Blind Wolf (A Werewolf BBW Shifter Romance #1)(12)

What would he do when they finally embraced? She dreamed about Damien touching her, feeling her curves, her wide hips. His hands ran over her and in her mind she saw him grimace, recoil from her body. Her heart sank.

"No," she whispered. "He wouldn't do that." But the fragment of doubt that had worried its way under her skin continued to irritate her, and she could not envelop herself in the same daydreams that she had spent the morning contemplating. She brought her cupped hands up and peeked through the small opening between her thumbs. The firefly lit up her hands just then, casting a warm glow through her fingers. She spread her fingers wide and let it go, but the firefly continued to walk on her skin, over her thumb and onto her wrist, then back to her palm. A strange feeling ran through her, the same feeling she'd had of being watched in the library.

"Go on, little bug," she said, lifting her hand up. She blew the firefly off toward the woods as though she was blowing a kiss, and then she froze.

Amid the glow of a hundred fireflies, there were two small golden lights that did not move. As she watched, they stayed lit, not blinking off after a few seconds the way that fireflies always did.

"Hello?" she called out, then felt stupid for it. She took a step forward and blinked, rubbing her eyes. No, it wasn't a mistake—the tiny lights continued to shine from inside of the woods.

A cold chill ran through her body. Was there some kind of animal out there? She'd heard that there were deer around here, but she'd seen deer before and these were not a deer's eyes. She began to step slowly backwards, keeping the yellow lights in her sight at all times.

"Julia? Did you call out?"

Julia spun towards Granny Dee's voice. Her grandmother was standing on the porch, a basket of cut roses in her hands. Julia turned back quickly to see the gold lights, but they were gone. Her eyes darted everywhere, thinking that one of the pinpoints of gold floating in the darkness must be them, but none of the lights stayed on for more than a couple of seconds. It was only fireflies.

"It was nothing," Julia said, walking back towards the house and up onto the porch. "I just thought I saw an animal out there in the forest."

"Deer?"

"No, I'm not sure what it was," Julia said. Her grandmother had always told her that the woods were safe—there weren't any large predators around the area—but she couldn't explain what her gut told her about the lights in the darkness. What she had imagined about the eyes.

Because she had thought, in the first instant she saw them, that they looked like the eyes of a wolf.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Damien

"It's this way."

Kyle led the pack running through the woods in wolf form, with Katherine and Damien following and Jordan trailing behind them. They were always cautious, even if there was no other sign of wolf scent. The pine trees smelled fresh in the coolness of the morning air, and the dead leaves underneath crackled satisfyingly under their paws as they ran.

They communicated in short yelps and growls whenever they had to, but in wolf form most of their discussion was implicit, instinctive. One look could speak more than a hundred words. When they came close to the place Kyle had scouted yesterday, he slowed and turned toward the rest of the group.

"This one. Only a mile now."

As the wolves crested the last hill and moved down toward the house in the middle of the clearing, Damien began to feel a strange presence. He stopped short and Katherine stopped next to him.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure. Let's be careful."

Kyle circled back and they trotted together in a more tightly knit group to the edge of the field where the house stood. Damien recognized what the presence was, and in that same instant the wind shifted and he smelled her perfume, a hint of violet.

Julia.

Katherine swiveled her head toward him, nudging his shoulder with her snout, but he ignored her.

"Trouble?" Jordan asked, coming up on his other side.

"Is the entrance to the state park nearby?" Damien asked.

"Just over the next hill, off a bit to the east," Kyle said.

"How far?"

"I'm not sure," Kyle admitted. "I circled around last night, so it might be closer than I thought."

"Take Katherine there and figure out the distance," Damien said, sitting back on his haunches.

Kyle was eager to run with Katherine, and they took off at a brisk pace through the trees.

"Change your mind about your competition?" Jordan asked. His voice was cautious.

"I wanted to talk alone," Damien said. "But first let's go closer to the house. You visited it yesterday?"

"It's old, ready to be torn down," Jordan said. "Shouldn't be too much of an issue, except that the sellers are stubborn."

"That's what Kyle said," Damien said. They wove their way through the trees toward the clearing. The rising sun sent rays shimmering warmly through the branches over their heads, and small flying insects swarmed in clouds, reflecting the light of dawn and tickling their fur whenever they moved through a bunch of them. Suddenly Damien heard the crack of a door opening, and the smell of violets grew stronger. His heart swelled with the now-familiar ache for a mate.

"Who is that?" he asked, knowing already what the answer was going to be.