Page 18 of Under A New Moon

“Who’d you call?”

He avoided her eye, glancing to the spread. “No one.”

“Do you like tuna sandwiches?” Darla didn’t want to pry into his business. She didn’t have the right. “If not, I can make some paninis. They’ve got a grill in the pantry, I think-”

He came up beside her and started slathering his bread with mayo. “Tuna’s fine.”

The nearness made her heart race.

Could he hear it with his lupine senses? If so, he didn’t reveal that he did. She set about finishing her sandwich, spearing a fat pickle from the jar. “So, um- I haven’t heard anything back yet from… my contacts.

“What about you?”

“I don’t have any contacts,” he said with finality, then let out a long breath. “I was trying to get ahold of my old pack. No one picked up at one of the lookout cabins we have at the edge of the forest. I didn’t exactly expect them to.”

“Oh.” Darla wracked her brain for something to assure him with, coming up empty. But that strange feeling, a whimsical sort of apathy overcame her. She’d sensed it during the fight when she failed to go in for the killing blow.

It was distracting as hell.

He played callously but there was something soft underneath that hard veneer. She’d never met a rogue who wasn’t willing to rip her throat out, and he was an alpha. The most dangerous sort of shifter.

“Why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance?”A spoonful of tuna slapped onto his sandwich before he tossed the spoon into the sink. “I told you before. I have no interest in killing you.”

She pursed her lips. “I don’t believe it. Not analpha.”

His jaw slid to one side, and he finally looked at her.

There it was, that softness. That vulnerability. She just wanted to be sure before she said anything. “What is this?”

His eyes flared, then the expression hardened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“This,” she said, pointing at both of them in turn. “I’m not exactly turned on by shifters but you- there’s something about you I can’t put my finger on.”

That vulnerability was back. “Oh. That.”

She abandoned her sandwich to meet his eye. He wasn’t going to sidestep this issue any longer. “What’s going on? You know something, don’t you?”

“It’s- pretty common in mate bonds.”

Darla’s laugh echoed through the place. “Excuse me?”

“Hey, you asked.” He clapped his sandwich closed and took an oversized bite. When he swallowed, he glanced out the window over the sink. “It’s not exactly something we can control. I think I realized it after you jumped me.”

She gulped, remembering when he’d pinned her down and-smelledher. “So, that’s what the boner was about.”

“Believe me, it wasn’t intentional.”

She shook her head. “I thought it was just a story.”

“Whatever you heard, it’s probably true,” he said, stuffing his mouth with another bite as if to avoid saying anything more.

Darla shook her head again. “No way.” She looked him up and down. “Notyou.”

Fifteen

Galen

“It’s not like I had a choice either,” Galen said, tolerating her horrified expression. He was getting used to it, but hell… what a start.

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