Wild Invitation

call Yosemite home.”
    The work fitted him better than anything she could’ve imagined. “Do you like what you do?”
    “It’s in my blood.” He paused. “Someone’s at the door. I’ll pick you up at nine on the dot. Sweet dreams.” The last was a husky murmur laced with temptation.
    “Bye.” She ended the call and just sat there, flushing alternately hot and cold. Surely she was reading too much into the conversation. He’d called to make sure she dressed right. The way his voice had felt like a caress over her most sensitive skin…that was the result of her pulse-pounding susceptibility to him. It didn’t mean he wanted her, too.
    But she couldn’t quite stop herself from hoping.
    •   •   •
    ZACH pulled open the door to his small home, already aware of his visitor’s identity. He’d picked up the scent the instant the other changeling stepped out of his vehicle.
    “Luc.” He welcomed his alpha inside. “What’s up?”
    Lucas walked in, dressed in a dark gray suit that said he’d come straight from DarkRiver’s business HQ. “Nice place.”
    “Nice suit.” Opening the cooler, he threw Lucas a sleek glass bottle before taking one for himself.
    “What the hell is this?” Lucas scowled at the pale blue liquid inside. “And the suit’s camouflage.”
    “It’s some new energy drink Joe’s come up with.” He twisted off the top. “We’re supposed to give him feedback.”
    Lucas took a pull. “Not bad—for something that looks like it glows in the dark.”
    Zach grinned. “So, why the camouflage?”
    “I had a meeting with a Psy group today.”
    “New deal?” DarkRiver had recently completed its second major construction project for Psy Councilor Nikita Duncan. The success of the venture had been so dramatic, they’d attracted considerable interest from other Psy businesses.
    “Signed and sealed.” Lucas’s grin was very feline in its satisfaction. “I wanted to talk to you about some of the land you cover during your duties as ranger.”
    Zach nodded. “Is there a problem?”
    “Shouldn’t be, but I want you to keep an extra-sharp eye out. Psy don’t usually venture anywhere near our territory, but they’ve been changing the rules recently.”
    “You think they might be trying to use the land to familiarize themselves with the forest,” Zach guessed. Psy weren’t, as a rule, comfortable in wide-open spaces. They preferred the cities, with their towers of glass and steel. But as Lucas’s mate, Sascha, showed, the psychic race was supremely adaptable.
    “I don’t think it’s happened yet, but there’s a possibility it might—we’d be fools if we didn’t prepare for the unexpected.”
    “I’ll keep you updated.” He put down his empty bottle beside the one Lucas had just finished. “You didn’t really come here for that.” Lucas’s caution was something Zach was a senior-enough soldier to figure out for himself.
    Lucas shrugged, the clawlike markings on the right side of his face standing out in vivid relief. “I was passing through to talk to Tammy about the Christmas celebrations, decided to drop in, touch base.”
    Since Tammy and Nate were Zach’s closest neighbors, that made sense. “Tell Nate I saw his cubs chasing a dog yesterday.”
    Lucas grinned. “Sounds about right.”
    “Can I ask you a question?”
    Lucas raised an eyebrow and waited.
    “How fragile are humans?” He’d had human lovers before, but he’d never wanted any woman, human or changeling, with the raw fury that colored his hunger for Annie. It worried him that he might hurt her in passion. “How much do I have to hold back?”
    “They’re not as breakable as we tend to think,” Lucas said, andZach knew he was speaking from experience. Physically, Psy were even weaker than humans, yet Lucas was very happily mated to Sascha. “Just don’t use the same force on her that you’d use on me or one of the other males, and you’ll be fine.”
    “Who said there’s a ‘her’?”
    “There’s always a her.”
    “Her name is Annie, and I’m bringing her to the picnic tomorrow.”
    Lucas’s eyes gleamed cat green. “You’re introducing her to the pack? When did you meet her?”
    “Today.”
    “Well, hell.” Lucas rocked back on his heels. “She have any idea what that means?”
    “She’s a little wary, but she likes me,” he said, thinking of how her eyes had drunk him up. A man could get used to being looked at that way. Especially when the woman