is alpha… and a little rabid.”

She giggles again—perhaps she thinks I’m joking? “I can’t imagine you with a rabid stag.” She must forget that she is in a pool with a naked male because she slides her body against mine, not even caring that my cock is right there, and wraps her legs around my waist… or maybe not. Her deepening blush suggests she knows exactly what she is doing,naughty doe.

“He is fiercely protective,” I say, feeling the light mood dim and wishing I had not begun this conversation during our veryfirst meeting. I hate that I’m not always in control, and the memory of what came to pass so recently brings an acute edge to my shame. “I hurt Nox two weeks ago. And though he could shift to heal, I hate that I hurt him at all, that I lost control.”

“How did it happen?” she asks earnestly.

“When those I love are in danger, my stag takes over—completely. It feels more like a partnership with most shifters, or so I am led to believe, but it is not that way for me. I was mute for many years, unable to call my stag. His awakening was brutal, and his ways are a legacy of that. I do not always take pride in his actions, although I understand his reasons. It can be dangerous for those whom I love. My feral side does not recognize his friend or foe. His strength is unnatural, greater even than Nox or Seven. Very few shifters, wolf or otherwise, can escape bindings placed on their human form by shifting—my stag can. He is indomitable and sees everything as a threat... Nox is the only one who can bring me down. He and Seven have changed my life for the better.”

There is no judgment on her face. To my surprise, she leans forward and presses her lips to mine in a brief touch that sets my heart pounding.

Her smile is gentle. “I love Nox already that he would do that for you. Your poor stag must be so frightened, not knowing who to trust.”

My stag snorts that he is never frightened, and that Nox is an asshole who should know better than interfere. “My stag is overly bold and does not have a scrap of humility for the carnage he leaves in his wake,” I say dryly.