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"You mean the part where I'm apparently bait for your collective doom?"I sipped anyway.It tasted like pine needles and smoke, but it warmed me.The pain eased almost instantly, and I hated being grateful to any of them.

"We don't want to hurt you," Evander added, eyes so sincere they made my throat tighten."But you're not safe.And we're forever doomed and tortured by the curse.It gets to you after a century or two."

"I figured that out the moment one of you growled at me for breathing too loud."I took another sip, watching him over the rim of the mug.His fingers trembled slightly when he pushed his hair back.Control.They were all clinging to it even though they all seemed on the verge of being feral.

Garrett returned, arms tense, jaw tighter than before.His gaze swept the room, cataloging each man's position before settling back on me.It seemed the bear in him was never far from the surface… territorial, protective, dangerous.

"You're not a prisoner.But if you run, they'll find you."

"Them?"I asked."The hunters?"

"Or worse," The hawk-man said from the stairs, rubbing the back of his neck, golden hair wild.Tattoos snaked up his arms and over his shoulders.His nakedness affected me just like the others.Did none of them own clothing?"The forest listens when she speaks."

"Leif."Garret warned on a growl.

Leif didn't seem to care as he came closer, eyes bright with challenge."But you're not scared of us, are you?"

I didn't answer, and he grinned.

"Didn't think so."He stepped in close, too close, body heat pressing against mine as his palm slid along the edge of the wall beside my head.The others watched, suddenly still, hungry.

"You don't get it yet, do you?"Leif whispered, lips brushing my ear."We can't touch you.But that doesn't mean we don't want to."

My breath hitched.His amber eyes dropped to my lips.Heat flooded through me, pooling low in my belly.Not fear… something else, something dangerous and wanting.Then he stepped back with a wink, like he hadn't just lit me on fire.

And the worst part?I didn't want the flames to go out.

I clutched the mug tighter as Leif sauntered away.The room felt charged, electric with unspoken things.Seven cursed men.Seven beasts trapped in human skin.And me, somehow both their salvation and their destruction.

The curse thrummed between us, ancient and hungry.It wanted blood.It wanted touch.It wanted everything I shouldn't give.

"You should eat," Evander said gently, breaking the tension."The forest takes strength."

I nodded, not trusting my voice.But as I followed him toward what passed for a kitchen, I felt their eyes on me.Garrett's protective glare.Ronan's bitter amusement.Kade's silent intensity.Cassian's playful hunger.And Leif… Leif's blatant want.I'd figure them all out eventually… maybe.

Seven men.Seven monsters.And me, already falling into their trap.

CHAPTER5

Two days trapped in this forsaken cabin felt like two centuries.The walls closed tighter each time the sun sank, and they returned from their animal forms, naked and hungry.Not for food.For me.I pretended not to notice their stares that burned through my clothes, but my body betrayed me with every flush that crept up my neck, every quickened breath when one of them passed too close.

The silence had teeth.The walls whispered things I wasn't ready to hear.Seven men, seven beasts, seven pairs of eyes that followed my every movement.I paced restlessly during the day when they prowled the forest in their animal forms.I sat at the windows trying desperately not to look when they returned human at sunset.I failed constantly.

My eyes always found someone.Garrett's broad shoulders tense as he built the fire.Ronan's smirk from a shadowed corner.Kade's silent, unblinking stare that somehow touched me without contact.I couldn't decide what was worse, the way they looked at me or the terrifying hunger I felt looking back.

At least today I had convinced Garrett to let me stay in the more comfortable bed in the main cabin during daylight hours instead of the cold, musty cellar where I'd spent the previous nights.Progress, if one could call it that.

None of them had touched me.Not really.But the air between us crackled every time we shared space.They kept their distance, barely.I saw the effort it cost them in white knuckles and tight jaws.And I started to wish, dangerously, stupidly, that one of them would stop pretending they didn't want to cross that invisible line.

In all reality, it was a stupid wish.They wanted my heart cut from my chest just like my step-mother.But there was something else there… something calling us together and I didn't understand it.I felt it, but it was beyond all reason to give in.

Sleep avoided me that night.The bed felt too soft, too empty, too safe.My skin tingled with awareness of seven men breathing beyond my door, seven heartbeats pulsing in rhythm with the forest magic that saturated the walls.Past midnight, I abandoned the pretense of rest.

The wooden floor was cool against my bare feet as I wandered into the main room.Garrett sat before the fire, completely naked, his massive body silhouetted by flames.His muscles looked carved from stone, tension evident in every line of his back.He didn't turn when I entered.

"Can't sleep?"His voice rumbled through the room, striking something deep in my belly.I ignored the heat that pooled deep between my thighs.

"Not with the seven of you breathing like you're one deep sigh away from devouring me," I answered truthfully.