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Derek blinks. He doesn’t remember what happened the night of the accident, which makes it sting even more.

“You and I had a date, remember?” My voice shakes on the last word, and it’s only then that I realize how much anger I’ve been holding on to these past two years. “You and I were supposed to meet at Luigi’s, but you stood me up.”

“I had an important call,” he grumbles. “This huge account down in Dallas that we’d been trying to close for months.”

“And you couldn’t havetexted?” My eyes fill with tears, but I blink them back. I take a deep breath and exhale slowly to keep the sobs at bay. I need to get this out. “I’m not saying it’s your fault that I was in that car wreck. But that night you showed me who you really are. It just took me a while to see it.”

“And who is that?”

“A selfish, entitled ass.”

Derek lets out a slow breath through his nose, and his golden-amber eyes gleam in the dark. They’re that colorbecause they’re his wolf’s eyes, and I’m suddenly very aware that it’s just the two of us out here.

“So that’s it, then,” he murmurs. “That’s what you really think of me?”

I swallow. I’ve never been more aware of my human status than I am at this very moment. Here I am, alone with a wolf who could quite literally tear me to pieces.

“I guess that’s what happens when your brother becomes alpha and you run off to some fancy arts college. Youforgetthat you’re just the weak human runt that your father’s human slut of a wife shat out.”

My hand flies out so fast I don’t have time to consider what I’m doing until I feel the sting of flesh on flesh. I hit Derek so hard that his face jerks to the side, and in the soft glow of the moonlight, I can see the angry red handprint on his cheek.

As the adrenaline surges through my veins, the full magnitude of my mistake hits me. I just slapped a shifter!

“You shouldn’t have done that, Elena,” Derek growls, his voice low and deadly calm.

“Oh, I think she should have.”

The sound of Jake’s voice makes me whip my head around, and it feels as though my heart might burst out of my chest.

The lights from the hotel gleam behind him, giving him an otherworldly glow. He’s loosened his tie and undone a few buttons of his shirt, revealing several inches of his perfectly toned chest.

“Because if Elenadidn’thit you, I was going to do much worse.” Jake cracks a menacing grin. “Still might.”

“Walk away, little wolf,” Derek growls. “Elena and I are in the middle of something.”

“Careful. Your wolf is showing,” says Jake softly. “And I think you’re done.”

Jake is right. Derek’s starting to shift. Dark hair is sprouting all over his body, and his face is beginning to change shape.

“Jake —” I want to tell him to get the hell out of here, but I know he won’t listen.

To my appreciation and annoyance, he doesn’t rush to shift. Jake undresses as though he has all the time in the world, hooking a finger through the knot in his tie and sliding it out from under his collar. His fingers work the buttons of his shirt one at a time, and when he reaches down to undo his belt, Derek is already sprawled on all fours.

My heart flies into overdrive, but I needn’t have worried. By the time I look back at Jake, the rest of his clothes are on the ground.

I hardly have time to wonder what happened to the fully naked Jake when a mass of tawny fur leaps from behind the low stone wall.

Jake tackles Derek in a swirl of fur and claws, and the two of them roll. I shuffle back to get out of the way as Jake lands on top.

Growing up with Raf means I’ve seen my share of wolves. And Jake’s animal is magnificent. For a start, he’s huge. Long silky rust-colored fur mixes with shades of cream and gray. His eyes flash a dangerous arctic blue as Derek nips him under his foreleg.

In a flash of fur, their roles are reversed, and the wolves tussle for position. A pained yelp rends the air, but they’re moving too fast for me to tell who was hurt.

Claws scrape the terrace as they fight, and I shrinkback in horror when I catch a flash of long white teeth. One of them must be wounded already, because bloody claw marks mar the stone.

Then the black wolf digs into Jake’s back, and my heart leaps to my throat. Jake’s yip of pain slices through me like a knife, but Jake is a fighter — bornandtrained.

He whips around in a flash of teeth, his growl ripping through the darkness. Soon he has Derek by the neck, and he shakes him like a rag doll.