Extraits

What she had to remember was that it had also saved her.

It would’ve been far worse had she ended up with Kenji only for him to walk away a short time later when another woman caught his eye. Because, unlike him, she’d been weaving dreams of a permanent relationship, perhaps even a mating if they were lucky. “How’s Britney?” she said instead of dwelling on the lost dreams of the girl she’d been.

“Britney?” Dull confusion in the green eyes that were a throwback to his paternal great-grandmother. Then a light sparked. “Britney Matthews?”

Claws pricking at her palms, she smiled sweetly. “You know any other Britneys you banged like a drum?”

A hot red burn on the high planes of his cheekbones. “That was a lifetime ago. I was eighteen! You’re mad about that?” He shook his head, eyebrows drawing together. “I thought you—”

Garnet cut him off before he could mention the night they’d never spoken about, never would speak about; there wasn’t anything to say. Kenji had led her on, stolen her heart, then kicked her to the curb, the end. But they did have other things to discuss, because now that she’d brought up Britney, she was mad. Maybe it was the alcohol talking, but she had things to say to Kenji “Casanova” Tanaka about his taste in women.

“You knew how awful she was to me, how she made my life a living hell, and you not only took her to prom, you dated her for a year!”

A befuddled expression on his face. “I know you two didn’t like each other, but I thought it was, you know, girl stuff.”

“Girl stuff?” Was he really that clueless? “She tried to make my nickname Runt.” The only reason it hadn’t caught on was that pretty much all her friends and packmates already called her Jem, and she had enough dominance even at sixteen to scare most people into shutting the hell up before they used anything else.

Kenji had always called her Garnet. He’d just liked it.

As she’d liked hearing her given name on his lips.

“I thought she was just messing with you when she said that.” He scowled. “You never minded when I called you Short Stuff.”

She liked the way he wore it now, how it was just long enough to hint at rebellion, the strands thick and silky.

“Going to the lake?” he asked, green eyes locked on her.

Putting a half meter of distance between them because she knew it wasn’t a good idea to be alone with gorgeous, teasing Kenji Tanaka when she’d had a drink or three and her inhibitions were lowered, she said, “Going to the lake—to be alone.”

He closed the distance that separated them. His boots touched her bare toes, he was so close—and neither part of her changeling nature would allow her to give way now that he’d pushed. Not moving her feet an inch, she tipped back her head to look him in the eyes.

He frowned, stepped back. “Sorry. I keep forgetting you’re shorter than me.”

She couldn’t figure out if that was a compliment or an insult. “I’m leaving now. Don’t follow me.”

“You sure can hold on to a mad, Garnet,” he said when she would’ve turned away. “Like an elephant holds on to its memories.” His voice was playful, light, as they’d been with each other for so long now.

“Go away,” she said again, a staggering sense of loss echoing inside her. No, she ordered herself, you do not go there. Kenji’s and her time had come and gone. No second chances, not when Kenji had shown her exactly how badly he could hurt her if she opened her heart to him.

And not when the man he’d become was nothing like the smart, laughing boy with whom she’d once fallen in love. Kenji was a great lieutenant, a packmate she could rely on in a crunch and one who made her roll her eyes with his outrageous flirting, but he didn’t know the meaning of commitment when it came to women.

Her wolf rising to the surface of her skin on the memory, she growled low in her throat. “Go away, Kenji.” There was no need to raise her voice—his hearing was as good as her own, and he was close. He must’ve stayed upwind to sneak up on her.

“Why do you have to be like that?” he said, prowling out of the trees to fall into step beside her, tall and graceful and with the handsome features of a Japanese pop star. All clean angles and dramatic bones. That his slightly overlong hair was dyed a rich purple and sprayed with tiny golden stars only added to the effect.

She’d have thought it an affectation, except that he’d been doing things like that since he was a kid too young to think about being cool. As a seven-year-old, he’d once drawn “tattoos” on himself with permanent marker.

Then there was the time he’d painted his hair with house paint. She could still remember his shaved head afterward—it had been the only way his parents could be sure to strip off every bit of the toxic paint, as shifting might’ve redistributed the paint all through his wolf fur. They’d been more distressed than Kenji. He’d asked the barber to cut zigzag patterns into the resulting stubble.

Author’s Note: This excerpt is from the prologue and takes place at Hawke and Sienna’s mating ceremony, when Kenji ended up with a black eye. Here’s how.

Garnet was enjoying the brilliantly clear mountain night and trying not to think about a certain man and how damn good he’d felt against her during their dance, when she caught the scent of oak and fire and something intensely masculine. A scent that had surrounded her a half hour before, when Kenji broke into her dance with another SnowDancer lieutenant. She’d caught it on her skin afterward, a silent, aggravating taunt.