Page 13 of Pack Baby for the Silver Foxes

I looked at Lincoln. He looked at me.

By the third floor, I hated what I was thinking.

Mary swallowed. A bead of sweat slid down her temple. She wiped it away with the heel of her hand and gave a small furious shake of her head, annoyed with her own skin.

“Are you all right?” Lincoln asked, in the low register he kept for frightened people and his former injured teammates.

She didn’t look at him. “Just marvelous.”

The elevator chimed at floor four, and the doors opened onto a quiet corridor. Cream walls, a multi-colored patterned carpet and brass lights spaced on the wall. Mary stepped out first and turned left.

So did we.

She glanced over her shoulder. “This is becoming weird.”

“Our room is this way,” I said.

“Naturally.”

“I can show you the key card if it helps.”

“That seems forward for a first stalking.”

Lincoln huffed a laugh, and then she reached her door and missed the slot with her card. Her hand was shaking visibly now.

She bent to grab the card and folded instead, one hand braced on the door, the other pressed low against her stomach.

And then her scent hit full and lush, with violet blooming through the whole of it.

This was not her perfume.

Mary made a small sound through her teeth.

Lincoln moved first. I caught his wrist before he reached her, and he froze, every muscle in him straining against my hand.

“Mary,” I said.

She lifted her head. Her eyes had gone almost black at the center. She looked from my hand on Lincoln’s wrist to my face and inhaled again.

Her expression changed. Shock first. Then want. Then fear, arriving last and louder than the other two together.

“I’m fine,” she said.

The words shook.

“You’re not,” Lincoln growled.

She squeaked and then moaned as she turned to the door.

“You’re close to your heat. You need alphas.”

She straightened by inches, using the door. “I’m getting the flu.”

“It’s a dangerous thing to ignore,” I said.

“The flu?”

“Your heat.”