I couldn’t do this because he’d landed on all fours, but he immediately bent low over his two forepaws, snarling at what appeared to be nothing.

Until it was something.

Something that made me freeze.

Abel barked a canine bark at me, circled around until he was in front of me, and backed me up using his hindquarters.

But I was mesmerized by the sparks that were swirling in the space Abel as wolf had been snarling at.

Green, violet, and red ones, sparkling and streaming, like they were in a centrifuge, round and round, going fast.

So cool, so beautiful, it was mesmerizing.

Abel kept backing me up, barking constantly and very loudly, as the sparks kept going.

And on a turn, they disappeared, but in their place were two people.

One was a tall, very slender, unbelievably beautiful African American woman with a full, longish Afro of soft black curls, big, dark brown eyes, and incredible cheekbones. She was wearing a choker made of three lines of oblong bone, feathers hanging down at the bottom. She also had on a brown suede halter vest and seriously low-rider suede pants with fringe down the sides. Last, she had large, gold hoops in her ears—the insides of which had dangling spikes—as well as kickass leather bands wrapped around each wrist and rings on every finger, including some that fit snug between the top and middle knuckle and one that covered her whole finger, from the nail bed over the bottom of her last knuckle.

She was fabulous and her outfit was amazing.

I took her in and then I looked to the big man at her side.

And every inch of me turned solid.

Because it was Abel.

Boots. Jeans. Thermal. Tall. Dark hair. Lean but powerful body.

Top to toe.

Except he had no scar and his brown eye was where the blue one should be and vice versa.

“Holy shitoly,” I whispered.

His eyes went from Abel, as wolf, to me.

“You called?” he asked, lazily lifting his brows.

And he asked this just as the door burst open and the room filled with snarling, snapping wolves.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Beauty and Pain

Abel

Do not attack! Abel ordered Callum, his brothers, and Ryon even as he leaped to man.

But he figured they weren’t going to attack anyway.

Because he was standing before them.

Even though it wasn’t him.

Keeping his eyes pinned to what could be none other than his brother, Abel prowled to his jeans and bent to snatch them up.

“We’re lucky girls,” he heard murmured and looked to the woman with his brother.

Her eyes were on his cock and she was smiling.

She was also addressing Delilah.