I didn't want the kiss to end. I had never kissed a man before, so I didn't know for sure if kissing my fated Alpha was any different from just kissing a man.

It plunged me into the deep end.

I felt the tingling of my skin and the vibrations through my core; the pulls, the flips, the wetness between my legs, and the weakness in my knees in a visceral way.

It was a dream-like sensation of everything feeling right in the world. I floated so far above the Earth as Blake kissed me that it cleansed me of all grief, all frustrations, all anxieties. Rose-gold clouds, the kind that gather at sunrise to usher in a bright sunny day, lifted me up. They carried me.

"I want this kiss to last forever," I whispered against Blake's lips.

As soon as we broke contact, the gray webs of reality fingered in.

Blake wasn't mine.

I was a stray who couldn't shift, with a fresh Omega Mark.

He was a powerful Alpha with many enemies, including a backstabbing Beta.

Blake belonged with a Luna.

A long sigh rattled me head to toe, chilling me. "Only...I don't know if it's possible."

Blake blinked. He wore a vulnerable expression of someone blind who could now see.

"We..." He cleared his throat to get rid of the hoarseness. "Let's work on it. Untie me—"

A mischievous smile curved my lips. "What's the rush, Blake? It took so long to get you chained. I need a better payback for my efforts."

His eyes locked on mine. "Untie me, so I can walk you down the werewolf trails in the mountains. Now that we have taken the edge off, we can do it."

I grab for the keys. I had, evidently, dropped them on the floor while kissing Blake. I didn't remember my fingers releasing the metal ring, nor the sound it made, nor anything else related to the keys.

Dammit, I was too immersed into our kiss to pay attention to the little things like Blake's shackles. But while I gathered the keys, the spell thinned out.

I realized then that Blake had just commanded me to move things along. Talk about being single-minded! He expected obedience from me too. Was he really as different from Harold as I had imagined before we'd kissed?

I straightened slowly and jingled the keys in front of his nose. "Ask me nicely, and don't use your Alpha voice, lover."

"Sorry, I...I forgot myself." He bit his lip till it bled where the canine cut in. "Celeste, please, unchain me."

I jingled the keys again. "What are you sorry for?"

"Trying to expedite things by bending you to my will." He looked directly into my eyes. "It was wrong. I keep forgetting you are my Omega, and I need to learn to go slow...I'm not great with it. The relationships. She-wolves.."

"You treated Scarlett with plenty of patience." I couldn't keep a sour note from my voice when I spoke of that ah...she-wolf.

"Right," he said. "Because she doesn't confuse my every instinct with one smile. Because I'm not terrified to lose my control around her when it's Solstice. Or when your scent is the only one I could smell."

I very nearly dropped the keys again. "Really?"

"Yes. From the moment you bounded on the road, huffing and puffing about the job interview...I can't think straight around you. I have to plan ahead before I see you. Consider what time of day and Lunar cycle it is; if the windows can be opened, if needed; if we will be alone! "

I leaned in and kissed the defenseless Alpha on the cheek. "Thank you. That's the nicest thing any man has ever said to me."

He closed his eyes again and let his just-kissed cheek touch mine. It would have been so wonderful, if he could hold me. But he couldn't, because...

"Wait a minute," I whispered, "do you trust yourself to be alone with me in the woods? It's a classic make-out spot. Even I know that! And, on Solstice..."

"We won't be alone, and the morning is approaching. We can do it."

When Blake spoke, his stubble scratched my skin, also reminding me that the night was growing long. We both got up at sunrise, but I didn't feel sleepy at all. He seemed very awake as well.

"You're bringing a chaperone? Who?"

He nudged my nose with his. "You'll see, impatient mate."

"So long as it's not Scarlett," I grumbled. Blake smiled to show he'd heard me, but enjoyed keeping me in suspense. The tease!

I sighed, unlocking the chains, and he freed himself far faster than it took me to chain him.

"Give me a minute," he asked.

"Okay."

I plopped onto a mesh chair with a curved back, one of the four that surrounded a table for executive meetings with only the highest level actors involved.

Blake's Round Table, I thought, imagining Blake sitting there, with his hands balled into fists, negotiating some deal for The Olympian and growling once in a while.

It was oddly exciting.

In the meantime, Blake opened a closet cleverly disguised as a wall panel and hung up his suit jacket. His back was to me, but I could see by the movements of his elbows that he tugged his tie loose and unbuttoned his shirt. It was so mesmerizing.

"No peeking," Blake said, just when the collar of his dress shirt lowered past his corded neck muscles and his shoulders came into view. He didn't seem tense, so I don't think he minded so much.

However, I still turned away, biting my lips.

"I wasn't looking," I fibbed as heat climbed into my cheeks.

After a bit of rustling, Blake called, "All done."

He kept his dress slacks on, and they didn't look out of place with a thin gray hoodie and hiking boots. He let his hair loose and rolled his shoulders to work out the stiffness of wearing fancier clothes.

"Let's avoid the limelight," he said. The irrepressible boyish smile I didn't expect shaved years off his responsible, traditional Alpha persona. It didn't take mind-reading to see that he was looking forward to getting out into the forest. "We'll take a secret passage."

"A secret passage?" Well, The Olympian was a castle.

"A private exit for the famous guests, really, but the secret passage sounds more dramatic."

I sighed. "I've had enough drama for one night."

A very long night, after an endless day. I could barely believe that all these things had happened to me in the space of twenty-four hours.

He reached out to touch my shoulder, but changed his mind and yanked his hand away. "No more drama, I promise. Just the mountains, the moonlight, and the forest."

