THE CEO'S HYBRID HEIR

ad narrowed into something that felt more like a suggestion than a route. Mia sat in her car at the gate for a full two minutes before she made

down in a way that made him look less like a man who ran four com

ame,"

ded steadier than she felt. "Doe

ther in, moonlight pooling silver across a stretch of grass like something staged for exact

ake it worse ins

e said, and the honesty in it, unflinching and a little grim, did more to steady her

o be for a man his size. When they reached the clearing, he stopped and turned to face her, and something in his posture ch

e it," he said. "I need you to u

derst

I need to hea

in her chest tightened at the seriousness in his f

er tongue, the shape of *I knew this was insane*, when the air around him changed. It wasn't dramatic, not at f

ordinary. His shirt tore at the seams as his frame widened, and where a man had stood a moment ago there was, in the space of a few impossible seconds, something els

use underneath the animal fear was something quieter, stranger, recognition in

ting her look, letting the moonlight show her every detail she might have d

her voice broke on the wo

was standing in front of her again, breathing hard, half-dressed in the r

thing. I'd rather you scream a

hem together to make it stop. "I just watched you turn into s

walk back to your car and n

l here, a

a smile, but close enough to it that sh

ill here,"

t mean I'm n

stopped an arm's length away instead of closing the distance further. "But you asked for proof instead of running the

way what it costs to run from something instead of facing it," she

re she could talk herself out of th

thing human falls away except the parts that matter most. Right now, that would have been you. Maki

tecting me. E

still written plainly across his face. "It's not a switch I flip to becom

up to her now that the shock was fading and leavi

both safe long enough for you to decide, on your own

ewhere beyond the treeline a real wolf howled once, low and long, like it rec