Destined Bonds

The air was rank with the pine, but riding underneath the sweetness lay an edge-so latent, something wild and dangerous. Emma Shaw clutched her leather tighter around her as she continued down the darkening streets of Silver Creek-small mountain town, home to her. Yet tonight, it was different in the air, alive with anticipation. One strand of hair on the back of her neck quivered upwards.

Life at twenty-eight should have smoothed out, and she ran her late grandmother's bookstore, shutting herself off upstairs in the cozy apartment above the bookstore from anything remotely smelling of romance or adventure. At least, it had been her assumption. It would appear that fate was not quite done with her just yet.

She pulled it open; the bell above her shop door clanged in that old comforting sound, but tonight it was ominous as it echoed through the deserted street. Emma had been working late at the local coffee shop going over the month's accounts-a chore she had been putting off for a long time.

"Just get inside, lock up, and go upstairs," she whispered to herself in an attempt to shrug off this watched feeling. Her fingers fumbled with the keys, and she swore under her breath when they slipped from her grasp.

But before she had the chance to bend and gather them, a large hand reached past her and scooped them up in one easy motion. Emma's breath caught in her throat as she slowly turned around.

And there he was.

Lucas Stone loomed over her, all six feet two inches of him, a picture of power and control. His dark hair was longer now than it had been five years ago, falling in waves that now brushed his collar. His jaw was sharper now, more defined, and a thin scar ran along his left cheekbone, a new addition she didn't recognize.

It was his eyes, though-those amber-brown eyes cut through everything and saw her very soul.

"You dropped those," he said, the bass in his voice zipping a jolt of shivers all the way down her spine. He held the keys out toward her, but when she reached for them, his fingers brushed hers, the touch long enough to be more than incidental.

"Lucas," she said, proud her voice didn't quiver when her chest rioted with so many warring emotions. "I. I heard you were back in town.".

A wry smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "News travels fast in Silver Creek."

"Everything spreads like wildfire in a town this size." Finally, Emma reached for her keys and clasped them as if in prayer. "What are you doing here?"

His face turned serious; the teasing spark was suddenly tempered, overridden by something much more serious-insistent. "We have to talk, Emma."

Those four words did something to her stomach. Of course, nothing good ever came out of those words 'we need to talk', especially from the man who'd left town without saying good-bye five years ago; the man who'd been her best friend since childhood, the man who'd kissed her senselessly at Sarah Martinez's wedding and disappeared the next day.

"I'm beat, Lucas. Whatever it is can wait until-

"It can't." Yet another step closer and Emma's back was against the door of the bookstore. The heat off his body stirred her memory of what it felt like to lean against him, like standing too close to a fire-dangerous but impossible to resist. "Things are going on, Emma. Things I should have told you years ago."

A growl rumbled from afar, and Lucas went rigid. His head jerked toward the source of that sound, and for one moment-a fraction of a second-Emma would swear his eyes glowed in the dark.

"Inside," he ordered. There was a thread of command in his voice that wasn't there five years ago. "Now."

Either for the urgency in his tone or perhaps because that growl did sound closer, Emma's shaking fingers moved to the door lock. The next instant, Lucas was crowding the inside of what otherwise was a spacious bookstore; his big frame followed her inside.

The smell of books and leather, so soothing to frazzled nerves, was tonight intermingled with how he smelled: pine and leather and something wild she couldn't quite place. She flicked on the lights and watched as warm golden light from banks of vintage Edison bulbs illuminated the space she'd so painfully curated over the years.

"Nicer place," Lucas said, his eyes roving over the shop. "You've done well with it."

"Cut the small talk," Emma said, crossing her arms over her chest. "You come back after five years and say we have to talk. Being all cryptic. What is going on, Lucas?

He ran a hand through his hair, the gesture so automatic it wrung at her heart.

"I'm the Alpha now."

The what?" The last word escaped Emma's lips like a gasp. "The Alpha. Leader of the Silver Creek pack." He watched her, expectant, as if he were waiting for something to click into place in her mind.

"Pack?" Emma hooted, still laughing just a fraction hysterically. "What's that? What pack?

When he spoke next, his voice was low and hard; he'd taken another deep breath. "Werewolves, Emma. I'm talking about werewolves. You're in danger." Her laughter caught in her throat as she stared up into his eyes. He wasn't joking around. He'd either lost his mind, or-

Another howl rented the night air, closer that time, and Lucas's head jerked toward the sound. And when he faced her again, his eyes shone as two bright disks of gold, and Emma's world spun upon its axle. "I know this is a lot to take in," he said, stepping forward toward her. "But for now, I need you to trust me. Can you do that? Everything that was reasonable and lucid wrestled in Emma's mind, hunting for some logical explanation of what she was seeing-and came up with nothing. The boy who'd shared his lunch with her in third grade, who'd taught her to ride a bike, who'd been her rock through the divorce of her parents and her grandmother's death. was a werewolf. An Alpha werewolf. And he was telling her, "You are in jeopardy.". "I," she began to say, but the tinkle of breaking glass drowned her out. Lucas was moving before she even saw it, inserting himself between her and the front window a second before something huge and dark burst through it. Books exploded off the shelf, and glass rained down around them as Emma let out a scream. Lucas tensed, a low rumble rising up from his chest that was less than human. "Stay behind me," he ordered and his voice was lower, huskier now. "Whatever happens, stay behind me." Dust did not stir-or, at least, it did not seem to do so-as Emma peered around Lucas's wide shoulders. There stood a huge wolf-just not a wolf. Red gleamed in the dark eyes, and its size was impossible for any animal. "Hello, brother," it said-the voice of a human and beast. Then it contorted: bones cracking and reforming until there was a man standing before them-a man she knew. Marcus Stone, Lucas's little brother, flashed them a feral grin showing pointed teeth. "Miss me? Standing amidst the ruin of her bookstore with Lucas's heat to her front, beyond a monster who wore her friend's brother's face, Emma knew right then that her subdued life in Silver Creek just got anything but humdrum. It would somehow just be the beginning.