Page 18 of Rocky Top

“She don’t know what I am. What we are. But somethin’ in her…” I blew out a long breath, palms braced on my hips. “It calls to me, Knox. Worse than any heat I’ve felt before. She don’t even gotta touch me, just a look, a laugh, just the thought of her, and I’m this close to losin’ it.”

I held up my thumb and forefinger, barely apart.

Knox let out a low whistle, then dragged off his smoke. “That bad?”

“Worse. You know, I shifted the night I found her in the woods. Fully. Protected her without a second thought. Now I’m half-wild when I’m near her, and she don’t even know what the hell I am. I ain’t never had this kind of instinct clawin’ at me, brother. I’m gonna lose control.”

Knox nodded slow, his expression unreadable. “She’s human. All smiley, too. You know what happens if you bite her.”

“I know.” My voice dropped into a grated growl. “It ain’t just about the shift or the bond. I’m thinkin’ about claimin’ her. For real. But if she finds out what I am the wrong way… she’ll run. Hell, she should run.”

He stubbed out his cigarette on the edge of the fire pit and looked at me dead-on. “I’m plannin’ to tell Eliza. Shift in front of her. Tell her the truth.”

“But you already bit her. To protect her from those rogues her ex fucked with, I know. There’s no going back for her.”

“I did what I felt I had to, brother, you know that.”

I looked away, jaw clenching. “I ain’t you.”

“No, you ain’t. You’re Rocky. You’re a goddamn officer in this club and one of the fiercest wolves I’ve ever met. But you start hidin’ from her now? You’ll lose her before you even get the chance.”

The moon hung heavy behind him, casting the backyard in silver. My skin itched. My blood was hot.

“I can’t stop thinkin’ about markin’ her,” I admitted, voice rough with shame. “I dreamed about it. My teeth in her neck and her scent all over me. She don’t belong in our world, but damn if it don’t feel like fate brought her straight to it.”

Knox crossed his arms, leather creakin’. “You gotta decide somethin’ real quick. Are you gonna give her the choice, or take it away?”

I swallowed hard.

“I won’t judge you either way. You know I’m not a purist.”

Knox spoke of those who thought we should only find mates who were already shifters. Marking a human for a mate, biting them, was seen as rogue behavior. But we were outlaws, in both worlds.

“I wanna give her the choice.”

“Then start actin’ like it,” he said. “Protectin’ her ain’t just about keepin’ her alive. It’s about lettin’ her see the real you. Ugly truths and all. And I’m talkin’ about the human side. For now.”

Silence stretched between us. I watched the embers pop in the pit. Birdie’s laugh echoed in my memory like a damn song on loop.

“You ever feel like the animal inside you don’t just want a mate… it needs one?” I asked.

Knox’s lips twitched into a knowing smirk. “Every day.”

I finally cracked a grin. “We’re fucked, ain’t we?”

“Brother,” he said, clapping a hand to my shoulder. “We were born that way.”

We stood there a minute longer, two shifters in the dark. Knox being a fox didn’t lessen our bond. He led our pack of misfits all the same. We were brothers bound not just by leather and blood but by the weight of supernatural secrets that grew heavier by the day. The music inside shifted to some screamin’ metal number, and I figured I couldn’t hide out back forever.

The second I stepped into the main room, the scent hit me like a damn freight train, citrus, sugar, and sex.

Birdie.

She was posted up at the bar, long legs crossed, shiny boots swingin’, sippin’ something fruity through a straw. Looked like a hummingbird sippin’ nectar, and I realized why they called her Birdie. She didn’t look like she belonged here, not even a little, but somehow she lit the place up like Christmas on a backroad. And fuck me, I couldn’t look away.

She caught me starin’ and gave me that wicked little smile she wore always. Goddamn sunshine and sass in a curvy little package.

“You stalkin’ me now, mountain man?” she called over the music.

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