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"I didn't!" she tells me innocently, fluttering her dark brown eyelashes.

The growl starts low in my chest. This mating urge is going to be a problem.

"All right," I say. "Here's the bookstore. Now, do you want anything to drink? Because there's a little café next door."

I didn't mean to ask her what she wanted to drink. I was going to tell her I was going to get a snack and a drink, because if I don't have one, I'm liable to snack on her.

"Oh, a café, huh? Um, I'm not hungry, but you know, I would really like a mocha. Or, you know, something sweet—a latte. If they have a special... do they have things like that?"

"I'm sure they can make you a latte," I tell her, biting off the words in a way that makes her look up at me with surprise.

And I immediately regret my tone.

"You asked what I wanted," she says. "I don't want to be rude about it. You don't have to get me anything."

"I'm sorry, I'm just a bit peckish," I tell her. "Now go have fun. Pick out what you want. I'll be right back to pay for it—you can't use your credit here. Don't tell anyone who you are or what your name is, lass. I'll be ten minutes and no more. Keep to yourself."

"And a mocha, right? Or a vanilla latte," she says, her nose scrunching up as she considers her options. "Something sweet."

She beams up at me, and it's all I can do not to grab her face and kiss her breathless. Instead, I hurrumph and storm out of the little bookshop as she looks around in delight.

Well, I think to myself as I head over to the café, which is neither busy nor crowded, thankfully. Shouldn't take any time at all. Besides, how much trouble can one woman get into at a bookstore?

Thirteen

VIVIENNE

No bell jingles as I walk through the wood and glass door. The shop is dimly lit, and though the smell of paper pages is as familiar as home, the hair on the back of my neck stands at attention.

Pages around me rustle as I inch through the aisles—a susurrus of noise like the whisper of wordless voices.

There is something deeply, fundamentally wrong in this bookstore. I can feel it in my marrow, my skin prickling into goosebumps down my arms. A small part of me begs me to turn around and run back out to the street, but a larger part hates the idea of needing Lachlan for protection. Books are where I thrive. They have always been my safe place, a sanctuary built from someone else's words. I am not going to let a bad feeling keep me from taking what I came for.

Straightening my shoulders, I march forward, flanked by high shelves crammed with volumes—cloth and leather, foil-stamped and paperback, deckled edges and sprayed edges.

"How many types of shifters are there? Bears and werewolves? What else?" I mutter to myself, trailing a forefinger across a row of spines.

"Are you looking for fiction or truth?" a deep voice asks from the shadows ahead.

I nearly jump out of my skin but manage to pull myself together before I can embarrass myself. A lean man steps into the dim aisle. His hair is pitch black, his clothes dark, his eyes glimmering with a strange, oily sheen.

"Nonfiction today," I say, keeping my tone clipped.

"I don't think I've seen you around here before," he says, taking a smooth step toward me.

The warning bell in my head isn't just ringing now—it's screaming. I swallow hard, my pulse thumping so hard I feel it jackhammer in my throat. The man notices. His eyes drop to the hollow of my neck, staring at my skin until it feels scorched where his gaze hits.

"Nonfiction might get you killed."

"I'm a historian," I tell him, forcing my chin up. "I'm well aware of how dangerous the truth can be."

I try to breeze past him to find something on bear shifters—anything to give me a leg up on understanding Lachlan—when an icy hand locks onto my bicep like a steel clamp.

"Where do you think you're going?" he purrs. "I wasn't done speaking to you."

I yank my arm out of his grip, glaring at him with pure venom. "Conversation requires two willing people, and as far as I'm concerned, this one is over."

Rattled to my core, I walk deeper into the stacks, refusing to let a stranger intimidate me.