So she knew the pie was Emma's favorite, as was lipstick in a particular shade of vibrant red, a trace of which marked Shamus's jaw. It made Grace smile, seeing how crazy they were for one another.

"Off for a walk?" Shamus asked with an inquiring glance when she halted beside Cooper.

Cooper answered before she could become flustered. "I thought I'd point out one of the evacuation routes to Grace in case of emergency."

Shamus threw back his head in a belly laugh, his thick brown hair catching the light. "And I was about to say it was a romantic night. Have fun." Waving good-bye, they waited until he was out of sight before entering the narrow access corridor that led to a rarely used exit. Though kissed by a cool wind that promised rain, the night was as lovely as Shamus had said, the satin black of the sky dotted with what appeared to be a million stars.

Cooper's hand closed over hers.

"First, so I'm not a liar, there's the start of the evac route." He pointed northeast.

"Okay?"

"I already know the routes," she said, heart thudding at the skin-to-skin contact. "It's part of the welcome-to-the-den module for submissives."

Submissives were the ones charged with evacuating the pups should it ever become necessary to abandon the den because of hostilities, while the soldiers held the line of defense.

"Good thing Shamus doesn't know that," he said as he tugged her into the trees, stroking his thumb over her skin in that maddening, arousing way. "I think you'll like this."

Her wolf wide-eyed and watchful, she walked quietly beside him through a natural passageway created by two near-perfect rows of trees, their branches twining to form a lacy canopy, the stars visible in glittering glimpses. However, it wasn't the velvet night that held her attention, but the predator by her side.

The one who'd claimed her hand, claimed skin privileges, in a way that shouted possession.

The thought of belonging to Cooper made her wolf pad around her skin in a confusion of panic and delight once more. But neither part of her wanted to be  anywhere but here, in this exhilarating, exquisite instant. Maybe this courtship was ridiculous and impossible and bound for failure, but she wasn't going to give up on it, give up on Cooper, without trying her damndest.

"Here." His body brushed hers as he brought her to a stop in what appeared to be a small clearing. "Do you smell it?"

"Yes." Ripe, juicy blackberries.

Reaching out to pluck a berry from one of the canes that surrounded them, he brushed it across her lips. "Open for me, beautiful, sexy Grace."

Her toes curled inside her boots at that low-voiced request, a liquid kind of heat in her abdomen. Parting her lips, she allowed him to feed her the plump fruit, the juices bursting inside her mouth. When he picked off more, fed her decadent berry by decadent berry, she didn't protest. And when he spread his legs and tugged her closer, she went, her wolf quivering at the risk.

He ran a berry across her lower lip, painting it with the juice as the masculine heat of his body seeped into her every cell, and his face blocked out the night. "I'm going to kiss you." His voice vibrated where her breasts pressed against the strength of his chest, making her nipples ache. "Don't say no." Releasing her hand when she remained silent at the rough-voiced request, he tipped up her chin with his fingers and suckled on her juice-drenched lower lip. The sweet, hot sensation was over almost before she knew it, her eyes fluttering open. He returned for another suckling taste, coaxing her closer as he did so. "Mmm." It was a sound of deep male pleasure, his hand sliding from her chin to cup the side of her neck. "You taste delicious." This time, his lips covered hers, the kiss an intimate seduction.

She clenched her hands on his chest as she rose toward his sinful mouth, felt the flex of warm, tensile muscle beneath the cotton of his T-shirt. Groaning, he licked his tongue across the seam of her lips, one of his hands coming to lie against her lower back, the rigid heat of his erection pushing against her abdomen - Claws pricking the insides of her skin, the wolf threatening to take control.

Jerking back, she gasped in the cool night air. Her breasts felt swollen, the place between her legs damp, and she had no doubt Cooper had scented the musk of her arousal. But that wasn't the sole emotion in play, her wolf's sudden, wrenching realization of the violent strength of the predator who held her a visceral punch to the gut.

The wolf didn't want to run. It knew such an action would never work, that it would only enrage the predator.

Instead, it demanded she lie down, let Cooper do what he would, its deep-rooted survival instincts colliding against her human need to make a conscious choice. It was all she could do to hold back the impulse to bare her throat to the male whose scent lingered rich and wild in her mouth; to whimper in primal submission - a submission that would end this relationship before it began, because that kind of mindless surrender would humiliate her and horrify Cooper.

