"I just have a few questions," Lucas told her, gesturing her to a chair beside one of the desks. Elena settled into it as he sat down behind the desk and booted up his computer.

She watched him, taking in the sight of those big hands moving over the keyboard with speed and competence. Stirring in her chair, she remembered his claws growing, pressing into Stephen's throat, muscle flexing in his strong jaw. His powerful shoulders had bunched under the dark blue fabric of his suit coat, and his muscular backside had worked with the effort of keeping his enemy pinned.

Elena crossed her legs and swallowed.

He glanced at her as he opened a program file. Just one quick, dark glance, yet she felt it in the pit of her stomach. She recrossed her legs.

Lucas was definitely handsome, but not in the polished, Chosen mold. Instead, there was something a bit rougher in the width and angle of his cheekbones and the long hawk swoop of his nose. His upper lip had an intriguingly sensual curve, and his lower was suggestively full. It looked bitable, that lip. Tempting.

His eyes were dark, deep-set under thick, dark brows, and his short black hair curled as though inviting female fingers to set it to rights. When he asked her for her identification, his voice was deep, with a masculine rumble that seemed to suggest whispered intimacies in the dark.

Get a grip, Elena, she told herself. It's your Burning Moon. Her body was deep in its yearly rut, producing a flood of hormones that urged her to mate while driving every male around her to a dangerous sexual pitch. Even humans felt it, though they had no idea they were reacting to the pheromones she produced.

Lucas, however, knew perfectly well what was going on. A blend of masculine awareness and acute discomfort lit those dark eyes of his, as if his Direwolf instincts battled his sense of duty.