the lake deep in central den territory, always visited when she was up in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
He followed her even though he knew he shouldn’t. He’d made himself a promise a long time ago when it came to Garnet and a whole lot of that promise depended on keeping his distance. But tonight the stars were out and he’d had a couple of beers and he’d been watching her dance with everyone but him except for that one time when he’d broken in for half a song; his defenses were at an all-time low.
He just wanted to spend a few minutes alone with her.
Yeah? And what if she isn’t looking for alone time by the lake? What if she’s heading off to exchange skin privileges with another packmate?
Kenji’s gut lurched, his claws pricking the insides of his skin.
If he saw Garnet with another man, he’d force himself to walk away as he’d been doing since the day of her twenty-first birthday, seven years earlier. No matter if he wanted to tear that other man to shreds. He’d had a long time to learn to control his primal instincts where Garnet was concerned.
He refused to think about the fact that it was getting harder rather than easier to rein in his possessiveness. As if as he matured, so did his need for her. He’d probably go to his grave loving Garnet Sheridan.
Tonight, however, he didn’t have to call on his dwindling reserves of strength. It soon became clear that Garnet wasn’t meeting a lover. A smile on her face and her eyes looking up at the stars, she was walking barefoot and unhurried through the forest in a direction that would eventually spit her out at the lake. He stayed upwind, content to see her so simply happy.
Not at all stalkerlike and creepy, Tanaka.
Shut the fuck up. It’s only one moment.
The rest of the time, she ran the Los Angeles den—which wasn’t in L.A. proper at all, but in the Santa Ana Mountains, and he ran the den at the southern end of the San Gabriel Mountains, his remit including the San Fernando Valley. Garnet’s geographic region was smaller but it had more people packed in, with the attendant higher incidents of trouble, so they had around the same level of responsibility.
Busy as they were in their own regions, their paths only crossed via comm conferences, or the occasional pack event. They worked together to keep pack lands safe and they flirted in a way that was all sarcasm and razor-sharp wit, but that was where it stopped. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—cross that line. Even if he slipped up and betrayed his need for her, it wouldn’t be a total disaster—after all these years, he was pretty sure Garnet didn’t take anything personal he said seriously.
As he watched, she took a deep breath of the cool mountain air and did a little swirl. Her soft blonde hair was up in a fancy knot and her midthigh-length dress was the color of a blood orange and fitted, but at that instant, she moved as if she were a pixie with flowers in her hair, one who wore a frothy summer dress.
The image made him smile. Garnet had never been the frothy-skirt type—she’d always been so small that she’d had to fight to be taken seriously, even as a powerful dominant. Now only the stupid didn’t realize that she was as lethal as any of her fellow lieutenants. However, there were no hard edges on Garnet. Not only was she petite, one of the smallest adults in the pack, her face was delicate, her hair fine, the tiny tendrils around her face kissing skin of sun gold.
His fingers curled into his palms as he fought the urge to reach out and thrust his hands into her hair, bunching the softness in his grip as he brought his mouth down on the lush temptation of her own.
• • •
Garnet was enjoying the brilliantly clear mountain night and trying not to think about a certain man and how damn good he’d felt against her during their dance, when she caught the scent of oak and fire and something intensely masculine. A scent that had surrounded her a half hour before, when Kenji broke into her dance with another SnowDancer lieutenant. She’d caught it on her skin afterward, a silent, aggravating taunt.
Her wolf rising to the surface of her skin on the memory, she growled low in her throat. “Go away, Kenji.” There was no need to