So the longer we stayed the safer we were?  I felt a small measure of relief.  Maybe last night hadn’t been such a glaring lack of responsibility on my part, after all.  Yet, leaving my brothers alone with two werewolves when I suspected Blake of being the same thing...well, I didn’t want to think about it too much.

I considered Emmitt’s explanation for a moment.  “Is it just my scent that’s hard to mask or any person’s?”  The question appeared to make him uncomfortable.  “Am I asking something I shouldn’t?”

“No, you can ask anything.  I just don’t want to upset you with the answer.”

“If I’m asking, please just answer honestly.  I need the truth, not the dance around it.”

“Everyone’s scent is as difficult to mask, but their scent wouldn’t be as compelling to follow.”

“What do you mean?”

He stepped close to me, crowding into my space.  I didn’t move.  Leaning forward, he inhaled deeply.  “Your scent calls to our kind.  Remember Nana mentioning a certain scent calls to a Mate.  Yours teases all of us.  Calls us closer to test it, to see if you really might be a match for us.”

His cheek brushed against mine.  This close, my stomach reacted.  It clenched, and a flush crept into my cheeks.  I fought to keep my breathing even and myself from leaning toward him.

“And when you do that, it just about brings me to my knees,” he said softly against my ear.

His words brought a wave of embarrassment; I had an idea what I might have just done.  Pulling away to make some space between us, I didn’t meet his gaze.  Instead, I retreated to the kitchen and thought over what he’d shared.  His news that all werewolves would find my scent appealing disturbed me.

“If my scent is hard to mask, and you can smell my trails crisscrossing the apartment, why would one of your kind need to lean in close to scent me?”  Blake’s dictate to allow his men to scent me confused me.  What game had he been playing at?  The feel of Frank’s tongue stroking my neck resurfaced.  Revulsion skittered down my throat, and my stomach churned.

“I’m sorry for upsetting you,” he said softly behind me.  “I didn’t think you—”

“Oh, no, not you,” I said.  “I just meant—”  What did I mean?  I meant the other werewolves you don’t know about yet.  I wanted to smack my forehead.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said quickly.  He nodded reluctantly.  “I’m sorry, Emmitt.  I’m just not ready to divulge all my secrets, yet.”

“I understand.”

“Will you show me again how you shift?

When he agreed, I led him outside.  The warm air felt heavy with moisture already.  Sweat beaded on my upper lip.  I waved to the boys where they played baseball with Nana and Jim on the lawn.  They barely noticed us as we followed the porch around to the front, staying in the shade.

The branches of the trees surrounding the smaller front yard extended over the lawn by several feet, shrinking the view of the sky above.  Stepping off the porch, I walked to the center of the lawn and looked up, focusing on the white wispy clouds streaking the light blue sky while the leaves on the branches danced in the fringe of my view.  The branches meant plenty of shade.

Emmitt interrupted my idle inspection.  “Nana said no full shifting.  She doesn’t want me upsetting you.”

“Um, okay.”  That put a damper on learning things.  “Nana mentioned that the benefits of both forms differ.  What are the attacking benefits of each form?”  He canted his head slightly and studied me.  “I want to know the strengths and weaknesses of each form.  Like speed, for example.  How fast can you move?”

One moment he stood near me, the next he watched me from near the treeline.  Only a slight breeze had marked his movement.  As much as it impressed me, I didn’t like it.  Blake could hide around a corner, grab me, and be gone in less than two seconds.  Worse, he could grab Liam or Aden.

“Can you move as fast carrying someone?”

A strong heavy breeze lifted my hair from my neck as he abruptly scooped me up into his arms without warning and ran the perimeter of the front yard.  Green flashed by in my peripheral vision.  The wind stole my breath, and I buried my face in his neck.

The heat of his skin and the moisture in the air would have created an uncomfortable stickiness if not for the breeze he created.  Even with me in his arms, he showed no decrease in speed or shortness of breath.

I felt his pulse against my cheek.  Steady and slow.  After a few seconds, I noticed how he smelled and leaned in a little closer, unintentionally touching my lips to his skin.  He smelled like the woods after a storm.

Unexpectedly, the heat of Emmitt left me, along with the breeze, and I found myself sitting alone on the grass.  The singing birds, who’d moments ago chirped out their happiness, quieted in the nearby branches.

Unhurt and confused, I set my hands on the cool grass and twisted around to look for Emmitt.  I found him just a few feet away.  He sat back on his heels, knees spread apart and fingertips touching the ground.  His eyes were closed, and his jaw clenched.  Fur rippled along the bare skin of his arms.

I had a clear view of his change.  The bone structure in his face started to shift.  As disturbing as I found the view of his body changing, another concern took precedence.  Hadn’t Emmitt mentioned werewolves changed as a defense mechanism?  My head swiveled around looking for a threat.

“What is it Emmitt?”  I scrambled close to him, clinging to a furry arm as I scanned the trees and hoped Nana Wini and Jim had the boys close.  “Did you hear something?”

He tried to speak but, with his mouth already too far out of human shape, the sounds weren’t intelligible.  He took a slow breath.  His face stopped contorting and began to move back into place.  The fur slowly faded from his skin.  Unclenching his jaw, he opened his eyes and looked at me with a hint of discomfort, but no alarm.

“What?  What just happened?”  If we weren’t in danger, then why had he started to shift?

“I had to set you down.”

“Yeah, the fur gave that away.”  I waited patiently for a better answer.

“I was taken by surprise, that’s all.”  He stood and offered a hand to help me up.  I took it but didn’t let go once I stood.

“By what?”

“You were just a little close, and I wasn’t expecting it.”

I stared at him dumbly for a moment.  “You picked me up, remember?”

He took another deep breath and looked down at our joined hands.  “Michelle, Claiming is pretty serious stuff, equivalent to getting engaged in your world.  If a guy would give you a small, velvet box, your first thought would probably be ‘it’s a ring’.  Turns out, it’s tickets to a ball game.  Guys know girls associate those little boxes with rings, so it’s cruel to use them for anything else, right?  Claiming is a quick hard bite to the neck.  We grow up knowing a werewolf’s neck is a special area that you don’t go near lightly.  It’s the small, velvet jewelry box.  Do you understand?”

Claiming...bite...neck.  Several pieces of Blake’s speech fell into place.  But why would Blake want me to become engaged to one of his men?  I couldn’t picture biting any of them.

The vision I had where I bit Emmitt resurfaced, and I blinked at him.  Engaged?  My stomach did a wild flip, and my heart stuttered in panic.  My nearness to his neck had caused the change to burst upon him.  He’d had to put me down or drop me.

“But you said you thought of me as a friend.”

“If that’s all you can give me, then I’ll respect that.”

Our gazes held for several long moments as what he said settled inside me.  I knew he waited for me to say something.

“Stay away from werewolf necks.  Got it.  Sorry.”

“No,” he said a bit forcefully then grinned ruefully.  “You can get as close as you want to mine.  Just avoid anyone else’s.”