PRINCE OF WOLVES By Susan Krinard

Crisp air carried the scent of autumn, the promise of another year’s end spent in solitude. He tossed back his head and closed his eyes, longing to join the wolves in their song. But he did not give in to the yearning. Just as he could not give in to what he so desperately wanted. That moment of triumph when he had held Joey in his arms and felt her respond was the first and last time he would ever do so.

For her sake—and for his—he would never see her again.

Even the distant, uncounted, uncaring stars in the black pool of sky were a reminder of her Like the glitter of gold in her dark eyes.

When the wolves howled again, Luke gave himself over to the wild abandon of their song, and to forgetfulness.

At the end of the first day, when Luke didn’t show up in town, Joey wasn’t particularly alarmed. Something very strange had happened, something she was still struggling to understand. The encounter had affected him as powerfully as it had her—his final expression as he’d abandoned her at the meadow’s edge left no doubt of that.

But that explained nothing. From the very first time shed seen Luke in the tavern, he had been a mystery. Giving in to his pursuit had only deepened the enigm.a Relentless questions dominated her thoughts, awake and in dreams.

There was the question of why he had reacted as he did, when it had been so flagrantly clear he still wanted her. Why he had broken their kiss when, for the first time, everything had been right between them—and she had been so close to achieving her goals.

But the question that haunted Joey most was about herself. She had never believed it would be possible, even for an instant, to find herself at the mercy of something as simple as passion. Or as undeniable. It had seemed reasonable at first to tell herself it had been nothing more than gratitude and relief that her long months of search were at an end. But Joey had never been very good at self-deception. The clarity of her thinking, upon which she so prided herself, would not allow that comfort.

She knew it was not simple at all when it took no effort to remember the feel of his mouth on hers, to smell the wild masculine scent of him, to imagine herself as lost, again, as she had been then. When her dreams became impossibly vivid, and she no longer struggled to escape him at the end but turned willingly into his embrace and met his passion with one equally savage.

It was overwhelming. Joey had to admit she was out of her depth. Her reaction to Luke Gévaudan was like nothing she had ever experienced. And now, safe in the quiet rationality of her own room, surrounded by her maps and equipment, she could accept it as a puzzle that must eventually be solved—but not at the expense of her goals. The one thing that had kept her going, always, was the memory of what she had set out to do. Luke had agreed to help her. Whatever price she had to pay would not be more than she could handle.

If it happened that the price was one she could enjoy, so much the better. With a carefully constructed framework of logic, Joey boxed away the questions and consigned unnecessary emotion to the still place in the depths of her heart.

When Luke did not put in an appearance on the second day, Joey became concerned. She paced her room and the nearby woods and avoided everyone. On the third day she grew angry. And on the fourth she resolved that the waiting was going to end.

There were several people who could tell her what she needed to know, as it happened, she found two of them conveniently together on the afternoon she decided to take matters into her own hands.

Maggie and Allan Collier were talking in the middle of Main Street when Joey headed out for the bar. She blinked to see the redhead away from her usual station behind the counter, and in the company of the other person most likely to help. As Joey altered course and walked over to join them, they looked up. She had the distinct and uneasy impression that Maggie looked a little guilty, even Collier wore a peculiar expression. It didn’t take much imagination to guess at the subject of their conversation.

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