Seducing a Wolf: Moonbound Series, Book Five by Krystal Shannan, Camryn Rhys Page A

through his nostrils. “I don’t want to do this in front of everyone. Julianna and I need to have a—”
    A shimmery flash, and where Niko had been, stood a big, brown wolf with a red undercoat.
    Julianna’s mouth dropped open by degrees, then clapped shut. She backed into the door, shaking her head.
    “Dammit, Niko.” Alex swatted at the wolf and took a step toward Julianna, his hands out like he was calming one of the young men from the school, the first time they shifted. “It’s okay, Julianna. I promise.”
    “Niko, shift back right now.” Maggie flipped out her phone. “I’ll text everyone else to come up here and get into the mainframe for the elevator. We have to all talk about this.” She pointed to Alex. “You. Her. Now.”
    He swung his head from side to side, trying to keep back his anger. He’d been planning how to break this to Julianna since he’d first realized she was human. Niko was an ass for forcing his hand.
    “This isn’t happening.” She crushed herself against the door. “I’m dreaming or hallucinating. This isn’t real.”
    Alex stretched his hand out and grazed her arm. She pulled away, into the hallway, and he followed.
    “We’re werewolves, don’t tell anyone,” Maggie yelled after them. “There, how hard was that?”
    “There’s more to it than that.” Alex kept trying to touch Julianna, to comfort her, but she moved just far enough that he couldn’t quite get to her. Before long, they were back by the elevators, and she was hugging herself against the wall and mumbling in whispers.
    “I knew there was something,” she kept repeating, and when she hit the elevator door, she finally had nowhere else to turn.
    He had his hand on her arm before she could shimmy away, and her eyes widened and met his.
    “Look, in my defense, I thought you were a wolf, too.” He moved his fingers across her skin in a slow rhythm. “And I spent the rest of the time after I found out, trying to figure out how you could be your father’s daughter, and not be a wolf.”
    “How did you know?” Julianna’s voice wavered and she straightened her neck.
    “We can sense each other’s wolves. I knew as soon as I met you, only the ma—”
    “No. How did you know I wasn’t my father’s daughter?”
    He took in a breath. “Wolf males always have wolf children. So when I knew you weren’t a wolf, we went digging.”
    “So you did a DNA test on me?” She looked down at his hand and bit her lip. “And I was some kind of means to an end.”
    “Julianna, please…” Alex pulled her toward him, but she wouldn’t budge. He wanted more than anything to have his arms around her. “I wasn’t even supposed to sleep with you. Your rules were so…complete. I never thought you’d sleep with me right away. We needed to get into this room, so I was supposed to find your tablet, and then get out.”
    She choked out a laugh and flickered her gaze up to the ceiling. “But when you saw how easy I was, you just—”
    “No.” He put as much force behind the word as he could muster, and her shoulders dropped. Alex put his hands on her arms and stood close to her, pinning her. “Don’t cheapen what happened between us by demeaning yourself. Or me.”
    “Then, what?” Julianna struggled against his grip. “You realize, you had me up against that window in about thirty seconds flat. What am I supposed to think?”
    He ground his teeth. “That I can’t control myself when I’m around you. That there’s a magick between us that makes you take down your walls and makes me crazy to be near you…” He dropped his voice to a gravelly whisper. “To be inside you.”
    Her eyelids flared and she made the slightest dip toward him. Before she could come all the way, he had pressed his lips onto hers, drawing her mouth open, sliding his tongue in, tasting her.
    It was home.
    When he moved his hands to her cheeks, he found them wet and pulled away. Her eyes were red, and she stared at him with such