I turned to Adam again—and the vines and the chair were gone, the smell of black magic replaced by pine with a hint of mint. But Adam still wore the monster’s guise, wounds weeping where the thorns of Elizaveta’s vines had dug in.

“I am ugly inside,” he told me.

“Me, too,” I said. “And I’m not as pretty as you are on the outside, either.”

“I’m jealous and spiteful,” he said. “I don’t like it when men call you. When Bran calls you—or Beauclaire.”

I nodded. “I’m jealous, too. And I think I outmatch you for spite. I hate that Christy was your wife and is Jesse’s mother.” I looked around and then grabbed his horrible hand and dragged him to the balustrade, still stained with Elizaveta’s blood.

I climbed on top of it, and the blood disappeared before it could touch my dirty bare feet. Balanced on top of the stone, with his big hand making sure I did not fall, I leaned over and kissed him.

“I pick you,” I said—and the world dissolved around me.

I SAT IN THE STREAM IN MY OWN OTHERNESS. THE WATER was really, really cold.

A big gray wolf, his feet and muzzle much darker than the silvery fur on his back, waded in beside me. He put his muzzle on my shoulder.

I wanted to tell you that I love you, too, he said.

I BLINKED UP AT THE SHOP LIGHT THAT WAS SUDDENLY over my head.

“Your arm is broken,” said Adam, his voice ferocious. “I have it wrapped to stop the bleeding, but as soon as Carlos gets here we’re taking you to the hospital.”

“Fiona was working for the witches,” I said. His face filled my world, and I realized he was in his own human skin.

“I know that,” he told me. “I heard.”

“We need to tell Bran that Kent was witchbound, whatever that means.”

“I will,” he said. “Shut up now. Save your strength.”

“I love you even though you aren’t perfect,” I said.

He met my eyes. “I know that.”

“I’m not perfect, either,” I told him.

“I know that, too,” he said, his voice growly.

“You need to find some clothes to wear, and I think I’m in shock.” And I passed out before he could tell me that he knew that, too.

ABOUT A WEEK LATER I WAS SITTING AT THE KITCHEN table and Adam sat down beside me and kissed my shoulder, the one connected to my unbroken arm.

“Hmm,” I said, writing down the parts number from the catalog I was ordering from.

The guy who ran this particular parts yard didn’t believe in the Internet, but he had parts that no one else carried. The order was made more difficult because I had to write everything down with my left hand.

But mostly I kept writing because I could feel Adam’s amusement traveling through our mating bond. He was about to do something or tell me something that he thought was really funny.

“Okay,” I said, looking up.

His face was lit with laughter—and it looked good on him.

“First,” he said, “I need to tell you that Izzy’s mother is very sorry. She didn’t realize that the client she was talking to is the sister of a reporter for a tabloid.”

Izzy’s mother sold essential oils. I couldn’t imagine what she …

“Butch apologizes,” Adam continued, “because when I told him to watch the newspapers and TV news—he did not consider tabloids until he caught one of our new guards reading one of them.”

Adam set a stack of tabloid newspapers on the kitchen table in front of me. There must have been ten or twelve of them. The front page headline of the one on top said: Human(?) Wife Says Alpha Werewolf Is Sex Fiend, Seeks Help from Friend.

And that wasn’t the worst one.

I laughed until I cried. Then Adam picked me up, careful not to jostle my broken arm, and growled, “Nudge.”

“Help,” I called as he carried me up the stairs. “My mate is a sex fiend. Help.”

There was no help for me.

________

ADAM GOT CALLED INTO WORK THAT NIGHT, SO I WAS alone when the sounds of a guitar and a violin drifted through my closed window. I got up and shoved the window open—which would have been easier without the stupid broken arm.

Sitting cross-legged on the hood of my old Rabbit parts car, Wulfe played a violin. In front of him, standing on the ground but with one foot on the bumper, Stefan played a guitar. They managed a pretty good version of “The Sound of Silence.” Small hesitations here and there made me think they hadn’t practiced it.

When they were done, Wulfe slid off the car and took a bow with a flourish worthy of a Shakespearean actor. But it was Stefan’s grin, not Wulfe’s bow or the performance, that put a smile on my face as I closed the window.

On the top of my chest of drawers, just as though it had always been there, the walking stick lay in its usual place.