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  He held her until she fell back into the real world.

  “I love what you do to me, Aden. You’re the only lover I’ve ever had who could make me come so hard or so fast.”

  “Is that why you like it fast? I always thought women wanted it to last longer.”

  “Mmm. Not me. Hard and fast. So we can do it again. I like immediate gratification.” She tilted her chin up to kiss him and swiped her tongue over his lips in a teasing caress after she broke the kiss.

  “Keep teasing me, Miranda, and we’ll never even make it out of the cabin. We’ll do it long and slow, and there will be no breakfast, lunch, or dinner.”

  “I’m happy to lie fireside with truffles and champagne. Or enjoy that party-size Jacuzzi spa while you go freeze your balls off in the lake.”

  “That’s what they call a compromise.” Aden pulled her to him and kissed her hard before getting up and dressing.

  She followed suit. “But promise me something,” she murmured.

  “If I can.”

  “I like how you don’t say anything, as if whatever I ask will always be in your power. Shows you’re listening to me.”

  “Huh, what did you say?” he teased gently.

  “No, really. This is serious.”

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t ever lie to me again. That’s part of why I don’t have relationships. I don’t trust, but you saved my life. So I’m trusting you. If you fuck that up, it’s broken, and it’s gone forever. I can deal with any truth you have to give me so long as you don’t lie.”

  “Are you sure about that? What if it’s something that will change everything? What if it changes how you see the world and everything in it?”

  “As long as it’s the truth, I want it.” Hell. What was he going to lay on her now? This was a bigger buildup than finding out that Webster was his brother. There couldn’t be another skeleton in his closet, could there?

  “Then I have something to tell you, Miranda. But after my morning run.”

  “Oh, so it’s important enough that it will shatter my world and everything in it, but it can wait until after your morning run?” She laughed. “Are you finally going to tell me how you got out of those handcuffs? Or how you escaped your brother’s familial killing spree?” He’d never answered those questions, and they were always there in her awareness, her brain turning the question from every angle, yet she’d never been able to settle on an answer that satisfied. She needed the words from his mouth. Miranda didn’t know why he wouldn’t answer her, probably just so she’d wonder as she did. He liked to keep her guessing.

  “Maybe, but later. It’s going to rain,” he said by way of explanation, and shrugged. “Unless you want to come with me?”

  “Run? There better be something chasing me.”

  “Oh, but you’ll work out on the elliptical like a hamster on a wheel?”

  “I can watch movies while I run, and I don’t have to think about it. Plus, you know I’m not into that back-to-nature thing like you. Not only do I need my indoor temperature control, but I like my cross-trainers too. I don’t know how you run barefoot. You’re going to get tetanus or something.” She finished dressing and followed him outside to the deck of the cabin.

  “I’m going to get this bad boy out of the way before it starts raining too hard. I have other plans for inclement weather anyway.”

  “What are those?” Miranda asked as if she didn’t know.

  “You, sweetheart.” His voice held a note of promise that made her shiver every time she heard it.

  He brushed a kiss across her lips before jogging out toward the path that wound around the lake. Miranda wasn’t alone for ten minutes before she decided maybe she’d join him. It would be a challenge to see if she could catch up and keep up. He challenged her in so many ways.

  But she would cheat—she was definitely wearing shoes.

  Miranda changed into her workout clothes and jogged outside. She followed the path until it started to turn to mud. She saw Aden’s footprints wedged deep in the mud. He had such a heavy gait.

  She jogged a little farther, following his trail until the prints began to smear in the mud. They had to be smeared; otherwise, what she saw wasn’t something she wanted to know. As the prints smeared, they stretched, elongated, until they looked just the ones that had been outside the cottage in Minnesota. The ones Aden had said were bear prints.

  The howl of a lone wolf echoed through the trees. Miranda turned back toward the cabin, the soft sprinkling rain splashing down her face as she jogged. Maybe she didn’t want the truth after all.

  But as she jogged, her muscles burned and stretched—pushing her forward harder, and her jog turned into a run, and the run a sprint, driven by some primal compulsion. The love marks on her neck and breasts blazed, the fire spreading through her body, and her steps turned away from the cabin—toward the woods. Toward her lover.

  Her mate, who’d bitten her three times.

  Later that evening, when the wolf howled again, the sound echoing through the barren winter forest, there was a second howl to answer its call.

  Author’s Note

  THIS STORY WAS born from long summer nights and cloudy winter twilights spent staring out my grandmother’s window into the woods on the very same Lake Ida and being unable to shake the feeling that there was something hungry in the dark looking back at me. Of course, it didn’t help that The Howling had just become my favorite movie. It should also be noted that there are shades of truth to this story: the formerly endangered wolf population in Minnesota is now considered healthy enough that at the time of this writing, the state was in the process of okaying a wolf-hunting season to control the animals’ numbers.

  About the Authors

  MEGAN HART has been writing since she could grip a pencil in her fist. Published in nearly all genres of romance, perhaps most notably erotic, she intends to keep writing stories that make her happy. She lives in the deep, dark woods of Pennsylvania with Superman and two monsters . . . er . . . children. Readers may learn more about her at www.meganhart.com or drop her a line at [email protected]

  LAUREN HAWKEYE is a writer, yoga newbie, knitting aficionado, and animal lover, who lives in the shadows of the great Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Canada. She’s older than she looks—really—and younger than she feels—most of the time—and she loves to explore the journeys that take women through life in her stories.

  SARANNA DEWYLDE has always been fascinated by things better left in the dark. She wrote her first story after watching The Exorcist at a slumber party. Like all writers, Saranna has held a variety of jobs, from an operations supervisor for an airline, to a call girl’s assistant, to a corrections officer. But like Hemingway said, “Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.” So she traded in her cuffs for a full-time keyboard and lives in the Midwest with her very own Prince Charming.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  ALSO BY THE AUTHORS

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  Give in to your impulses . . .

  Read on for a sneak peek at two brand-new

  e-book original tales of romance from Avon Books.

  Available now wherever e-books are sold.

  THE FORBIDDEN LADY

  By Kerrelyn Sparks

  TURN TO DARKNESS

  By Jaime Rush

  An Excerpt from

  THE FORBIDDEN LADY

  by Kerrelyn Sparks

  (Originally published under the title For Love or Country)

  Before New York Times bestselling author Kerrelyn Sparks created a world of vampires, there was another world