Apparently, both, he discovered when he showed up at Lizzie’s house that morning.

***

Lizzie started at the knock on her front door. She’d slept poorly, intermittently interrupted by dreams of a large, dark wolf chasing her down her street. It wasn’t a nightmare, but it hadn’t been a warm fuzzy dream, either. Stupid magic drama. This girl liked her sleep. She could be flippant, because really—werewolves? What were the chances? She hadn’t figured out what happened the night before, but she was definitely working through alternative possibilities. Possibility, being the key word. Werewolves were clearly an impossibility.

A brief image of the magic book flashed through her brain. She thumbed her nose at the thought. One magic book did not a world of werewolves, vampires, and demons, make. She hoped. She thought she’d likely met her quota for weirdness with one magic book.

Remembering to check the peephole this time, she saw John Braxton standing on her porch. She should have known. The dogs were going nuts. They really didn’t like him.

“Just a minute. I’m putting the dogs up,” she called out.

It wasn’t until she’d returned from locking up the dogs, had unlocked the front door, and was already opening it…when a few puzzle pieces clicked together in her brain. John showed up. Her dogs barked at John. The wolf showed up. Her dogs barked at the wolf. John said family, she thought Mafia. Well, shit.

She looked at the man on her porch. “You’re a werewolf.” The words were out of her mouth before she’d truly processed the thought.

She was already shaking her head, denying her own statement, when he said, “A benign, friendly werewolf—yes.”

All she heard was, “Yes.”

Head between knees? Check. Cool, wet cloth on neck? Check. Butt firmly planted on tile floor? Check.

Where did a cloth come from?

Lizzie had passed out. Not elegantly onto a conveniently placed sofa. Nope. Just in a heap on the tile floor. Lizzie didn’t actually remember this, but her butt’s current position on the hard tile made it likely. So much worse than the minty green complexion of nausea. If only Lizzie could go back to minty green, she most assuredly would.

Why was she on the floor? Right—werewolf. John had dropped the W bomb. Wolf. More accurately, werewolf. Wait, that wasn’t right. She’d guessed he was a werewolf, and he hadn’t denied it. And just when she thought she might start to like the guy.

“Shouldn’t you be hairier?” Okay, not sure where that one came from. Apparently not firing on all cylinders yet.

“Do you have any idea how incredibly prejudiced you sound?” John said, with just a hint of humor. Lizzie might have missed it if she hadn’t been staring up into his incredible blue eyes. Blue eyes that crinkled at the corners with suppressed laughter.