Wheeler pulled open a small drawer in the hutch. He slipped his fingers inside a slim black case and pulled out a pair of reading glasses. They were black with rectangular frames. No one but Ben knew he wore glasses. Shifters didn’t have defects such as vision impairment, tooth decay, and diseases that were prevalent among humans. Their bodies healed, and you just didn’t see Shifters walking around with glasses on. Many years ago, Wheeler began getting headaches and noticed he had to hold papers farther away to see the print, which seemed to be getting infinitely smaller. He’d attributed it to long work hours, but when it didn’t go away, he secretly made an appointment with a human ophthalmologist. His fears of genetic abnormalities were abated when a simple pair of reading glasses rectified his problem. Shifters instinctively hid anything that others would perceive as a weakness. Because he’d always worked from home, it was something he could easily conceal.

Until he moved in with his brothers. Whenever they’d shove papers under his nose to read, Wheeler would become argumentative and storm out of the room so he could review them later in private. He kept his room off-limits and installed a lock on the door. Ben, his identical twin, didn’t have the same deficiency. Wheeler could only draw the conclusion that he was genetically inferior to his brother, and wasn’t that a laugh?

As a twin, he’d always felt like half of a whole. They weren’t treated as individuals, and he loathed when people referred to them as “the twins.” As small children, when Ben misbehaved, he’d blame Wheeler. It was an innocent thing that stemmed from a child who sought approval. After a while, Wheeler didn’t flinch when their father would reprimand him for something he didn’t do. Wasn’t that what brothers did? Look out for each other? Several years ago, Ben had crossed a line and betrayed him. That’s when solitude had consumed Wheeler and he’d given up caring. After everything he’d given Ben to show his loyalty and love, he realized it had been in vain. And yet he still couldn’t turn his back on blood, nor could he reveal to the rest of the family what had happened between them. It hurt to smile because that would mean forgetting. It felt like a liar’s mask.

Which isolated him from the pack. The bitch of it was that his wolf craved companionship and family. He often wondered what it would be like to have a woman to confide in—someone who would always stand by his side, even if his brothers didn’t. Obviously that wasn’t in the cards, but he couldn’t shut off the desire to mate. After all, he was around a hundred years old, and the closer he came to his prime, the more those feelings intensified. The instinctual call to bond had become so strong in recent years that it was misdirecting his feelings toward the wrong women.

The wrong woman.

Who also happened to be the wrong animal.