“HE’S A LONE WOLF NOW. EVERYONE’S TALKING about it,” Mom said. “Apparently, after we left him last night he went straight to Big Richard and broke his ties with the pack.”

There are three surefire ways to get information out: telephone, e-mail and tele-my-mom. “So what, that somehow makes him a better mate for me?”

Mom snorted. “Well, yes. It proves he’s been telling the truth. Purists never break rank. Never really leave their core packs. Anthony did.”

I shook my head, not wanting to believe and wishing I could at the same time. “It’s not just Big Richard. Anthony will never be a lone wolf with all the women he’s got offering to him. And after what he almost did last night—”

“I know the definition of the word lone, dear,” she said, indignant. Oops. “He’s ended things with those other girls. Flatly refused each of their offers. I hear one of them, the one with the big nose and god-awful taste in clothes, I heard she threw an absolute fit when he turned her down.”

Sheila Tully, a model who enjoyed the perks of wearing designer clothes every day, but alas would never hold a candle to me in my mother’s eyes. I loved my mom.

“And last night…well, honey, I love you, but if you hadn’t suddenly tried to bite his head off, we’d have snuck off to give you two some privacy.”

My jaw dropped. “Seriously? Mom, he jumped me.”

“I know, sweetheart, but to be fair you’d invited him to enjoy your…feminine delights before.”

My cheeks warmed. Crap. I was twenty-three, a werewolf and a liberated woman. Of course I wasn’t a virgin and my mom’s not stupid. Still. She’s my mom and hearing her refer to my feminine delights is just…shudder.

“I think he just got a little caught up in the excitement of fighting off other suitors,” she said. “If it’d been any other time, say a few nights ago, would you have fought so hard to stop him?”

If he’d tried to screw me in wolf form? Uh, yeah. But only long enough for us both to shift and then…Go figure, my mom was right. But was she right about everything? Was Anthony my true life mate?

“It doesn’t matter. He was raised a Purist,” I said. “Even if he turns his back on that now, he’ll never be like Dad. I want what the two of you had. A partnership. Can someone raised as a Purist ever see a woman as an equal?”

Mom shook her head, and made a tsk-tsk sound with her tongue. “Your father was a rare find. I don’t think there’ll ever be anyone quite like him. But then, you’re not exactly like me. And maybe, just maybe, Anthony can be for you what your father was for me. There’s only one way to find out.”

Yeah, stick my neck out and hope no one bites it off. Won’t that be fun?

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Councilman Lynwood said from the metal ladder they’d erected at the far end of the clearing. “In exactly—” he checked his watch “—eight minutes the lunar eclipse will begin. As is tradition, the hunt lasts the duration of the eclipse while our abilities are uniquely heightened. This year we’ve got a full two hours.”

The crowd cheered around the group of us who were naked and ready for the hunt. More than three hundred wolves running through the woods after a lone deer just isn’t practical. So each pack chose their best five, which typically equated with the top five ranking members.

There were only four of us from my pack: me, Mom, and my cousins, Glenna and Oliver. Glenna was my blood cousin; Oliver was her mate. A fluke of members being injured, pregnant or underage coincided to make us short one. We weren’t the only pack participating in the hunt with fewer hunters though.

Plus, we were good. Real good.

“You still pissed at me?”

I turned from Councilman Lynwood’s speech about how an alpha member of each pack had scented the deer that morning before they’d set it loose and said, “Anthony.”

“Wanted to stop by and wish you luck tonight,” he said, hands stuffed aw-shucks style in the front pockets of his jeans. His gaze traveled down my body and left a trail of heat in its wake. My breath shuddered but I covered with a deeper breath, waiting for his eyes to come back to mine. Nudity wasn’t normally an issue with werewolves, unless you wanted to have sex with the person and then we’re men and women like everyone else.

“Thanks. Putting my name on the Gathering cup this year’s gonna be sweet,” I said, skillfully hiding the quiver in my voice.

Damn, those jeans hugged his muscled legs like indigo skin. Then again the tight T-shirt didn’t leave much to the imagination either. And I had an excellent imagination. My belly fluttered, thoughts of shredding the black fabric off those hard pecs flashing through my brain.

“Oh, right. The alpha of the pack to take down the deer gets the honor. You’d be the first woman.” His smile dimpled his cheeks. If I didn’t know better I’d think he actually looked…proud.

“That’s the plan.” I swallowed, tasting his sweet-hay-and-all-male scent on the back of my tongue. The flavor sparked so many memories: my lips on his skin, his arms around me, his body deep inside mine. “You going out with your dad’s pack?”

He shook his head then looked away, brows tight. “No. I, uh, I won’t hunt with a pack I can’t respect. I’m not a Purist and my dad can’t accept it. So…”

Hope clogged my throat, made my stomach churn and flooded my sex with liquid heat. “That right?” I kept it cool.

He looked me in the eye, his voice smooth, sincere. “I told you that already. I’m not a Purist. Never have been. Last night, Mattie, that was me being crazy-out-of-my-mind in love with you. Nothing else. I didn’t mean to hurt you and I sure as hell wouldn’t have forced you. I swear it.”

It was my turn to look away, to hide the blush I felt warm my face. “So you really cut bonds with your dad and his pack? You’re a loner now?”

