Midnight Kisses (Shifter Island #1) - Leia Stone Page 0,68

that.” I moved to go inside, and his arm snaked out, his hand grasping me by the bicep.

I spun to face him, and he pinned me with his vibrant gaze, causing me to swallow hard.

“So,” he said, his voice low and husky, “about the Samhain party … will you please consider going?”

Was he asking me? Like on a date? Could you even have a date when everyone wore a mask and had voice modifications?

I shrugged again. “I dunno. The last party I went to, I almost died.”

The occasional nightmare about the beach party still woke me up.

He frowned, his gaze going to the puckered scar on my arm, and his eyes flashed yellow. “That won’t happen again. Ever.”

I didn’t mean to trigger his instinct to protect, but clearly, I had.

I studied his face, and even though his features were nearly identical to Rage’s, there was no way to confuse the two brothers. So why did my thoughts keep drifting back to the eldest brother? Probably because we had so much unresolved conflict.

But Justice was … nice. He was being nice. And he’d been consistently nice … for weeks.

After opening the door, I glanced over my shoulder.

Justice still stood there, watching me, his eyes wolf-yellow.

“I’ll think about it.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could think them through, and he rewarded me with a heart-stopping grin.

“Good.” He winked at me. “See you there, Nai.”

“Hey, I said I’d think about it!” I called after him, but apparently, we both knew I was going.

Dammit.

The entire next day, my mind was unsettled. I couldn’t wait until that night so that I could go for a run. When darkness fell over the island and the moon rose high in the sky, I quickly changed and shifted into my wolf, hoping to see my mate. We’d been meeting up now for the past several weeks, running and playing in wolf form. It was carefree and beautiful without any of the human drama.

The second my nose hit the damp earth, I smelled him.

His wolf came out of the tree line and nuzzled me. ‘Missed you.’

I nipped his tail. ‘You’re it!’

I took off into the trees, jumping over fallen logs, hearing him racing right behind me. His wolf was faster than mine, but he let me win. A lot. We raced into the forest, only stopping when we were both out of breath and panting.

He led me to a creek where we both lapped at the water.

Why couldn’t it be like this when he was human? I didn’t need him to parade around and tell everyone we were mated, but…

‘Mate sad,’ his wolf said.

I faced him, studied his features, and wished for the ten-millionth time that I knew who he was.

‘Yes, I’m sad. I wish you trusted me—that your human trusted me.’

Before he could answer, a twig snapped, and we both scented the air.

‘Male wolf.’ I curled my lip in disgust. This wolf smelled of whiskey and smoke and foreign wolf.

My mate crouched low, growling.

Shit. The male was closing in.

‘Rogue. Get down!’ my mate snarled to me.

Something in the tone of his voice told me this wasn’t a matter of dominance, and I ducked as he launched himself forward—into the air and over me, crashing into another wolf with dark, honey-colored fur.

Feral snapping bounced between the two males, their fur a moving blur as they snapped so fast I could barely tell who was who. My heart raced as I watched the fight, but for me to jump into the fray could make things worse, not better. A blur of fangs precipitated a flash of crimson…

Oh Mage! The moonlight came through the trees just in time to light up the two wolves fighting. The honey-colored wolf bit down on my mate’s shoulder, and his low growl became a high-pitched whine.

‘No!’ I lunged forward, snarling, intent to intervene when the crunch of bone punched me in the gut.

Instinct took over.

Charging forward, I snapped at the attacker’s tail, biting clean through the end.

The golden-colored animal yipped in pain, releasing my mate, and I darted away, spitting out the chunk of bone and fur. My mate pushed off the ground where he’d been on his back and lurched forward, reaching out with his uninjured paw to swipe at the rogue wolf’s face. The hit was so hard it knocked the wolf off balance, and that’s when my mate attacked.

The second the honey-colored wolf fell backward, my mate launched on him with the grace and speed of a seasoned