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motioned
at her to sidle through a gate he cracked open. They entered the open side of
the barn and she asked, “How did you do that? How did you calm the stallion?”
    “I simply let him understand my intent.”
    “Right. Of course,” she said drily.
    “There’s the loft,” Blake announced, and this time there was
no hiding the exhaustion all too evident in his voice.
    She looked up at the long ladder, the moon glinting through
a glass window high above them. “Can you climb?”
    She made out his nod. Her gut twisted sharply. He was in far
worse shape than he let on. And she was probably a fool for caring so much. She
didn’t know this man, had only met him hours earlier. And yet she could easily
have believed she’d known him half her life.
    The twenty-second climb took him long minutes. And under the
moonlight sweat beaded on his brow, the fresh blood like ink on his shirt.
Shit. She’d read somewhere that bullet wounds didn’t always bleed heavily as
the surrounding tissues acted as a barrier—unless an artery was involved.
    No, he wouldn’t have made it this far if a major blood
vessel had been severed. Still, he was swaying and silent once they’d climbed
onto the loft.
    She swallowed back fear and kept herself busy by making
short work of a couple of bales of hay and spreading them apart over the wooden
floor. He let out a pained moan as she helped him lie down.
    She felt his brow. Shit . He was burning up.
    “Damn it, Blake! You’re hot as hell.” She unbuttoned his
flannel shirt and carefully peeled it from his shoulders. His t-shirt was no
longer white, though she imagined her face was as she wrenched apart the
material to expose his shoulder.
    “We need to see how bad this wound is.” She squinted, but
could see little in the semidarkness and with all the blood. She only hoped the
bullet had gone clean through sinew and flesh. Her eyes lingered for a moment
on his beautifully defined body, before she forced her attention to the far
more important matter at hand. “I’ll bind it as good as I can with your shirt,
but then you’ll have to see a doctor.”
    “No. No doctor,” he snarled. His face abruptly contorted,
his eyes glinting eerily red and animalistic.
    Holy shit.
    Her throat closed as the anxiety of before surged back into
life with a vengeance. She scuttled backward, her breath heaving and her belly
rolling. “Who are you?”
    He gritted his teeth, another spasm taking hold before he
said hoarsely, “You know who… what I am. You’ve always known.”
    Heat rose behind Alexia’s eyelids, her face clammy, her
palms wet with sweat. Her thoughts scrambled but she couldn’t make sense of the
insensible. “That’s insane! You’re…you’re talking in riddles. I’ve never even
met you before.”
    He sucked in a breath, his pain stark. “I’m the proof your
father wanted but never had. I’m an Illawatti shifter.”

Chapter Two
     
    She swallowed hard, scarcely believing her eyes, her ears.
But of course she’d known. She’d always known. She just hadn’t consciously
admitted it.
    Not only had Blake’s ancestor’s name been written in code on
the decaying journal found with the shifter’s remarkable bones, she’d seen for
herself his glowing eyes, the way he’d effortlessly landed on his feet from a
great height, his graceful, economical movements for such a big man.
    All the signs had been there. And though he hadn’t openly
admitted his identity, they were character traits he’d never once hidden from
her.
    Blake sucked in an agonized breath. The moonlight showcased
his rippling skin, his muscles that jerked and twisted. His eyes caught and
held hers. “I…I can’t stop it…the change is involuntary now. It will…it will
heal me.” He gasped, his eyelids flicking shut. “The beast needs to come
out…been cooped in my skin far too long already.”
    His eyelids jerked back open. His arm shot out, one hand
clamping onto her wrist. His eyes brightened, the pupils