He didn’t answer.
“You’ve lost it, Kat, talking to a wolf,” she muttered to herself.
Before her eyes, the wolf morphed into a naked boy. “Yes, I’m a shifter, but not from your pack.” His voice vibrated through the air, low and brassy, pleasing to her senses.
“So you’re here to kill me then?” she asked, surprised at her calmness.
“I should be, but for some reason, I seem unable,” he answered, his voice void of emotion.
“That’s comforting,” she sneered.
“I imagine it is,” he stated. His face remained stoic.
Katalina burst out laughing. Is this guy serious?
“What’s so funny?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“You! Are you always so…literal?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Katalina shook her head. “Never mind, so if you’re not here to kill me, then why are you here?”
“You intrigue me, Katalina Winter.”
“You know my name,” she queried, shocked. Everyone knows my name.
“Most know your name but not your face.”
“Well, that’s something I suppose.”
Silence fell between them. He stared at her as intently as he had when a wolf. She found herself taking an unsteady step, an invisible force drawing her to him.
He frowned, looking down at her leg. “You are still injured?”
“I’m f—” Her leg crumpled. She braced for the cold snow, but he’d crossed the space between them in a blur of movement, catching her inches before impact.
Stunned, she stared, opened-mouthed as he set her on her feet. This close she noted every detail; his hair, just long enough to tangle fingers into and the urge to do so was a potent thing. His bare chest was a solid muscled wall, her fingers flexed where they rested, trailing through a smattering of dark hairs.
“Why haven’t you healed yet?” he asked, oblivious to her wandering thoughts.
“What? Oh, I…”
He leant forward, breathing deeply at the curve of her neck.
“Did you seriously just sniff me?” she asked, shocked at the strangeness of the past twenty-four hours.
“Yes, I was just getting your scent.”
“Scent?” she asked bewildered.
“Yes.”
“Shifters are strange,” she muttered to herself.
“You’re a shifter too.”
“So I’ve been told,” she grumbled, still hardly believing it herself.
“Though you’ve never changed, have you?” he continued, not giving her chance to answer. “Your father left you vulnerable. He has been foolish keeping you away so long. He’s left you weak. You’ll need your wolf to protect yourself.”
“Mmm.”
“Why are you out here alone? Unprotected? You should rest. You will need to have healed enough before the next full moon, for the change to go smoothly.”
His reference to change had her refocusing on his words, and not on the expanse of his chest. Having enough of the wolf talk, she snapped, “I’m going home.”
He frowned. “Is that not home?” He gestured in the direction of the old farmhouse she’d escaped from.
“No, those people are strangers to me. I don’t trust them. They took me away from my home.”
“You are the alpha’s daughter. No one will hurt you there.”
“That man is not my father. My father is…”—she swallowed the lump in her throat—“is dead.”
Wiping the tear spilt from her eye, he murmured, “Don’t cry.”
Don’t cry? Don’t cry? “Why not?” Katalina stepped back from his hold, not caring about her wobbling feet. “I watched my parents die last night,” she stared at the ground, not seeing the snow covered earth, but the crash. “Wolves attacked, almost killing me, and then I woke up in a strange bed, with strange people telling me I’m a wolf shifter, and I need to come back because my blood is pure and they want me to keep the line going. I turned eighteen yesterday. The last thing on my mind is children and I most certainly will not be told who I’m supposed to marry. And that man who claims to be my father… Where’s the proof? He doesn’t even look like me. For all I know, he’s just some nut job.”
Katalina sucked in a deep breath, lifting her eyes from the ground to meet his. “What better reason is there to cry?” Her cheeks heated, realizing she’d ranted to a complete stranger, and told him things she maybe shouldn’t have.
He studied her. “Very well. If you’d like to go home, I’ll take you, but first you need to go back and heal.”
“What? Really?” She hadn’t been expecting that answer. She’d expected him to have run for the hills after all she’d said.