“If you want to make it to Warren’s,” he said, his voice almost guttural, “you’ll have to keep your hands to yourself.”

There is something incredibly arousing about being wanted. I pulled my hand back and sucked in a deep breath. “Adam,” I said.

The light turned green at last. I had the whimsical thought that my time in Elphame had completely skewed my internal clock, because I could have sworn we were there for hours instead of seconds.

Warren lived in an A house, one of a group of “Alphabet Houses” built during World War II to accommodate the exploding population of nuclear-industry workers in Richland. The one he lived in was still a duplex. Both sides were dark—and the other duplex had a FOR RENT sign on the window.

Adam parked the van and slid out without looking at me. He closed the door with exquisite gentleness that said a lot about his state of mind. I got out and didn’t even bother to worry about whether my prized Vanagon Syncro was locked—which I suppose said equally as much about my state of mind.

Adam unlocked the door of Warren’s apartment and held it open for me. As soon as we were both inside, he closed the door and locked it.

When he turned to face me, his eyes were bright gold and his cheeks were flushed. “If you don’t want this,” he told me, as he had since the . . . incident with Tim, “you can say no.”

“Race you to the bedroom,” I said, and started for the stairs.

He caught my arm in a very careful grip before I took more than two steps. “Running . . . would not be a good idea right now.” He was ashamed of his lack of control; maybe someone else would have missed it in his voice. Maybe I would have, too, if it weren’t for the bond between us.

I put my hand over his and patted it. “Okay,” I said. “Why don’t you take me to bed?”

I hadn’t been ready for him to grab me and pick me up that fast or I wouldn’t have squeaked.

He froze.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m fine.”

He took me at my word and carried me to the stairs. I halfway expected him to run, but instead his pace was deliberate, his step almost heavy. The stairs were narrow and steep, and he was careful not to bang my head or feet.

He set me down just inside the guest bedroom and closed the door. He stood there, his back to me, breathing heavily.

“A month,” he said. “And neither Zee nor any of the fae we knew could tell us if we’d ever get you back. Samuel’s woman couldn’t find you—everything you had burned up in the fire. Neither the van nor the Rabbit worked as a close enough tie. She tried to approach me to see if she could use me, but she couldn’t even walk into the same room as me—not half-crazed as I was. Touching me was out of the question. I thought I had lost you.”

I remembered feeling Mary Jo and Paul hunting me. “You looked for me.”

“We did,” he agreed. Abruptly he turned and hauled me against him. He was shaking, and he hid his face in my hair. It was useless, if he was trying to prevent me from understanding what he was feeling. I had a Technicolor view through our bond.

I hugged him as hard as I could so he’d know I was real, that I didn’t mind him holding me hard. “I’m here,” I said.

“I couldn’t find you either,” he told me, his voice a bare whisper. “Our bond was broken, and I couldn’t tell if you’d done it on purpose, if the queen had managed it—or if you were dead. We could feel you in the pack bonds, but that’s been known to happen when people die. Bran came and he couldn’t find you either. Then yesterday, Darryl was feeding us lunch and dropped the pan on the floor.”

I’d heard about that already, from various people, but I didn’t interrupt.

“Darryl thought someone was messing with Auriele, and stormed halfway up the stairs—only to be met by Auriele, who was worried about him for the same reason. That’s when Bran came up from the basement and said . . .” He stopped speaking.

“He said, ‘I’ve done the hard part, Alpha. Now tell us where your mate is,’ ” I said. “And he was holding the walking stick in his hand.”

“And there you were,” Adam told me. “Inside of me, just where you belonged.”

He drew back, moving his hands to my cheeks. The heat of his skin felt precious to me, his hot amber eyes feeding the fires in my heart—and my body.

His nostrils flared, like a stallion scenting a mare. His hands dropped to my coat, and he ripped it down the back and threw it on the floor before backing away from me.

“Damn it,” he said gruffly, his head against the door. “Damn it . . . I can’t do this.”

I pulled my shirt over my head and stripped off my jeans and underwear. Warren didn’t keep his house at seventy degrees—since he was mostly sleeping at Kyle’s these days. But I didn’t feel the cold, not while I could feel the force of Adam’s need roaring like a welding torch.

“What can’t you do?” I asked gently, pulling back the bedding and lying down on the sheets.

“I can’t be gentle. I know . . . I know you need care, and I can’t do that right now.” He pulled open the door. “I’ve got to go. I’ll send—”

“If you leave me naked and waiting on the bed without making love to me, I’ll—”

I didn’t get to finish the threat. I think it was the word “naked,” though maybe it was “bed,” but before I finished my sentence, he was on me.

He was right; he wasn’t gentle. Up until that point in our relationship, our lovemaking had been passion tempered with humor and sweetness. I’d been hurt and he’d been so careful of me.

In the darkness of Warren’s guest bedroom, sweetness and humor had no place in him. And though there was care in his touch, he was anything but careful. Not that he hurt me—quite the contrary. But he was fire and need that went so far beyond simple desire that it consumed me—and like the phoenix, I found myself reborn in the crucible.

I met his urgency with my own, digging my fingers into the silk-covered stone of his arms as his sinful mouth tasted my skin wherever it fell. He was hot and hard, his need forcing me to rise to meet his fire with my own. Sweat dripped onto my skin, and the scent of it was an aphrodisiac because it was all Adam. If he needed me, I needed him every bit as much.

He rose over me, closing his golden eyes as he pushed through me, into me, became a part of me with one heavy thrust. Only when he was all the way in did he look at me again, and in that look was triumph and a claiming so basic that it should have scared me.

“Mine,” he said, rocking his hips against my own in a move that was more about possession than passion.

I raised my chin and held his eyes in a challenge only I could make without consequences. I tightened my belly and dug my heels into the mattress to give my own thrust power. “Mine,” I said.

Adam’s wolf smiled at me and nipped my shoulder. “I can live with that,” he said. And then he demonstrated what that possession would mean when it involved an Alpha werewolf who knew how to be patient and thorough when hunting coyotes.

I DREAMED I WALKED IN THE SNOW, BUT I WASN’T AFRAID. There was a thick golden rope wrapped securely around me. It was free of fray or knot and led me into the forest, lighting my way with its bright warmth. I followed it with a light heart and the humming anticipation of finding something wonderful. At last I came to the end of the rope and a blue-gray wolf with golden eyes.

“Hello, Adam,” I told him.

“SHH,” SAID ADAM SLEEPILY. HE PULLED ME TIGHTER against him and rolled over the top of me as if that would make me be quiet. “Sleep.”

My body was tired. I was warm and safe. A return to sleep should have come easily, especially since I’d awakened from such a good dream. But it had reminded me of what it had felt like to be lost.

“I couldn’t find you either,” I told Adam, burrowing against him. He was thinner than he’d been the last time I’d been in bed with him. The fire had left no scars, and he kept his hair short anyway, but the ribs I could feel told me I had cost him.