"This isn't going to work." The words came out ragged, regret a hollowness inside her chest that caused a true physical hurt.

"I'm too submissive."

Cooper, having remained motionless thus far, shifted to pluck a berry off the plant near him and pop it into his mouth. She watched him swallow, wanted to trace the movement down the tendons of his neck with her lips, lick up the dark amber and rich earth of his scent. When she finally dragged her eyes back up to his face, his lips were curved. "It'll work," he murmured, eating another berry. "It might require lots and lots of foreplay, but it'll work."

"Cooper." Turning away from the raw sexuality of him, she shoved a berry into her own mouth to give herself time to think. "If - "

"No ifs," he murmured in a tone that spoke of the dominant he was. "Not yet. Even if you can't trust me in any other way, trust me in this - the instant your wolf overwhelms you without your conscious volition, I'll stop." She felt him come closer, but he didn't bury his face in her neck as she craved, even though she knew her wolf was in no state to accept the searing intimacy of having him near her jugular.

Even now, it buried its head in its paws, sad and scared and wanting all at once.

"How will you know?" she asked, unable to hide the tremor of hope in her voice.

"I guess it's part of what makes me a lieutenant - being able to sense when the wolf is close to a packmate's skin." She shuddered in relief. "Always?"

"Always." The barest touch on her hip. "Have you eaten?"

"No." Her stomach had been too full of butterflies after that scorching instant of eye contact in the training arena.

"I'm hungry."

A hesitant invitation, should he want to take it.

Knuckles brushing down her cheek.

"I can't wait to feed you." A low purr of a statement that made her breath catch, her heartbeat accelerate.

"You earned your reputation, didn't you?" It came out husky.

He tapped her lower lip with a finger. "Play with me and I'll teach you all sorts of bad, bad things...but you're only ever allowed to do them to me." Grace knew she was in trouble.

Big, sexy, dangerous trouble.

Declaration of Courtship Chapter 5

AFTER DRIVING GRACE home from dinner in the pounding rain that was the leading edge of an unforeseen storm front, Cooper had expected to spend the night tossing and turning as a result of extended sexual frustration. And hey, he wasn't against some hot, erotic dreams featuring his favorite engineer. However pleasure wasn't what awaited him when he fell into bed.

At first, all he could hear was rain.

He was sitting under a lee of rock outside the den, sheltered and snug from the cold droplets, enjoying its music.

He'd always liked rain until that night.

Every so often, he'd twitch his tail to shoo away a suicidal crow he couldn't be bothered to snap his teeth at - and then he was in human form on a long, slick road, watching two huge lights bearing down on him. He wasn't afraid. He knew who they were, and that they'd stop.

They did.

Opening the door, he got into the backseat as if it was an ordinary thing to get into a car from the middle of the road. His mother turned, laughing at something his father had said as she reached out a hand toward Cooper, the pearl earrings she so loved flashing in the flickering firelight.

Except, there shouldn't be a fire.

They were alone on the dark, twisting road -

He was outside the car, screaming at them to stop, but they were both still laughing, dressed in the clothes they'd worn to attend the wedding, and they didn't hear him, didn't even see him - fire! He was trapped inside the car and the flames were blistering his flesh. He cried out, reached for his parents...but they'd turned to bone, charred and black. "No! No!" he screamed as his flesh melted.

Cooper jerked awake on a scream, the echo of it hanging in the air.

Shuddering, he thrust his hands through sweat-soaked hair and checked the status of the audio shield round his room.

Thank God, he thought when he saw the switch flicked in the right direction. The last thing the den needed was to hear its lieutenant screaming in terror like a child.

Shoving off the sheets tangled around his legs, he walked into the shower. Scalding, that's how he wanted the water. To thaw the lump of ice that was his heart. Always, he woke from that nightmare chilled to the bone. He'd never understood it, not when the fire was so hot.

He stayed until the shower stall was so full of steam, he couldn't see the hands he'd braced on the wall.

Wrenching off the tap, he stepped out, dried off, and - towel wrapped around his hips - stared into the mirror. His jaw was dark with stubble, so he focused on that, shaved. The task took a bare few minutes, and then he no longer had even that slim buffer against the echoes of nightmare.

It had been worse this time, because he hadn't expected it, hadn't prepared himself for the horror that awaited him in the dark of night. It had been so many years since he'd been trapped inside that phantom car, burning and burning and burning.