“How dare you say that?”

“Humans lie.” Ethan shrugged. “About many things. Just today, a girl in the gas station lied to me.”

“Luna Jenson shortchanged you?” I asked, because I’d told him the Jensons’ girl tended to do that, and he hadn’t believed me. Like frickin’ usual.

Why he thought I’d make shit like that up, I’d never know.

“I hope she did,” Sabina muttered, prompting me to shoot her a grin.

Ethan didn’t react, just explained, “She flushed, and I asked if she was well. She said she was when she evidently wasn’t.”

Sabina’s brow rose. “What was wrong with her?”

“She smelled aroused.”

I rolled my eyes at his words, and on the brink of muttering, “Show off,” Sabina stunned the fuck out of us by growling. The sound was low, menacing.

Deadly.

And fuck if it didn’t get my cock harder than a pike. I knew from the sudden haze of lust in the air that I wasn’t the only one affected.

Ethan, realizing he’d fucked up, backpedaled. “She’s only seventeen, Sabina!”

That didn’t stop her from growling, but she did stop bristling.

I pressed a hand to her thigh and had to admit that her possessive jealousy was as much of a turn-on as that quick glimpse of her pussy had been a few moments ago.

“All is well,” I soothed. “There’s no need to worry.”

She ground her teeth, and her eyes flickered over us all. “Why do I feel this way?” she rasped, concerned and confused, but still feeling the overwhelming jealousy that had prompted her to growl in the first place.

And that wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

The human voice box wasn’t made to utter those long, low, throbbing sounds that had the vocal chords ululating like a yodeler singing a voodoo chant.

I knew her throat was gonna ache like fuck in a little while.

Eli pulled a face. “It’s complicated.”

“Life tends to be that way. Explain,” she demanded, her strength throbbing through each word. I’d admit to being surprised by that. Thus far, she’d been a weak little thing, not that I’d minded, but still.

This whole grumpy, honey, possessive thing she had going on?

Better than porn. That was for fucking sure.

Sabina

I had no right to feel the way I was feeling.

No right at all.

But that didn’t stop me from wanting to maul the little bitch at goddamn Jensons, whoever the fuck she was, and send her back to Kali Sara without a smile on her face.

I’d never felt this overwhelming—

This…

This, what?

So overloaded with emotions, yet so physically secure in knowing that I was safe and sound and well protected? So free from pain that all my senses were allowed to function at a high level once more?

I hadn’t lied to them.

My doctors hadn’t believed me when I’d gone to them with my symptoms. They’d bullshitted me. Sent me to different specialists. Then, out of nowhere, they’d begrudgingly come up with fibromyalgia, and all that diagnosis had gotten me was eighty grand in medical debts, and given my father a tail to follow that had had me on the run ever since.

I’d been nervous about shifting since I’d awoken that first time free from pain. I hadn’t wanted to do anything to jeopardize it, but today, I’d felt stronger than I had in the recent week, and suddenly, touching the men who hovered around me better than any caregivers, had become imperative. Rubbing my nose against them, or touching my face to their arm or leg, simply didn’t cut it.

I needed a closer connection.

As a she-wolf, I’d admit that I could hear everything they were saying, and sometimes, I could even reply to them mentally, but nothing beat being able to speak like a normal person again.

And another reason I’d made my shift was because my little peaceful sojourn had come to an end. I could feel it. Things were changing. The wheels were turning, the cogs of time never stopped, and the next phase of this new path in my life was recommencing.

Mostly, I didn’t mind that because of two reasons.

I didn’t feel scared.

I wasn’t in pain.

It was amazing how that made me feel like Clark goddamn Kent.

I’d spent hours on my knees praying to Kali Sara, the saint who acted like our telephone line to God, begging her to heal me, to help get me through, to save me from my father’s terrible wrath, and she’d never delivered.

Until now.

It would be churlish to look a gift horse in the mouth, wouldn’t it?

And this was more than just a gift horse.

Somehow, I’d been given gift wolves, and I couldn’t be happier about that. Who knew I was so damn easy to please?

The thought almost made me snort, because what I’d gone through? With the whole throat being torn out and that shift? Yeah, you could probably cave my head in with a hammer and that would be less painful, and I was used to pain.

Had a high threshold for it.

Nothing equaled the agony I’d endured that night. But here I was.

Alive. When I should be dead.

What was I supposed to do?

Whine about it?

Moan about my second chance?

Especially when that second chance came in the form of three men who looked at me like I was Naomi Campbell?

I gnawed on my bottom lip and muttered, “Sorry.”

Austin’s eyes sparkled like new pennies as he grinned at me. “Don’t be.”

If Eli was beautiful, then Austin and Ethan were handsome. Just a little less pretty than Eli, but somehow, just as magnetic. It wasn’t a competition, and if I had to be the judge, I’d never be able to pick between them. Their characters shone through their faces, illuminating features that made them all the more gorgeous to me.

Those eyes of Austin’s that glinted with his humor. That faint curve of Ethan’s lips when he deigned to smile—he was far too somber for his own good. Not an ass about it, just serious. Like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders too. And Eli? That tiny nerve that flicked in his temple, and the way his brow puckered, were indicative of a man who worried too much. Not like Ethan, but different.

The twins were identical in all ways but those eyes and their mouths. Austin’s was mobile, Ethan’s less so. But they both had hazel eyes, yet Austin’s seemed to twist into green when his emotions fluctuated, and Ethan’s morphed into blue. They had broad foreheads, sharp noses, full mouths, and cheekbones that were so high, they were made to be kissed by a woman. They reminded me of that model, David Gandy but blond. Ethan’s hair was short, buzzed to his head like a soldier around the ears, and a little longer on top. Austin’s was a ragged mass of waves that my fingers longed to mess with.

I bit my bottom lip as I tried to process the feelings the three of them inspired in me. I was a woman of powerful emotions. All Roma were. It was a part of our being. The way we were. We felt heavily, we believed strongly, and we lived as though today would be our last because we never knew when we’d move on—be it to another town, another place, or to Kali Sara’s waiting arms.

“Who am I to you?” I asked when I realized I had no idea what to say.

Eli cleared his throat, but his hand came to rest on mine. I thought about what Austin had said about me stinking, so I didn’t shift toward him and the warmth and comfort he provided. Somehow, I couldn’t be too embarrassed about Austin’s statement. He hadn’t told me to mortify me, just said it how it was. Simple fact.