Simon blew out a hard breath. This inexplicable turmoil stirring him up made no sense. He didn’t need the danger of living with the Blackwoods, nor did he need the stress of living a double life. All he had to do was get his ass back home and get back to his old life.
Simple and easy. And just going to the clinic for work wasn’t enough.
He glanced over at the bar again and a surge of anger fired through his blood.
This was all because of a bear.
It didn’t help that his logical brain knew that his anger was misplaced. Calder had simply defended his new mate. There were some things that easily superseded the bullshit breeding contract she’d made with the Blackwoods.
For one, her status as a true mate. That kind of connection was often coveted and quite rare. And for two, as far as anyone other than him and Rafe knew at the time, she wasn’t able to conceive. That had made her useless to the pack and their grand experiment. The whole point of them recruiting humans had been to test different fertilization theories, not start a stupid war. Unfortunately, their first attempt had made them possessive and blown the entire operation.
As he sat there lamenting his current situation, the door of the bar opened and a woman he didn’t recognize swept in. Every patron in the place turned and stared, including him. The room grew deathly silent as Simon joined the crowd in checking out what had to be the most unexpected newcomer to town.
The first thing he noticed was the fiery red hair. Hell, it was kind of hard not to when it was the radiant color of fall leaves at their peak and it flowed all the way down her back and past her ass. And while he couldn’t quite see more than the side from this angle, he got the impression of a curvy butt that made a man like him want to take a bite.
His inner wolf growled.
He fought the urge to straighten in his chair and instead raised his glass for a deceiving lazy sip of his beer while he continued his perusal.
She was unusually tall too. Nearly as tall as him and he was almost six-four. As she stilled and placed her hands on her hips, his eyes were drawn to her beautiful face.
Fuck.
Porcelain skin, lush lips almost as red as her hair and green eyes that flashed in the dim light of the Dark Moon. At least she wasn’t a female tourist who’d wandered off the beaten path. No. This one was all shifter. Only he couldn’t quite tell which kind.
He closed his eyes and inhaled the scents of the room deep so that he could filter them out until he was left with hers. Only he didn’t need a damn filter to catch hers. It was fucking potent. More so than anyone else in the room.
There were many layers in fact. Fresh air and cold bitter wind. That didn’t exactly make sense considering it was early fall but still felt like summer. He also caught pine and flowers, which made perfect sense. The Dark Moon was just far enough away from town to be surrounded by trees and wildflowers, making it the perfect retreat for many shifters to come and go. Even unseen if that’s how they preferred and they knew Bhric, the alpha here at Dark Moon, well enough to use the back door.
Next he catalogued the spicy scent of the woman before him. That came with attitude and somehow didn’t surprise him at all. The majority of shifter women were neither meek nor mild. They were generally as strong as the men and willing to fight for what they wanted. And he didn’t totally doubt that there was some science behind the red-headed gene that made them extra saucy, especially considering hers came with an extra sexy layer of smokiness to it.
Simon shifted in his chair and tried to ignore his growing erection. While he did have a thing for red hair, the same could be said for any pretty woman willing to temporarily walk into his sphere no matter the color of her hair. As long as they were prepared to walk back out when all was said and done.
Below all those layers there was one more scent he hadn’t quite identified. It was almost as if it was playing coy, as if trying to hide from him. Yeah, he knew that made no sense, but that’s where his mind went with the elusive scent anyway.
He pushed everything else from his mind and took another deep breath. This scent was much darker than what he expected. Even a little desperate in its intensity. Almost palpable even. And it made his cock go suddenly so hard he almost couldn’t breathe. As he felt an overwhelming pull from that scent alone that he almost couldn’t control, realization dawned…
“What? Have you never seen a woman before?”
Her saucy question came out on an accented lilt that made his body instantly harden more. She might not have been talking directly to him and instead addressing the entire room who sat staring at her, half with their mouths hanging open, but he wanted to tell her no. At least not one like her.
This woman—a stranger to these parts—wasn’t just a shifter. She was THE shifter. A dragon. The nearly fabled creature said to be the origin of all shifters. A creature who hadn’t existed in these parts in more decades than he’d lived.
And she was in heat.
