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She pulls her hand away, noting my reaction, and whispers a breathy, “Sorry.”

“I’ll be fine,” I assure her. “I have a hand.”

Alina frowns. Her eyes flick between me and the open window.

“We could…”

She’s right. We could. It would be so easy to drag her into that room, rip off our clothes, and make her mine all over again.

But I’m an honorable man, and she’s a confused young woman.

“I can’t,” I tell her gently. “I can’t make love to you when you hate me, Alina.”

“I don’t—I don’t hate you.”

My stomach swoops. “So, you want to be with me? You want to find a way to be together that won’t trigger the prophecy? You’re willing to try to be a family? Because that’s what I want with you,Alina. And we both know it can’t happen. We both know there’s no way forward.”

“But, I…” She swallows hard. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It was—the dream was—I wanted it to be real.”

“I want it to be real, too.”

We’re at an impasse, then. Physically speaking, we want each other.

In every other way, we can’t have each other.

She shivers as another breeze sweeps over us.

Then, without another word, she shifts away from me. I help her off my lap, then guide her back through the window until she’s standing barefoot on her bedroom carpet again.

“Sleep well, Alina,” I whisper.

There is so much confusion and sadness in her gaze that it makes me want to kiss away those troubled emotions. Instead, for fear of triggering another frantic, reckless moment between us, I keep my hands to myself.

“Goodnight, Rowan.”

Slowly, Alina closes the window.

I stay up there on the roof until she falls back asleep.

Chapter 19

Alina

Monday morning comes with startling, unpleasant clarity. I should welcome the feeling, but it’s too jarring.

It’s been a confusing weekend.

From the conversation with Zahra on Friday afternoon that turned into an unexpected confrontation and argument with Rowan…and then later that night turned into something I’ve been trying really hard not to think about too hard.

That dream. And then what happened on the rooftop…

The way I wanted to pull him into my bedroom and feel every inch of his skin against mine.

It was nothing. It was just the wolf within, my instincts kicking into overdrive because I was ovulating or something stupid like that.

And that’s exactly what I say to Zahra when I begin my Monday shift at The Diner. She came in as soon as we opened, demanding a fresh cup of coffee and a thorough explanation of what happened after she left my house on Friday afternoon.

“You can’t separate the wolf from the human,” Zahra lectures me quietly. “You are both wolf and human. That’s what a shifter is. Youcan’t blame one half of yourself for the actions and desires of the other.”