CHAPTER ONE
“SO have you thought about what you’re going to wear on your first heat night?” Rafe asked Chloe as they climbed up King’s Trail, their boots crunching in the freshly driven snow.
Despite the frigid mountain air, Chloe’s cheeks went hot with embarrassment. “No,” she answered, keeping her voice as neutral as possible, so as not to betray how uncomfortable this subject made her. “Have you?”
Rafe slid her the most wicked of grins. “I’m thinking red lace, maybe some of those black garters. If you give me your measurements, I can put in an order online and have exactly what I want to see you in sent over to your place.”
At that moment, Chloe was grateful for the darkness of her skin, because she could feel her initial blush spreading over her entire body. And this despite the fact she was wearing little more than her favorite hand-knitted sweater over one of the many long prairie dresses she’d also made herself and favored even when she wasn’t filming episodes of Black Mountain Woman. Why did having these kinds of conversations with Rafe always make her so uneasy? He wasn’t just her fiancé, he was also her best friend—really her only truly close friend offline—and she’d become accustomed to bringing all of her problems to him.
But of course, she couldn’t tell him how uncomfortable it made her to talk with him about anything of a sexual nature. Was this how all she-wolves who hadn’t gone into heat felt about the subject of sex? If she were a normal person, she would go to the internet with her problem. Find a forum of similar women with a similar issue. Or maybe she’d consult one of her Black Mountain Woman fans. Many of them had come to feel like real friends over the three years she’d hosted her blog and YouTube show, and she knew at least a few of them had navigated their way around sticky relationship issues.
However, the North American Lupine Council had strictly forbidden talking on the internet about anything involving their species. It was bad enough, in their opinion, that interest in werewolves was at an all time high these days, with everything from books to movies being made about their supposedly mythical race. Better not to fuel the frenzy with a blog or forum that any non-paranormal could happen across.
Besides, even if she were able to reach out to other she-wolves on line, she doubted she would find much commiseration. There were only a few hundred alpha wolves in the entire world, and Rafe Nightwolf, the alpha prince of Colorado, had chosen her, a nobody she-wolf who had literally been abandoned at the side of the road outside their shifter town.
Rafe also happened to be ridiculously hot, with his Native American father’s high cheekbones and long, sharp nose, softened by the light brown eyes and toasted brown skin he’d inherited from his Latina mother. When he’d proposed to her in front of everyone at their high school graduation, the other young she-wolves in their class had only been half-joking about how jealous they were. Any other she-wolf would kill to have a werewolf as good-looking and well off as Rafe ask for her hand in marriage.
He was also kind and had proven himself to be incredibly patient. So far he’d waited over six years to consummate their relationship, since North American Lupine Council law forbade marrying or even mating with a she-wolf who hadn’t yet had her first heat. Most she-wolves went into heat between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one, which was why female wolves tended to marry and start their families rather young by modern standards.
However, Chloe had turned twenty-five a couple of months ago, and even Rafe’s seemingly infinite patience was showing signs of wearing thin. He’d been snapping at her more and more lately for little things like wearing her prairie dresses to formal events and spending too much time working on her Black Mountain Woman shows. He’d also begun bringing up their heat night whenever they were alone together, imagining out loud what they would do and how they would do it. And though she’d had six years to get used to the idea, and had even watched a few porn movies in the hopes it would jump start her into heat, she still couldn’t bring herself to talk about it or even fully imagine it in her own head.
“Hey, did I tell you? I’m working on a chicken and fennel recipe for the next episode of Black Mountain Woman,” she said, covering up her rather unsubtle subject change with a bright smile. “Maybe I’ll have it ready in time for the wedding.”
He gave her a quizzical look, “You’re marrying an alpha prince. You can’t cook for your own wedding.”
“Why not?”
“What would people say?” he asked. “Listen, Clo, you know I love you and I support your weird hobby as much as I can, but I’ve got to draw the line somewhere. We’ll have people flying in from all over the world to attend our wedding. You can’t serve them homemade chicken and fennel.”
Chloe opened her mouth to argue. First of all, he didn’t really support her Black Mountain Woman projects. She’d garnered hundreds of thousands of fans over the years with her from-scratch recipes, DIY crafting projects, and organic cleaning tips. She was also able to support herself off the money she made from advertisers on her blog and her YouTube revenue stream. But her own fiancé referred to what she did for a living as a “weird hobby.” One, she knew without having to discuss it, he expected her to give up as soon as they married.
But before she could point out any of this, he asked, “Why is it every time I bring up our heat night, you change the subject to Black Mountain Woman?”
“Um…” She scrambled to come up with a good excuse, but could only produce a weak, “Do I?”
He regarded her with cool eyes. “Yeah, you do.”
Silence descended as they continued to press up the mountain. Many of her fellow wolves loved to hike King’s Trail, but Chloe had never seen the appeal of walking up a steep precipice just because. Her glutes were already starting to protest this rare trip to the portal, a gate through space and time, which was located on a plateau about two miles up the mountain that bordered Wolf Springs. According to their lookout, Jeb, who had a cabin nearby, it flashed thirty minutes ago, which meant they had a visitor. Maybe even one from the past.
Alpha princes acted in a somewhat vice presidential role for their pack until they inherited the throne, and though she hated making the somewhat arduous trip to the portal, greeting the werewolves who had come through it had been one of her favorite duties so far as Rafe’s future wife.
Technically wolves used the portal for one of two reasons. The first was to punish wolves, who had committed acts so heinous they were banished, not only from their communities but also from their own space and time. However, the last recorded instance of that happening had been when Rafe’s own mother, Lacey, was the future alpha princess. Lacey still occasionally told the story of how a werewolf had come through the gate, still-shifted and frothing white at the mouth. The crazed thing had leapt at her and Rafe’s dad barely had time to pull his gun and put a silver bullet in its head before it got to her.