I glanced back and caught his nod. “Yep. Not all it’s cracked up to be, though.”

My smile flashed on reflex. “That right?”

“Yeah.” He hiked his shoulders, hands still in his pockets. “Think I could hook up with you guys tonight?”

Muscles across my back tensed. “Why not just take my pack, if that’s what you want? You could force me. If you’re not a Purist you’ve got nothing to lose.” Except my respect.

“Yeah, I could force your pack to follow me. I could force you to be my mate.” He closed the distance between us, cupped my face. “But I’m asking. The decision is yours. Can I join your pack, Mattie? Will you have me?”

My stomach flopped and fluttered. It felt like I was riding a roller coaster. “You can’t just join another pack. You—you have to be born in or mate in.”

His hands slipped to the tops of my arms, fingers squeezing, pulling me close so my naked breasts brushed his chest. “Think you could help me out with that?”

Tingles raced over my skin, from the top of my head to the bottoms of my feet, anticipation, hope, and blind lust making me light-headed. God, it was such a risk. What if he was lying? If I just had some kind of proof, some way to know for sure.

“You can run with us, but I’m lead. If you take down the deer it’s yours. I—I mean—the pack won’t want the credit.”

His gaze stayed fixed on my mouth, watching me speak, his lids low, making those sultry violet eyes all the more sexy. Damn. “Got it. So I’ll follow. Act as your fifth.”

“You’d follow me in a hunt? A woman?”

“I’d follow you anywhere, Mattie. Because you’re a woman, the woman I love.”

Someone sighed. “Aww…” It was my mom.

I led my pack to win the hunt, but not alone. In wolf form, under the strange power of a dark full moon, instinct took over and everything snapped into place. Like the teeth on a gear, Anthony and I, the members of my pack, all meshed together, worked as one. Like it was meant to be.

But the evening wasn’t over. I had a decision to make. After all, no matter how much I wished it, a woman couldn’t hold a pack on her own. Funny thing. I didn’t really want to hold it on my own anymore.

We weren’t the only ones to take a dip in the lake after the hunt. Anthony and I had swum out near a small island for privacy. He pulled me to him, coaxing my legs around his waist under the water, kissing my neck. His hot breath sent a shiver down my spine, a delicious contrast to the cool water hugging my body, lapping at my breasts.

His muscles tensed, his cock a hard line pressing against my ass, he rocked his hips to stroke himself against me. “I’m going out of my head here, Mattie. The Gathering’s almost over. I want you. I want you now, and forever. Tell me I’m the one or put me out of my misery.”

I turned my lips to his ear. “I want you…inside me.”

Anthony’s whole body shuddered around me as though my words had touch and weight. A blast of his exhaled breath bathed my neck and back. His arms tightened and he shifted, lifting me so his cock pressed against the sensitive lips of my sex. I floated down, my pussy opening over him, taking the thick round head of his cock inside my body.

My chest tightened, trapping my breath. Sex muscles fluttered, pulsed, tried to pull him deeper. I caught my bottom lip between my teeth to muffle a moan.

“I can’t refuse you,” he said, his hands slipping down to my ass, squeezing. “But is this all you want from me?”

His hands pressed as he rocked into me, driving his thick shaft through the tightness of my pussy. I cried out from the suddenness of it, from the thrust of sensation that exploded through me.

Yes. I wanted this, him, his body, his soul. I wanted Anthony as my mate. I knew it then; I’d known it since he’d asked to join us on the hunt. But I’d worried for so long, I’d allowed my fear to wall up my heart, to become a solid obstacle inside me. It weighed down on me, trapped the words in my throat like debris in a stream. I couldn’t break through. I couldn’t let go.

“Just…just fuck me.” My voice came soft, breathy. I clung to him, my arms wrapped around his neck, my heart racing, need screaming through me to move, to ride him, to feel him slipping in and out of me.

“Damn it, Mattie, you’re pushing me to the ragged edge,” he said, his jaw clenching as he pulled out then rammed his cock deep.

The force of his thrust shook through my body, electric sparks flashing behind my eyes. Water splashed around us, wetting my shoulders, my face, sending waves rippling out in a fast-growing circle. Again and again his body stroked inside me, fit me perfectly, filled me up. Sweet friction sizzled along my skin, hummed through my veins, coiled low and tight in my belly. My sex muscles squeezed, milking his cock, begging for more. I held my breath, felt the climax rise, closer, closer.

And then he stopped.

“Is this all you want?” he asked again, his lips brushing my ear, his cock pulsing inside me.

“I’m so—I’m so close. Please…”

“First tell me. Is this all you want from me? A fuck? Or do you want more? Do you want what I want?” He nipped my ear and sent a quick jolt through my system that nearly undid me.

I gasped, my senses teetering at the edge of bliss. His sweet scent filled my nose, my lungs, his warm breath and hot body drowning me, penetrating deep inside me. My mind scrambled to understand.

I couldn’t think. I could only feel. “I want…I want…Anthony!”

Suddenly I didn’t have to think. The dam broke. Nature roared inside me, reached out from my soul like an invisible hand stretching to him. An offering. He took it, and with it went my body, tumbling over the edge. Sweet, sweet release.

I knew the moment, the instant, his soul linked with mine and our union was sealed. Life mates. One for the other, together as one. Forever and always.