Crystal Jordan

Oh God. Kill me now.

I fought the urge to bury my head in my hands—or toss back the rest of my double shot of bourbon—as I saw who walked in the door of the Eclipse bar. It was my birthday, damn it. My thirty-first birthday. As in, no longer just thirty, but in my thirties. Why couldn’t I spend it in peace?

Yeah, yeah. As a werewolf, I’d live a couple hundred years. I knew that. But the last few years had seemed to crawl by in one endless string of pain. It was the feeling that werewolves dealt with who denied themselves their mates. Pain. Bone-crushing, head-throbbing, drop-me-to-my-knees aguish.

And my unclaimed mate had just stepped into the room, so I felt it with the keen agony of the sharpest blade. Michael Trent. Older brother of my best friend, Cynthiana Trent-St. James. Why would she bring him here?

Eclipse was a place I thought I’d be safe. Only magical creatures came here. Humans who ventured in were just asking to be an after-dinner snack for something that went bump in the night. Or someone. Someone like me. And my best-friend-turned-traitor. Not like her very human brother. I’d managed to avoid running into him for months now. Damn Cyn for forcing this.

“Hey, sexy.” Cyn tugged on one of my curls, making it bounce against my neck. A low, warning growl vibrated my vocal cords as she slid into the chair on my left. The sound ended in a whimper when Michael settled his big, scrumptious self into the seat on my right. The tiny table and cramped space meant his muscular thigh and arm were plastered against mine.

My sex throbbed at the benign contact, my nipples peaking tight as my instincts screamed in a desperate attempt to encourage me to claim him. To remind me how phenomenal sex was supposed to be with a mate. My body heated from the inside out, goose bumps shivering over my skin when he shifted his leg and leaned closer to me. “Happy birthday, Candy. You look good enough to eat in that dress. I’m not sure if that makes you Little Red Riding Hood or the Big Bad Wolf.”

His deep voice caressed my heightened hearing, his breath moving the tiny hairs at my temple. I shuddered and fought to keep myself from throwing him to the ground to have my way with him. Even though he was three times my size, my werewolf strength could easily best even the biggest human. Big Bad Wolf, indeed. I tugged at the hem of my short, tight scarlet silk dress. I mean, I liked my ample curves just fine, but they didn’t need to be falling out for the world to see. The top of this thing was about to give up the fight with my breasts, and I was pretty sure when I stood my assets would be hanging out the back.

“Ha! I designed that outfit for her present.” Cyn ran a proprietary hand over the beading on my shoulder strap, her fashion designer self geeking out over her creation. “Doesn’t she look hot?”

“Oh. Yeah.” He gave me the kind of once-over that had made my heart leap in my chest since the first time I met him. I hadn’t known then that when the sharp, intimidating prosecutor left the courtroom he was an incorrigible flirt. The pain that plagued me every single time I denied the need to sink my fangs into his flesh and mark him as mine gave an especially vicious twist.

“You should ask her to dance.” Cyn gestured to postage-sized dance floor in front of the stage where couples were locked in the kind of embraces that only Saran Wrap could maintain.

If I slammed my pointy high heel down on her toe, who would blame me? She knew that Michael was my mate, and she took every opportunity to throw me in his path. She wanted me to hook up with her brother, but it wasn’t going to happen for two very big reasons. First, when Cyn’s husband Andre turned her into a vampire last year, he didn’t exactly ask her permission first. Magical people had a bad rap as it was, since the fighting between wolves and vamps had dragged every single species, from sprite to necromancer, out into the light of day about a decade ago. Well, vampires never made it out into the light of day, but that was beside the point. Michael, being the overprotective human brother, was more than a little bent out of shape about his little sister getting turned into a bloodsucker. Even now, with Cyn and Andre happily ensconced in some overpriced mansion in Bel Air, Michael had serious reservations about magical beings. Like me.

But the biggest reason why Michael and I would never find true love was one I was sure his sister didn’t know about. The day Cyn introduced me to him, and I sensed he was meant to be mine forever, I tracked him to his house and found him getting hot and heavy with another man. Yeah, that was great. I was not going to be the one to break it to my best friend that her big, manly brother was gay.

As in, not into chicks.

As in, never going to mate with me, and I was going to spend every birthday alone for the rest of my long, long life.

“I need another drink.”