~ SASHA ~

It was official, she was cracking up. Literally losing her mind.

When he said he wouldn't hurt her, she wanted to believe him, but a little voice in the back of her head whispered something about men foaming at the mouth, and other men having their necks snapped.

When he said don't run, she thought he was going to show her something horrific.

When he started unzipping the overalls he'd thrown on in the van, she just assumed he was going to run or… do something and he didn't want the clothing hindering him.

That left him in the jeans and skin-tight black shirt that hugged every curve and ripple of his torso that she tried desperately not to notice. He'd always had a great body, but the last few years had been good to him. He'd shifted from athletic to… ripped.

Then, after tossing the overalls onto the hood of the Jeep, he tugged the shirt out of his pants and reached back behind his neck and pulled that tight, long-sleeve shirt that hugged every muscle and join in his incredible body slowly forward so that it drew along his abs and the ladder of muscle at his sides in just the same way her fingers would have if she were tracing them…

Her mouth had gone dry and she'd closed it, trying to swallow, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

Zev was clearly planning on getting sweaty. Which, without the gunshots and dead dudes was a move she would definitely have gotten behind. But now? As they fled apparently homicidal government scientists, or maybe just his crazy mind?

The shirt followed the overalls up onto the hood of the car, then he turned and looked at her… and started unbuttoning his jeans.

"Zev, what—" The words were thick on her dry tongue.

He toed off his shoes and shucked off his jeans. By the time they had joined the other things on the hood, Sasha had covered her face with her hands, though the gaps between her fingers called to her squeezed-shut eyes.

"You have to watch, Sasha. Otherwise you won't believe me." His voice was low and breathy.

Sasha swallowed and braced herself before dropping her hands to find him standing there in a snug pair of short-leg underwear.

Was this some kind of strange ritual? Was he going to seduce her, then kill her when she wasn't paying attention? Would he wait for her to start licking her way down his abs, then snap her neck before she got to his—

She turned her head away again and squeezed her eyes closed.

"Sasha, look at me."

"I can't. I won't let you trick me into licking you."

"You… what?"

"You heard me."

There was a long, pregnant moment when she didn't look and he didn't speak. Then he sighed.

"I still love you, Sasha," he said in a low, simmering voice that walked the edge between promise and pain.

Her jaw dropped. "What did you—?" She turned in shock, opening her eyes to look at his face, to see if he'd really said that. And just as their eyes met those muscles at the back of his jaw twitched.

"You heard me," he said.

Then he disappeared.

That was the only word she could use later to describe what happened to him, right in front of her eyes.

The Zev she'd known since she was sixteen, the Zev who had been her first and only lover—and who had reappeared tonight out of nowhere, only to get her almost killed, and definitely classified as an accessory to attempted murder—disappeared.

His beautiful face, his hair, his huge, rippled body… exploded. Except the only sound was tearing fabric.

The moment was so unexpected, so shocking, she could only stare as the man she'd loved since she was a teenager disappeared. And in his place was… a wolf.

A huge wolf.

A wolf that at its shoulder, stood higher than her waist, and broader across than she was. A wolf that stared with eyes that fixed on her and seemed to glow near-white.

In the moonlight his fur looked black, but she would later remember the moonlight playing on the highs and lows in his coat, the lighter patches around his eyes and the line around his shoulders that framed his face.

Later. Later she would remember that.

When he first appeared all she could think of was that there was a psychotic murderer loose in the city who fed his victims to wild dogs.

Or was it wolves?

She screamed and the wolf startled, then… then disappeared and suddenly Zev was there again, except completely naked, rushing forward to clap a hand over her mouth and pull her into his chest.

She fought, screaming behind his hand, but he shushed her over and over.

Please, Sasha, please. Don't be scared. I would never hurt you. I promise. Please, you can't scream in case they're following us. Please…

She struggled against his grip, but only able to breathe through her nose, she sucked in the scent of him over and over again. He was the most comforting smell in her memory, so her traitorous brain flooded her body with endorphins.

In his arms was the safe place.

Against his chest was where she could rest.

Under his hands was where she came alive.

And he was so damned strong.

She stopped screaming, frozen and shaking, her brain buzzing with too many thoughts, and none of them good.

She was going to die. She was going to die at the hands of a beautiful angel, just one more statistic of a woman sucked in by a hot guy who turned out to be a psychopath.

But if she was going to die anyway…

She slumped against him. Zev immediately relaxed the arm that had circled her to keep her pinned between him and the car.

"Sasha," he whispered and slowly lifted his hand from her mouth, "Please don't cry."

"I don't want to die," she sobbed, then inhaled through her nose. "And you smell amazing."

He gave a low chuckle and it danced along her senses. She groaned, burying her face in her hands, and leaning into that hollow under his chin.

"I'm so confused!" she wailed. "What is happening?"

He took a deep breath and put his hands to her shoulders, then held her back and away, at arms length. "What is happening is that you now know my secret, and I'm going to protect you with my life. Please, Sasha, don't cry. I love you. I've always loved you and I'm sick of fighting it. The day they came after you is the day I tell them to go fuck themselves. I'm getting you out of here.. I'm never going to let them have you."