Slowly.

With my teeth.

Abby shrugged, and the cotton slipped a little more. “We could probably all use the physical release.”

My cock stiffened and I prayed she couldn’t see. “Release?” She was doing that on purpose. Again. She was a child playing a woman’s game, and I wanted to let her win.

Abby nodded and dropped her dirty clothes into Lucas’s already-stuffed hamper. “We’re all under a lot of pressure, hunting the murderer. And the killers he’s trying to kill. Ironic, isn’t it?” She turned back to me, and my focus snagged on her mouth again, then followed the line of her throat. So pale. So delicate. I could see her pulse through her skin, and I wanted to lick it. I wanted to feel the thrum beneath my tongue.

I wanted to know that her heart beat, and her pulse raced, and her body ached for no one else. No one but me.

What the hell was I thinking?

“What’s ironic?” I asked, and only my automatic recall of the past few spoken words gave me any clue what we’d been talking about.

“It’s ironic that the killer’s actually doing us a favor.” Abby dropped the hamper lid, and I hardly heard the clatter.

Her chest was freckled. Hundreds of tiny reddish spots sprinkled her shoulders and collarbones, then disappeared beneath the cotton. How far did the freckles go? Were they still red that far down, where the sun rarely touched them? Were her nipples pink? Large and round, or small and cute?

I’d seen her wearing nothing but a thin sheen of sweat literally dozens of times, so why couldn’t I remember? Why hadn’t I memorized every single freckled inch of her skin—every curve and dip? Every peak and valley?

When the hell had she developed peaks and valleys?

“I mean, when we find the rest of Hargrove’s group, we’re going to kill them, right?”

I inhaled deeply, trying to focus on her words as she dug into her overnight bag at the foot of Lucas’s bed.

That’s right. Think about her brothers. All five of them. They were all big, and protective, and…

And I couldn’t remember a single one of their faces or names. All I could think about was Abby, and how badly I wanted her.

My body told me I could have her. My brain told me I should have her. I was an Alpha. She was a tabby. It was only natural. And I knew she was interested. She’d kissed me in the dark, in the woods, her body pressed against mine for balance and maybe for warmth. Then I’d kissed her, in that morbid taxidermy chamber, and she’d tasted like…life. Like everything vital, and warm, and vibrant. Like everything I’d always known I wanted, but could never have.

Because Abby. Wasn’t. Mine.

“Jace?”

Damn it. She was still talking, and I hadn’t heard a word, though I’d seen every shape her lips made as she spoke. “I’m sorry. What?”

“I said we’ll kill them when we find them, right? The hunters?”

“Well, if we can capture them alive, we have to take them to the council for questioning before they’re executed,” I said, and Abby frowned. “But yes, ultimately, they’ll all be put out of their misery for the good of the entire shifter community.”

“So then, do we really have to find the stray?” She pulled a nightshirt from her bag and shook it out. It was blue and it already smelled like her, which meant she’d worn it the night before. “I mean, he’s only doing what we’re going to do anyway, and he clearly knows more than we do about the situation. So, maybe we should just wait and let him do his job.”

Wait, what? I shook my head to regain focus. Her laissez-faire approach to crime prevention had woken me up.

“But it’s not his job,” I reiterated. “It’s my job. It’s your job, now. Vigilante justice isn’t really justice, Abby. It’s violence and chaos.”

“You don’t believe that.” She raised one reddish brow at me as she shook out a pair of pajama bottoms. “I can see it in your eyes.”

What else could she see in my eyes? They probably read like a thermometer at the moment. Could she see my temperature rise with every movement she made? Every glance she threw my way?

Beads of water still clung to her. The clean scent of her skin triggered urges I had no right to feel. No right to want. And the only thing that could possibly smell better than Abby fresh from the shower was the scent of her sweat mixed with mine.

I shifted subtly, trying to disguise the evidence of what I wanted. I needed to taste her. I ached to touch her.

I should have turned around and run, right then.

“If you didn’t have an Alpha’s responsibilities, you might be doing exactly what this stray’s doing,” she insisted. “He’s taking out the men who were hunting me, Jace. Wouldn’t you do that for someone you cared about?”

“In an instant,” I growled, surprised when the truth rumbled out without warning. “And when I find Hargrove and the rest of the hunters, I will personally rip them limb from limb, one bone at a time.” For you. Because they’d watched her. Stalked her. They’d photographed and threatened her. They’d terrorized and murdered her friends, then lured her to their sick-ass slaughtering cabin and come after her with a knife.

They’d tried to kill my Abby…

Another growl rumbled from my throat, unbidden, and her eyes widened.

While part of me was embarrassed by the possessive notes of aggression I couldn’t hold in, a deeper part of me was pleased that she’d heard and understood them, because I could never articulate those thoughts. No matter what my instinct was telling me—no matter what kind of potent hormones some ancient biological imperative was dumping into my bloodstream with every beat of my heart—she was not mine. She would never be mine.

But she was my responsibility.

“I would do anything for someone I cared about, Abby. But there’s a process. As an Alpha, I have to dispense justice rather than vengeance.” Though there were days when I’d much rather be a vigilante. “And even if we weren’t going to take action against the stray, we’d have to find him and question him, because you’re right—he probably knows more about the hunters than we do, and we need to know everything he knows.”

Abby bent over her suitcase again, her shoulders stiff. She didn’t like my answer. “I just think it’s messed up that we’re after this poor stray for doing exactly what we’re going to do to the monsters he’s hunting.”