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When I opened my eyes, he stared through me, his pulse pounding away at the base of his neck. My file drop must have been successful, and I laughed. “So, what you’re saying is that nothing can happen today.”

He blinked and then looked down at me. “It can’t. Not today. It’s too dangerous.”

“Mama always told me sex was dangerous,” I quipped.

He laughed as he stood. “I don’t trust myself to be able to have anything else in my mind, and Acheron is too big of a threat to risk it.”

“When the clans are safe?” I asked.

“When the clans are safe,” he agreed.

I reached for his dick and wrapped my hands around him. “Not even a little sex?”

His hips thrusted toward me, and his knees nearly buckled as he caught the bedpost to keep from falling over on top of me, but he didn’t tell me to let go.

Through clenched teeth, he asked, “Do you think we could stop with a little?”

“I think we couldtry,” I answered with a small shrug. Looking him over. He was hard and perfect all over… and worth wrapping my legs around for at least a week.Fuckity, fuck, fuck.“But no, I don’t think we could stop with a little.”

We shared a long look, twinged with sadness and regret, but the desire between us didn’t wane.

Finally, I snuggled down into the bed and tossed the cover over me. “If you don’t get out of here, Logan, I’m not going to take no for an answer, and the shifter clans will just have to save themselves from the river wizard asshole.”

“Hell.” He groaned, but he didn’t move from his spot until Jasper’s jaunty whistle sounded like the fox shifter was heading back toward his den. “Soon, Emma, and it’ll be a night you won’t forget. I found your phone, and Olivia fixed it. I’ll leaveit with Jasper.”

Then he spun around and marched out of the spare room.

“Don’t worry,” I called after him. “I’m sure Jasper can explain about shifter sex and fated mates, too. He might even have examples.”

The door slammed, and Logan’s tortured yelp outside the den filled me with a special kind of glee, thankful for the happy break in the middle of my dread over the possibility of failing the clans who all now depended on me.

I had to admit the idea of stepping up as the unifier of the shifters was tough to focus on when all I wanted to do was fuck a dark and broody wolf shifter until he howled my name.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

logan

Early Wednesday Morning

It was still dark out, and the sun hadn’t yet risen, but Torbin waited on the front porch of Six-Mile Manor, rocking back and forth in a rocking chair barely big enough for him, while Olivia led a patrol of the perimeter of Six-Mile. They’d been gone for most of the night. Only Olivia knew about the note Dr. Wise had jotted inside the research she’d sent me, and it troubled us both.

My beta wolf hunted for clues to follow what had happened to all the missing shifters, and I had tasked myself with finding spies to keep myself as far away from Emma while she trained with Red Tail… and Jasper.

After careful consideration, the bear shifter alpha was the only alpha I trusted outside of Six-Mile, and he had been who I decided to enlist to locate any of our clan members who might still be traceable.

Without speaking, I stepped out onto the porch, trying to ignore the knot of feeling I had in my head which had to be a sleeping, dreaming Emma. Her sensations were hard to ignore, but it gave proof to the suspicion she might be my fated mate.

Despite the thunderous internal tumult I fought, the moonlight streamed down from a cloudless night sky. Stars glittered in the blackness, only slightly dulled by the lights from our complex. The feral night made me dwell even more on beautiful, sexy Emma –myEmma as I’d already come to think of her.

The oldest alpha grunted as he stood and offered his hand, his white hair sticking out in all directions, small bells jangling in his beard. Tonight, he wore moccasins on his feet and clothes covered in beadwork, probably fashioned for him by Indigenous hands from long ago. Each panel of his clothing had been laced together by long strands of leather. “Logan.”

When I took his hand, a rush of his energy flowed over me, delving me with the same talent I shared. He wanted to know if I held malice or secrets, so I allowed his search without offense and without responding with my own. Instead, I shook his hand, aware of the trust he extended by showing up at all. “Torbin.”

“You seem to have no malintent in your heart. Though, there’s another shifter in your head, muddling things up.” He clasped his hands over his rounded middle. “I’ll offer you the same liberty I took, if you like.”

“You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t already trust you.”

“Then why have you called me, invoking the name of the multimorph?”