Free Blue Moon Brides: The Complete Series by Anne Marsh Page A

socks were still there, carefully folded. Sitting down heavily on the edge of his bed, she put herself back together.
    If only she could put her life back together as easily.
    “You are home,” Rafer disagreed. She shouldn’t have found his voice such a turn on. Gravelly and hoarse, he gave her the feeling he didn’t talk much. And yet here he was, talking to her. With her. As if everything he had, everything he was, was focused on her . “Last night happened, chère . That changes things.”
    He watched her, and the rest of her memories came flooding back. Last night hadn’t been just about sex. The wolves. Hunting her, those same wolves had shifted, becoming men. Dark, hard-eyed men who’d touched her wickedly. Seductively.
    “No. Sex doesn’t change things. Feel good? Yeah.  But it’s no game changer.” She said the words calmly, reasonably, but there was nothing calm about how she felt inside. Shape shifters were on the pages of a book—a really, really good book—not beside her on the bed in broad daylight.
    “I warned you.” Despite his stillness, there was no missing the tension in that big body. If she ran, he’d be on her. Fast. “You didn’t wan’ to listen to me, either at your farm or last night. We’re shifters. We run as a Pack. And now you’re part of my Pack.”
    Now it was her time to do some denying. “No.” She shook her head, feeling the tangles of her hair cling to her jaw. “I’m no part of this pack of yours. We had sex last night—” she ignored the slow, masculine smile splitting his face, “—but that’s all it was. Hot sex.” Other women did this all the time, right? So she could, too. This was just sex. Really, really hot, really good sex.
    “You’ve been dreaming,” he reminded her, and she couldn’t contain a start of awareness. “Remember, Lark? Hot, sensual dreams about lovers and a blue moon. Dreams that have you waking up in the morning with your panties soaked and your pussy clenching. You wan’ to know why you had those dreams?” His grey eyes flashed gold. Wolf eyes. Oh, God. She should have run screaming, but instead she sat here, sharing a bed with someone who wasn’t human. Although, clearly, that hadn’t bothered her last night.
    When she didn’t answer—because what could she say?—he continued. “The Packs have existed for hundreds of years.”
    “Wait,” she interrupted. “There are more of you?”
    “Yes.  But we’re a dyin’ breed. We lost wolves from another Pack last week.” Sorrow flashed in his eyes, and she knew the loss meant something to him. That their deaths were fiercely personal. Regretted. “The only way for us to mate, chère , is durin’ the blue moon. Think about what you saw last night.”
    When he reached out a hand, she flinched. She couldn’t do this. If he touched her, this would all be too real. She’d come apart in his arms the same way her life was unraveling right in front of her. Morphing into something else.
    He wasn’t human.
    “We hunt for mates durin’ the blue moon because that moon leads us to certain women. Women who can be scented, tracked, found only on a night with a blue moon.” He sat up, leaning forward. He filled up the space she’d tried so hard to put between them, large and hot and demanding. “Those women,” he continued ruthlessly, “are the Pack’s predestined mates and the only ones capable of matin’ and breedin’ with our wolves.”
    He captured her hand. She didn’t want to make a scene, not yet, so she let his large, warm hand envelop her smaller one. Last night had been the best sex of her life. What they’d done together, what she’d encouraged him to do to her, had been raw and intimate—and now he was a stranger. God, he was too real. He was supposed to be a figment of her imagination.
    “So you don’t do this very often?” For some reason, his answer mattered to her. She wanted to hear that he didn’t spend every night hunting for women. Touching other