Wild Invitation

pointed it out.”
    It made sense…yet what she’d glimpsed had been far moreviolent an emotion, somehow
old
. Akin to the hurt she’d seen in his eyes at the site of the slip. “You don’t have to pretend around me,” she said, uncomfortable with shoving at his defenses but frustrated enough by his refusal to even acknowledge he was in pain that she had to make the attempt.
    “Grace, no male wants to further piss off an already pissed-off woman whom he has every intention of talking into bed as fast as possible.” He ran his hands over his scalp. “Goddamnit, now I’m yelling.”
    “So? I don’t want you to turn down the volume of your personality or your emotions,” she said, dismayed at the idea. “That’s not healthy on any level for you.” It would drive him slowly insane. “If that’s what you’re having to do when we’re together”—the thought
hurt,
so much—“you know it won’t work.”
    His growl raised every hair on her body. “It damn well will work.” The statement of a man used to getting what he wanted.
    Stubborn, infuriating male.
    She went to open her mouth to argue, but she’d pushed her wolf’s limits long enough. It clawed to the surface, wrenching the reins from her hands, and doing what it deemed necessary in order to pacify an angry dominant.
    A submissive whimper left her throat.
    Cooper froze.

Chapter 8
    GRACE COLLAPSED TO her knees as the door closed behind Cooper, tremors quaking her frame.
    He’d cupped her cheek, rubbed his own against her temple with an affection that soothed some of her wolf’s panic, before saying, “Good night, Grace,” and leaving.
    It had happened exactly as she’d feared, her nature unable to stand the sheer, unleashed force of Cooper’s dominance. In her lupine form, she’d have tucked her tail between her legs, maybe even rolled over onto her back to expose the vulnerable flesh of her belly.
    Sobs escaped her mouth, filled her chest until she could hardly breathe.
    She was simply
not built
to handle the hot-blooded passions and brutal depth of emotion of a man of Cooper’s strength. Nothing could change the very makeup of her being. What if the next time it happened, they were in bed? What if Cooper was inside her?
    Then he’ll stop.
    The answer came from the tiny part of her that wasn’t a complete mess. And it was true. Cooper would always stop—as he’d done today. But that didn’t mean she had any right to put him in that position, any right to demand he muzzle the raw beauty of his sexuality, his personality. What she’d said, it was an absolute, unavoidable truth—for him to strangle his instincts would be a horribly damaging act.
    It would kill him and destroy her.
    “I don’t want to let him go.”
    The whispered confession was a slap.
    If she couldn’t bear to set him free, couldn’t bear to imagine another woman’s hands on his skin, another woman’s lips on his own, then she had to find a way to deal. But how?
    It was as she was washing her tear-ravaged face that she realized she had to talk to someone who’d been through this. Except no one had. Yes, she knew—was friends with—any number of submissives who’d mated with or lived in permanent loving relationships with dominants. Not one of those relationships, however, mirrored the extreme power gulf that separated her and Cooper.
    “There must be
someone
.”
    Determined to discover an answer, she was on her second cup of coffee when she remembered the woman who’d been her nursery school teacher while Grace lived in the Sierra Nevada den as a child. Twelve when her family shifted dens, she well remembered the lovely woman with the stunning indigo eyes who’d always had a hug and a word of praise for her long after she’d left the nursery.
    Tarah was a submissive not much stronger than Grace. Her mate, Abel, by contrast, was a very strong dominant, a soldier who held a senior position in the pack. One of their daughters was a lieutenant, the other a submissive close to Grace in the hierarchy. If anyone would understand the forces tearing Grace apart, it was Tarah.
    Not giving herself time to change her mind, she looked up Tarah’s number in the internal pack directory and input the call, realizing too late that it was past ten at night.
    Abel was the one who answered. “Almost threw me,” he said after a short pause, “but I never forget one of Tarah’s kids. How are you, Grace darling?”
    The gentleness of the question told her he’d