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Petra rolled her eyes "What is it?"

"I Hate Synjon Wise"

Petra laughed "Fine Sih" She raised her voice to the wind "I hate Synjon Wise"

"Barely convincing," Dani drawled "And this too: I will never let hihter petered out Now that one wasn’t so siht be She’d had enough worrisome ad You shouldn’t be hesitating Hesitating will get you into trouble"

"Shit, Dani Look at hed "And I kinda have to touch hilanced over one feathered shoulder "Yeah, but he doesn’t have to touch you"

"Look out! The tree!" Petra called, pointing ahead "Jeez Come on, Dani, focus Mom and baby don’t have the ironclad shifter belly"

Smooth and easy, Dani banked around thejust outside the rock wall of the gathering stones Petra slid off her back, spotting her mother already seated beside Sara on several small, flat boulders in the center of the stones Petra’s blood sister She still couldn’t get used to that concept Neither of them had noticed her yet They were deep in conversation, and for one second Petra felt a splash of jealousy h her Sara already had one mother She didn’t need Petra’s too

"Hey, Bestie," Dani called out to her

Petra stopped, realized she’d been walking toward her lanced over her shoulder

Dani’s hawk eyes narrowed "You never repeated that last bit"

No, she hadn’t

"I will never let hirin "Thanks for the ride, Bestie I owe you" Then shestones and the family she barely knew

• • •

Phane couldn’t take his eyes off the fehest rock within the gathering stones and stared Every ht--except Ly, of course, who had once again refused to co a few feet below him Like Helo, Phane had also been curious about the Rain Forest and its creatures After living all of his life a vampires, Phane had wanted to know about that other part of himself The one that had never been discussed or revealed But in all that time--hell, even back at the house in SoHo--he’d never conte like himself

He felt his hawk scratch inside his skin as he watched the fe, swooping, touching down, she’d been fucking nificent But on land, in her fe or anyone so hot She was the perfect height, not too tall, not too short Her body was a erous, supple curves Her blond hair was cut in a short and sexy style that accentuated her beautiful, sharp-as-shit face, and mysterious black eyes and a ripe mouth that she see--the sh her nose--that made Phane’s entire body erupt in possessive desire

He wanted to lick it, run his fangs over it

Maybe while she bit his neck

His cock strained against the zipper of his jeans Then went steel hard as before his very eyes the last shreds of hawk feathers disappeared and she was coaze raked over her spectacular body just seconds before she slipped on a thin electric blue dress

She’d been naked In front of anyone who cared to look--and Phane was pretty daive a shit

That was his kind of feht about shifting into his hawk and gliding down to stand beside her He needed to stake his clai with her Not today Not unless she agreed to it, of course But soon

Unfortunately, the dark-haired veana who looked so similar to Alexander’s Sara stepped into the center of the stones at precisely thateveryone’s attention Phane knew the fe she was Five, h, healthy, her face and eyes bright--far better than when he had seen her last

"Why have you all come?" she asked the small crowd of Petra’s mother, the Roman females, Helo, Phane, and Dillon

The last was the first to speak "This land, Petra, your existence--it has all been a closely guarded secret for some time"

"Try forever," said the hawk shifter female, who stood in the shadows of a massive boulder, just a few feet behind Petra

Daht," Dillon aer"

"Do you speak of more than yourselves?" asked Petra’s mother, Wen, who sat beside Sara

"I do"

"Humans?" Wen asked

"No," Dillon said "Our kind Vampires"

Wen looked momentarily relieved "Didn’t they already know? With Cruen as their leader"

"He held this secret pretty damn close to the vest," Dillon explained "He didn’t share anything about you with the va about us"<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>