Page 36 of Wolf Revealed

Either way, Lark only hoped she was right.

“Don’t you worry about Xander?” Violet asked, looking at Khaki. “I mean, I know you SWAT cops face danger every day, but it’s got to be different going up against someone like Roman.”

“Of course, I’m worried,” Khaki admitted. “The same way Xander worries when I’m out there. We both accept the danger because it’s our job, but also because it’s worth any risk to be with The One.”

Lark got what Khaki was saying. Then her mind replayed the other woman’s words again, and she couldn’t help noting the emphasis on two particular words.

“The One,” Violet repeated curiously, obviously picking up on the same thing. “Why does it sound like that means something more to you than it does to us?”

Khaki looked back and forth between Lark and Violet, dumbfounded, but then understanding dawned on her face. “I guess it makes sense your pack has a different way of referring to soul mates since you’re a different kind of werewolf.”

“Soul mates?” Lark said, feeling out the word even as her sister continued to regard Khaki with a baffled expression. “You mean, like soul mates in a romance book?”

Khaki frowned. “Are you saying you don’t know about the legend of The One?”

All Lark could do was shake her head. Beside her, Violet did the same.

“Legend says that every werewolf in the world has a soul mate, aka The One for them,” Khaki explained. “It’s that one person out there who accepts them for who and what they are, fangs, claws, and all. When it’s another werewolf, it’s easier for sure, since they already know the big secret. For obvious reasons, it’s trickier when the other person isn’t a werewolf, but they’ll still somehow find a way to get together.”

Lark opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her sister appeared to be equally speechless.

Khaki looked from Lark to Violet and back again. “Are you telling me no one in your pack has ever found their soul mate?”

“I don’t know. If they have, I’ve never heard about it,” Lark admitted even as her sister shook her head in agreement. “Even though our packs aren’t isolated, everyone sticks close to home, and when we fall in love, a lot of time, it’s with someone from our pack or one of the others. Most of us don’t stumble across someone from the outside world and fall in love. Especially not with a person who’s not already a werewolf.”

Khaki shook her head. “Wow. I don’t know what to say to that. I can’t imagine how awful it would be to never have found Xander. He makes my life complete. Everyone else in the Pack feels the same about their soul mates.”

Lark exchanged looks with her sister. “Your whole pack has found their soul mates?”

“Uh-huh,” Khaki said. “Well, except for Mike. Though I’m thinking he and his soul mate have already met. It’s just taking a little while for both of them to realize it.”

Lark blinked. Was Khaki talking about her?

“How did you know Xander was The One for you?” Violet asked, interrupting Lark’s musings.

“At first, I didn’t know. Neither did he,” Khaki said with a grin. “It took a while for us to recognize there was something special going on.”

“What do you mean?” Lark asked. “Don’t you like kiss or something, and then, boom, you just know.”

Khaki laughed. “I wish. But it doesn’t work like that. Just because werewolves have soul mates, it doesn’t mean they don’t have free will. Or in our case, that we were both too stubborn to see what was right in front of our faces. First, I was a female werewolf, which at that time was a complete novelty to the Pack. For reasons that would only make sense to a man, the guys assumed all werewolves were male. Second, there was the issue of my being assigned to Xander’s squad, so he decided that meant he should ignore anything he was feeling for me. He had to maintain his professionalism, you know?”

“So, you’re saying it took a while to get through to him?” Violet said with a laugh.

Lark couldn’t help remembering Mike fighting the attraction between them because he didn’t want her involved in his dangerous world. Though if she were being honest, she’d been a little hesitant about dragging him into her world, too.

“Longer than it should have,” Khaki admitted. “But in the end, we realized we were meant to be together, and that we should stop trying to get in the way of a good thing.”

“But how did you know?” Lark asked, an inkling of a feeling hovering in the back of her mind, telling her that she needed to understand all of this. “Obviously, something first attracted you to him. Other than looks, I mean. What was it that made you realize you had this special thing going on between the two of you?”

Khaki looked thoughtful for a moment, her lips curving. “The first clue was his scent. From the moment I met Xander, he smelled intoxicating. It was a blend of masculine and sweet, like coffee and donuts, but totally unique at the same time. And it turns out that I smell like frosted spice cake to him. And before you ask, no, the other werewolves in the Pack don’t pick up those unique scents. It’s something exclusively between soul mates.”

Lark tried to catch a whiff of the frosted spice cake scent Khaki mentioned, but apparently, she was right about only Xander being able to pick it up. She couldn’t smell any cake at all, spiced or otherwise.

“What does Mike smell like to you?” Lark asked.

Khaki smiled again, as if she knew exactly where Lark was going with this. “In general, he’d doesn’t smell like anything. Like a werewolf, of course, and he has a scent I’d recognize anywhere since he’s one of my pack mates, but it’s nothing unique. What does he smell like to you?”

Lark felt her face grow warm. “He smells like cedar, imbued with something masculine, something that’s completely...Mike. You don’t smell anything like when you’re around him?”