Behind the half-closed shatters on his window, the sky was dark. The stars twinkled, invisible to us from here, but outside, in the unpolluted air above the mountain range, they would be enormous. It would also be cool...and there would be wolves, stalking the trails.

But unlike most everyone else with human blood, I wished to meet a wolf. My guide who alone could help me get my Luna's status and stop hiding my fated bond.

I followed Blake down to a service floor, where we walked down an empty hall under renos to another elevator, to the car park backing onto a well-marked trail. The Olympian's ground floor poured yellow light over the flowerbeds. From there, long chains of LED lights shaped like cherry blossoms wound around the trees and a romantic trellis tunnel.

Something particularly fragrant was in full bloom, spicing the night with a heady sweet aroma.

Music, conversation, and laughter spilled out of the open doors from the gardens, where some couples sought privacy. In the dimly lit car park, we found ourselves just beyond the circle of light and celebration. From this distance, it had a magic aura.

Yet, Blake resolutely turned his wide back on it and walked into the darkness beyond the parking lot.

I wanted to ask if his pack's guests would miss him—and didn't.

He knew what he was doing. Plus, if he lost his Alpha gig, we'd still be the fated soulmates. Maybe our life would even be easier.

Thinking of the bliss Mie and Reed shared, I stayed with Blake until we crossed the tourist's trail and stepped on the cushy moss. The only sound was our beating hearts and our breath.

Ten steps down the dark path, starlight silvered the forest floor, patterned with gray shadows of leaves.

"Ah!" I stopped in my tracks, surveying the woods. I wasn't crazy. This was the only stretch like that. Tree trunks to either side gave it the appearance of an aisle.

"Only those who have wolf's blood in their veins could see this trail," Blake said. "It's guarded against the strays too to avoid accidents."

As if to confirm his words, a being with luminous green eyes separated from a giant cedar and blocked my way.

A wolf.

It was the third time a wolf had stopped me on my journey...the same wolf every time. In the starlight, despite the play of shadows on the smokey-gray fur, I could finally see him clearly. He was leggy and lean—the look we even call wolfish—but there was bulk to him around the neck, where the mane ran into a triangle of white fur on his chest.

Without the mist cloaking him, like on the first night, he looked very real.

I slipped behind Blake, clutching his elbow for support. My heart sped up in my chest, jolted by awe and terror. The wolf was the very image of primal power; fierce, yet beautiful.

Blake took my hand into his. "Celeste, meet our chaperone for tonight," he said. "My wolf-kin."

This introduction seemed to be what the wolf was waiting for, because he turned and trotted down the path, throwing an occasional glance at us. We followed him.

My hand sat cozily in Blake's warmer, larger one. A little imp in my heart wondered why our lupine chaperone didn't object. "He doesn't mind when we hold hands."

"It doesn't smell wrong to him," Blake said.

"What about a kiss?"

"He'll interfere if I go too far and he feels I endanger the pack."

"Just one kiss? A measly, friendly—"

Blake chuckled. "He knows that kissing leads to mating. And pinning a she-wolf who isn't in heat is a profoundly wrong thing."

I chewed the inside of my cheek. "This sounds so oddly puritan for a wild beast."

"Wolf's morality is instinctive, with the survival of the pack being the top priority. It guides their sense of right and wrong." Blake squeezed my hand gently. "Therefore, it's wrong to mate before the time when it helps the pack to prosper."

"Maybe it makes sense to them, but we are—" We are not wolves.

"We are werewolves."

"I am an Alpha. You are an Omega, unshifted and never gone to heat. If I touch you in the wrong way, for the wrong reason, I'd lose his respect."

He was so serious. And the kiss we shared unlocked something new within my soul.

I tugged at his arm and winked at him. "Maybe he can make tiny accommodation for human morals?"

"That's dogs, not wolves." Blake glanced at the fading face of the moon. "At the dawn of time some wolves started to see the world the way humans see the world, and they became dogs. And some humans started to see the world the way wolves see the world."

"And they became werewolves," I finished the thought.

Blake's wolf-kin ignored our whispered exchange, and I realized that walking the trail with him differed from walking a dog. One of my odd jobs used to be a dog-walker, and my charges bounded back and forth, looked at me with excitement or disdain or wagged their tails ...but I was the center of their attention.

The wolf, he just allowed us to follow.

After about three miles, the trees became sparse. The canopy thinned out enough to allow lacy white flowers to grow along the sides. The moonlight set each tiny floret aglow. Perfectly simple. Infinitely complex.

Once I'd admired the night bloom's beauty, Blake picked one, then another...then he started weaving them into a flower crown.

"For me?" I asked, and my breath stilled in anticipation of his answer. Of course, it was for me, but I wanted to hear that.

"Can't bring my fated love before the Goddess without a gift."

I adored the nimble movements of his fingers, though I missed holding his hand. I settled on hooking my arm through his elbow. It didn't slow him one bit.

"We are going to meet a Goddess? The Moon Goddess?"

"Her shrine," he said and topped my head with a living diadem.

Slightly crooked, with some umbrellas larger than the others; fully open and others still had lots of pale green buds in the center, with the white lace on the outside... It was perfect, but I adjusted it a bit anyway.

"Be my mirror, Blake. Do I look pretty?"

He stopped and cupped my face in his palms. "No."

"No?" I whispered, while something cold fingered my heart. Not even pretty...

Blake gazed deep into my eyes. "You are beautiful."

These three simple words blew the entire previous conversation out of my head. My eyes closed on their own and my chin lifted, my lips begging for a kiss. Blake's thumb caressed my chin.

"Beautiful," Blake confirmed in a whisper and leaned in.