A boy with black hair and yellow eyes, who’d claimed to know Shadow as she did. A boy who had lain weeping over a pair of murdered wolves, and then howled out his grief like one of them.
Exactly like a wolf.
And Kieran had known her name this morning, before she realized what he was. Just as he’d known her name then.
Two identical wolves she’d named Shadow, seventeen years apart. She’d thought them merely related, because no wolf lived so long.
But a man did. And a man who was also a wolf…
“Oh my God.” This couldn’t be happening, and yet it was. The implications were overwhelming. She backed up, step by step, until her calves bumped the porch. Her rear hit damp, weathered wood with the solid comfort of reality.
Oh, yes. It made sense now. How he knew her name.
Ever since she’d begun her study of wolves, she’d puzzled over the first Shadow’s trust for the child she’d been. Now it was all explained. Because Shadow had never been an ordinary wolf.
She grabbed the edge of the porch with both hands as if the ground itself might rise up underneath her.
Fairy tales were real.
Kieran’s breath was a deep gust, pluming white mist that obscured his face. She could see the resemblance, comparing him to her memories. Boy become man. He’d been skinny then, all limbs, shy and strange. Unthreatening, though she’d been wary of him until the end.
Now he was a perfect specimen of masculinity. Handsome and powerful and utterly unpredictable. The animal she’d once loved was packaged in a magnificent body she had no reason to trust. A man’s body.
Except he isn’t human…
“You remember me,” he said. “From before.”
God help her. Before. For her. Before was the last time she’d been truly happy. That summer with Shadow. But she’d never known Kieran. She hadn’t had a chance to know him, or learn what had become of him after that strange and tragic parting.
“You—” She found her voice again with difficulty. “It was always you.”
He rose, testing his balance as if he wasn’t yet used to walking on two legs. “You do remember.” His gaze fixed” on her and he began to stalk forward, step by slow step.
If she looked only at his eyes she saw that the single contrast between wolf and man was in their shape. If he’d had a wolfs ears they’d be pricked forward, intent on his prey. His body would be low to the ground, ready to spring. There was no difference. No difference at all.
And she was the prey. It was there to read in every movement of his body, wolf or man. She had never been afraid of wolves. She was afraid now, and she loathed herself for it. She hated being afraid of anything—or anyone.
She pushed to her feet when he was only a yard away and braced herself.
“I remember that we were friends,” she said.
He stopped. The fingers of his hands—the hands that had caressed her—curled into loose fists.
“Yes,” he said. “Friends, Alexandra.” The timbre of his voice was rough and sweet, like a wolfs call to one of its own. Ardent with intensity, but not threatening. “I remember.” He emphasized the word almost fiercely.
Amnesic. He hadn’t known who he was, or even how to form complete sentences before his change from man to wolf and back again before her eyes.
“I had to… come back,” he said.
“Back?”
A muscle in his strong jaw worked. Alex stared in fascination at the play of skin across bone and tendon.
“Because of you,” he said. “I came back to find what I’ve lost.”
His memory.
“You remembered me,” she repeated slowly.
He pinned her with his stare. “And your promise.”
She’d thought herself numb to any new shock. Her promise. Heat and cold flashed through her body.
Now that she knew all her childhood fantasies had been real, every word, every thought returned with stunning clarity. Yes, she had promised, with ten-year-old earnestness, to help that strange and sorrowful boy.
“Don’t he afraid. They were my friends, too. I’ll help you. I promise, whatever’s wrong, I’ll help you—”