Page 6 of Off Limits
Asher pushed away from the door, moving to the kitchen to rummage through the cabinets until he found what he was looking for: a bottle of Jameson, still half-full. He pouredtwo fingers into a dusty glass and downed it in one swallow, welcoming the burn.
Outside, the forest was quiet except for the normal night sounds. No more movement from the outbuilding, no sign of Gabriel. Just the moon starting to rise over the mountains, full and bright enough to cast shadows through the windows.
Asher poured another measure of whiskey, carrying it to the window that faced the outbuilding. The glow from inside was still visible around the edges of the curtains, a warm beacon in the darkness.
Asher drained his glass, setting it down with a decisive click.
Gabriel had promised answers.
And Asher intended to get them—whether Gabriel liked it or not.
4
Gabriel slammedthe heavy oak door the moment Asher disappeared into the darkness, his hands trembling with the effort of restraint. He threw all three bolts with desperate efficiency, then pressed his forehead against the cool wood, drawing ragged breaths that did nothing to calm the storm building inside him.
Asher. Here.Now.
Of all the cruel cosmic jokes the universe could have played, this was perhaps the cruelest.
"Damn you, Ray," Gabriel whispered, the grief he'd been suppressing since his friend's death rising like bile in his throat. "You couldn't have warned him? Couldn't have left instructions?"
But that had been Ray's way—playing things close to the chest, parceling out information on a need-to-know basis. Even to his only son.
Perhaps especially to his son.
Gabriel pushed away from the door, resuming the restless pacing that had occupied him before Asher's arrival. The stone outbuilding felt smaller now, more confining, as if the very air had filled with complications. He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension building at the base of his skull—the first physical warning sign that the cycle was approaching.
The mating run.
Werewolves felt their instincts rise every full moon. It was the reason Gabriel hadn’t been able to attend Ray’s funeral—fate had been cruel, and it had fallen on the last full moon.
But once a year, when the moon reached was the wildest, werewolves were overtaken by the primal urge to hunt mates, to claim, to merge their dual natures in the most fundamental way possible.
Most of his kind embraced it. They ran wild in the woods, seeking the humans who offered themselves up. The accords had established boundaries, rules of engagement—humans who entered the woods during that night were considered willing prey, fair game for the hunt. Those who wished to avoid such encounters simply stayed behind locked doors when the moon grew full, pretending that it wasn't happening.
It was brutal. Primal. Honest, in its way.
And Gabriel wanted no part of it.
He had never participated in the run, had never dragged a willing human down to the ground. The very concept repulsed him—the reduction of both human and wolf to their basest functions, the pretense that what happened during those nights could be neatly explained away as mere instinct, that it didn't leave marks that went deeper than skin.
He refused to be a slavering beast.
So he'd chosen isolation instead. For his whole adult life, he'd locked himself away during the cycle, white-knuckling through the fever and need until dawn broke.
Ray had been his only confidant, his only support. A true human friend. This stone outbuilding, out in the middle of nowhere, had been his sanctuary—safe, secure, secret.
Until now.
Gabriel caught his reflection in the small mirror mounted above the wash basin: silver-streaked hair disheveled, eyes already beginning to sharpen, reflecting the wolf rising inside him. He looked wild, dangerous.
Exactly what he was.
Asher's shocked expression flashed in his memory. The way those expressive eyes had widened when Gabriel stepped into the doorway. The way his scent had changed from anger to something sharper, more complex—fear mingled with another note that Gabriel refused to identify.
"He's not for you," Gabriel told his reflection harshly. "He's never been for you."
But his body disagreed. His body recognized Asher Sutter as the one human whose scent had haunted him, whose proximity had triggered responses he'd ruthlessly suppressed. The one human who, even at a distance, made his inner wolf howl.
