Tora could feel her heart pounding at the base of her throat. It was beating so fast, almost like it did after a long, hard run through the forest. She had always known that she would eventually tell Michael about the pack, but it had always been something she would do some day. Now that Maria Abruzzo knew, it wasn’t fair to keep Michael in the dark. Unlike Maria, Michael had been a friend and supporter since the beginning. He had proven his loyalty to the pack, and had earned their trust long ago.

She knew her brothers were for it, and now all that remained was to let him in on their secret.

“This isn’t an easy thing to tell you,” she said, “and I think you might already have an idea about what I’m going to say.”

“Uh-oh.”

Tora paused, trying to catch her breath as she searched for the right words. There’s no easy way around it, she thought. I’ll just have to come out and say it.

“My brothers and I…we’re, well…different.”

“I know.”

“No, not just different,” Tora said. “Really different.”

She waited for Michael to say something, and when he didn’t she pressed on.

“We’re shape shifters…lycanthropes.” She took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “Some might even call us…werewolves.”

Michael continued to stare at her with an expectant look on his face. Eventually he said, “Is that it?”

“What do you mean, ‘is that it?’“

“Well, when you brought me all the way out here because you had something to tell me, I expected the worst.”

“What could be worse?”

“I thought you were going to break up with me or something. That would have been bad, but this…this is something I sorta knew already.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, well…I had my suspicions,” he said. “Remember that time when you were missing for a while, and that scientist, Doctor Monk, had captured ‘a wolf?’“ Michael raised his hands to make quotation marks around the word with his fingers. “The way he fought to get that wolf out of the forest, I knew that was no ordinary wolf he’d found. And then when your brothers asked me to start a small fire as a distraction to help you…well, I’m not the sharpest tooth on the saw, but it doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.”

Tora shook her head in wonder. “And you never said anything.”

“It was up to you to tell me. Not for me to ask.”

Tora felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “So you’re okay with it?”

Michael nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Thank you,” she said, pulling him close and kissing him full on the lips.

Michael returned the kiss, hesitantly at first, then with more confidence.

They kissed for a long time, with Michael being the first to pull away.