Prologue

Declan O’Connell paused next to a large tree. Bending slightly, he braced himself with one palm on the rough bark and tried to catch his breath. He’d been at a full-out run for half an hour, testing the limits of his new metabolism.

His new werewolf metabolism.

In seconds his breathing was back to normal. He straightened. At times it hardly seemed possible that it had been four months since he’d been bitten, since his life had been turned upside down. Other times it seemed like he’d been this way all his life.

He didn’t know why his friend Ryder kicked up such a fuss about it. Ryder Merrick had been a werewolf for nearly twenty years now. He’d been adamant that Declan learn how to control the beast within, stressing that the urge to shift could come upon him quite unexpectedly, especially at times of high emotion.

Declan frowned. He hadn’t been so sure about that when Ryder had first said it, and he wasn’t so sure about it now. He’d always been able to keep a cap on his emotions, especially during crises. Even with only having lived with this—condition for four months—he’d been able to control when he shifted. But he hadn’t been able to stop the shift partway, becoming something not quite wolf but not fully man, either.

Ryder, as someone who had become a werewolf due to his bloodlines, was incapable of becoming a wolfman. When he shifted, he went from human to wolf almost faster than the eye could follow.

Declan, being a werewolf through the bite of another, would eventually be able to turn into a wolfman, though he hadn’t yet mastered the ability.

Concentrating, he stared at his right hand and tried to make just his hand morph into that of a wolfman. His fingertips tingled, sharp pain throbbed in the joints as if with the onset of arthritis, but nothing else happened.

At least, nothing worth much—his nails darkened and, perhaps, looked a little longer, but his hands were still human looking.

So, no luck with a partial shift.

Yet.

He knew with enough determination he would eventually figure it out. It would just take more practice.

He was certain he had achieved the restraint needed to control the shift to his wolf form. Except for the three nights of the full moon. During those nights it was impossible to resist the metamorphosis into wolf, and equally impossible to shift back to human until the morning sun forced the moon to give up its hold in the heavens.

He glanced up at the robin’s egg blue sky. Toward the east he could see the half moon, clearly visible in daylight. Just one more week until the full moon. . . .

He could hear the lap of the ocean and jogged down the path, leaving the wooded area and venturing onto the rocky shore. He focused his attention westward and, with the enhanced vision of his inner wolf, could make out the larger island of St. Mary’s in the distance.

St. Mary’s, the biggest island in the Isles of Scilly off the

coast of Cornwall. St. Mary’s, where Pelicia was. Where his heart was. It was time to go get it back and claim his mate. Pelicia wouldn’t know what hit her.