Page 90 of Twice Bitten

I had no idea what loup was, but it didn’t sound good.

At my silence, he continued. “A new shifter is overwhelmed by their senses and can make mistakes that ruin their lives.”

I was becoming acutely aware that we were both naked. “Someone ripped my pendantoff.”

Silas tensed. “Who?”

“If I knew who, I would have done my best to get it back before this happened!”

“I’ll look into it,” he murmured.

“You knew,” I said quietly.

“No.” I felt him shake his head. “I suspected. I kept getting hints of a scent, yours mixed with mine. There was no way to know for sure. You’re an impossibility, Alex. A dangerous one.”

I went very still. The last thing the shifters needed was animpossibility. Even though shifters were made from magic, many of them were less tolerant with things they couldn’t touch, taste, or feel. That sort of magic was fine if it existed outside of their pack but, in a way, Silas had made me, and shifters kept things they made close.

Just like the King was keeping me close right now.

I swallowed hard.

Silas’s warm breath tickled the back of my neck. The crisp hair on his muscled forearm tickled my bare skin. My heartbeat sped up. I was far more aware of my nakedness than I was comfortable with.

“Relax.” Silas’s deep voice sent goosebumps rising all over my skin. “I know how jarring a first shift is, but there is nowhere else safer in this world than right here.”

How I’d once longed to be wrapped in a lover’s arms, hearing him tell me I was safe. But I never thought I’d be in a dirty hole when someone uttered those words to me. His hand tightened around my waist as Silas shifted. We were pressed so tightly together…I could feel everything.

Silas was impressive. Everywhere.

Gods.

His other hand stroked through my hair, toying with the curls. “I’ve never seen hair like yours,” he murmured. “I wonder how long it is when you’re wet.”

I blinked, every muscle in my body tightening.

Silas’s chest rumbled. “Your hair, Alex.” His nose burrowed in my hair and inhaled. “Though I wouldn’t mind discovering other wet parts belonging to you.”

I needed to get out of this hole before I did something I couldn’t take back. My skin felt feverish, and there were parts of me long unused beginning to respond to Silas’s presence.

His broad palm stroked over my bare stomach. My head tilted back, nestling against Silas’s shoulder.

“There you go,” Silas murmured. He shifted, pulling me up until I was pressed so tightly against him, I couldn’t figure out where he ended and I began. Warm lips pressed against the crook of my shoulder.

He smelled like wild things and pine and fertile dirt. I was so close to turning around and saying to hell with it, but if I did that, I’d allow the Shifter King far too much control over me. But with the way his hands stroked my bare skin and his lips pressed against that spot on my neck…

I was only human. For the most part.

Something tickled the back of my throat. I tried to clear my airway, but the feeling grew worse until I couldn’t help but try to cough. A few seconds later, I hacked something up and held it up to the watery light, gagging when I realized it was fur.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

The spell broken, Silas’s chest rumbled with amusement. “You must have skipped dinner last night.”

“Not funny. Isn’t that harmful? I ate it all, I think.” Flashes of bones breaking and crunching…

My stomach heaved.

“Relax,” Silas soothed. “You’ll be fine. Our anatomy is equipped to handle such things.”