“And that makes thirteen,” I said, sliding them into my jacket pocket.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve won nine,” Jeff said with a smile, pulling the rest of the cards into a tidy deck. “We’re still close. Nearly evenly matched.”
He’d meant the cards . . . and us. The game in which we’d both been pawns. My stomach tightened.
“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching over and putting a hand over mine. He must have sensed my dismay.
The contact sent a jolt of magic and emotion through my body, that sense of belonging and familiarity that Jeff Christopher triggered with every touch and heartrending smile.
But he wasn’t for me. And that’s what it all came down to.
I pulled back my hand, glanced at my watch. “No worries. But I should be going.”
He tried for a smile, but it wasn’t convincing. “Are you going to turn into a pumpkin?”
“I have to meet someone,” I said, and those few words were enough to make the cheer in his eyes fade away.
His doubt only lasted a moment; his eyes steeled with determination, and he settled them on me. “Someone?” he asked, but he didn’t wait for me to answer. “A potential mate, you mean.”
The Pack believed every Apex needed a companion, a man or woman strong enough to help the Apex hold the Pack. Since I could one day be that Apex, it fell to my family to identify potential mates. A doomsday plan in dating form.
Brains and brawn were popular traits, but they weren’t the only qualifications. Each family of shape-shifters took a specific animal form. The Keenes were wolves, the same form as the first known shape-shifters, Romulus and Remus, and thus the most prestigious. Wolves were the First Animals of the First Pack.
The shifting was magical, but the form was all about genetics. And that’s what it really came down to.
Jeff Christopher, brilliant and charming, was a beautiful and powerful animal: sleek fur; wide, predatory eyes; heavy paws; long, swishing tail.
Jeff was a tiger.
Pack protocol—Pack tradition—said shifters who transformed into different animals shouldn’t be together. Sure, some people ignored the rules. But those people weren’t members of the Apex’s family, and they certainly weren’t second in line to the throne. I didn’t have the luxury of rebellion.
Gabe and Jeff had been friends for some time. I’d met him a few months ago. Gabe trusted and respected Jeff, who worked with Chuck Merit, a former cop who’d been hired by a former mayor to help supernaturals in Chicago. Chuck Merit’s agency was no longer official, but Jeff and his sorcerer colleague, Catcher Bell, still volunteered to solve supernatural dilemmas.
Gabe hadn’t stopped our friendship or complained about the time we spent together, believing we’d drift apart eventually. And as each season passed, the number of potentials Gabe trotted in front of me increased. Jeff was good people. But there were rules.
“The price of Jeff Christopher is too high,” Gabriel was fond of saying. “You cannot have him and the Pack both.”
Jeff knew about the tradition; every shape-shifter did. I think he’d hoped Gabriel would change his mind, or the Pack would. That hadn’t happened. But cold, hard facts hadn’t done anything to diminish the fiery spark between us.
“Don’t go,” he said, slipping from his chair across the table to the one beside mine. His unique scent moved with him—the deep and heady aromas of jungle and his warm and velvety cologne. So did his magic. It was usually bright and almost cheerful, shining like ripples of sunlight across water. But the mood had darkened, and so had his magic, the power that electrified the air like the moment before a storm.
He touched my hand again, sending a shock of magic up my spine. I fought hard against the promise of it. Our relationship hadn’t been exactly platonic, but there were lines we hadn’t crossed.
“I’m a Keene,” I reminded him . . . and myself. “It’s tradition. It’s part of the Pack, part of who we are.”
“It’s a lame tradition. And I’ll tell that to Gabe’s face.” His expression was fierce, but I knew better. Jeff Christopher was as loyal as they came.
“It’s the right thing to do,” I said, but even I could hear the quiet whisper of doubt in my voice.
He reached up to brush a lock of my wavy hair behind my ear. “You’re not just a Keene. You’re allowed to be Fallon, too.”
Magic blossomed between us, an invisible arc that enveloped us both, sending goose bumps along my arms.
I swallowed down a bolt of lust. I pushed down the obvious interest from the wolf that prowled inside me, felt her keen disappointment when I stood up and pushed back my chair, which squealed in protest against the sticky and stained linoleum floor. The wolf didn’t care about Jeff Christopher’s form. That he was magic—ferocious and male—was enough for her.
There was no denying Jeff Christopher and I had good magic. But magic didn’t win every battle. Sometimes family had to win, because it was the only victory a girl could afford.
“They’re counting on me,” I said, avoiding his eyes, afraid he’d see my doubts, even though I’d pushed them as far down into my gut as possible. “And you know the other option.”