a chance to help your people. You’ll know you gave it your best shot.”
Again, one corner of his well-shaped mouth twisted in what could have been either the beginnings of a smile or of a sneer. “What more can a royal princess ask for?”
Biting back her immediate surge of anger at his sarcasm, she made her tone icy. “Actually, I wasn’t asking you. I was speaking to my father.”
If she’d expected him to feel intimidated, she was wrong. Instead, he tilted his head and eyed her the way he might have studied a small, poisonous insect before crushing it under the heel of his boot.
“Are you really going to continue these objections?” he asked. “While you are a princess, you aren’t even the next in line for the throne. Your time isn’t all that valuable.”
Stifling a gasp, she eyed her mother and father, noted that they were watching with amusement plain on their aristocratic faces, and felt a flush of shame.
Shame? Really? Swallowing, she lifted her chin. She, who prided herself on her sharp intellect and emotionless demeanor, would not lose her cool. She hadn’t since she’d been thirteen. Now twenty-four, she took a sort of grim pleasure in her reputation as the princess who got the brains rather than the beauty.
“For the last time, this is a private matter between my family and me,” she said evenly. “Please, stay out of it. And,” she added for good measure, “why don’t you take those sunglasses off? There’s no need to wear them inside the palace. The light is not even all that bright, especially in this room.”
Staring hard at him, daring him, she ignored her mother’s wordless sound of dismay and her father’s muffled protest. Instead, she continued to watch the doctor, curious as to how he would react.
“Take the sunglasses off,” she repeated, waiting, watching as his hand came up and he slowly, finally removed the dark glasses.
The instant he did, her world shifted on its axis as she realized she’d been more than insensitive.
First, the sunglasses weren’t a fashion statement or an attempt to be cool or rude or any of the things she’d initially suspected.
Dr. Streib was blind. He’d been covering up his beautiful, sightless eyes.
Yet he was Pack. She could see his aura. How could he be blind? This wouldn’t be possible if he was a full-blooded shifter. Full shifters healed rapidly from any injury except fire and iron.
Which meant he had to be Halfling, part human. They did not always heal from their injuries so easily.
Still, with all his resources, why hadn’t he sought the help of a healer? She’d heard one existed in the United States, living in Texas. The woman, Samantha something-or-other, had been hailed as a miracle when her remarkable abilities to heal Halflings had been discovered.
But his blindness and his Halfling status weren’t the only things she recognized now that she could get a good look at his face. Oh, no. The man standing before her with barely curbed impatience twisting the corner of his sensual mouth was someone she’d been waiting to meet most of her life.
Her mate. The One.
That is, she reined her thoughts in, if she actually believed in such things. Which she didn’t. The concept of true mates was nothing but romantic nonsense.
Still, a part of her couldn’t help but wonder.
When she’d been a teenager with raging hormones, devouring two or three romance novels a week, she’d often imagined her type. She’d firmly believed he was out there somewhere, waiting for her. Waiting to complete her.
This man, this Dr. Streib, with his dark, craggy features and ancient, sightless eyes, wasn’t remotely what she’d pictured or even what she found herself attracted to. Yet, as improbable as it might be, she felt an instant, senseless certainty that he was The One. The only One.
Of course, she immediately discounted that, preferring to consider those few seconds as a bit of romantic foolishness left over from her teenage years. One last shred of the silly adolescent she’d been, rising from the depths one last time, only to be ruthlessly quashed, never to appear again.
Dr. Streib, she told herself, was nothing to her. Nor would he ever be. She’d suffer through his ridiculous tests, let him pretend he had the slightest chance of learning the answer, and then send him home with his metaphorical tail tucked between his legs.
As far as she was concerned, the day couldn’t come fast enough.
The sooner she got rid of him the better.
Chapter 2
As soon as Her Royal Highness Princess Alisa of Teslinko opened her mouth, Dr. Braden Streib knew he was in Trouble with a capital T. Because his wolf reacted strongly to her voice.
Strongly being the understatement of the year. Throughout his thirty-eight years, he’d periodically fought with his lupine half. Everyone did. When the wolf wanted out, he wanted out. The place or time didn’t matter to the beast. Most times, subduing the urge to change was a simple matter, using a light touch and a firm resolve.
Not so, this time. This time, his wolf fought like a caged, wild thing driven mad by a long captivity.
At first stunned, Braden successfully battled the beast back into submission, trying to understand what had just happened.
For some reason, whether from the sound of her voice or her intriguing, feminine scent, Princess Alisa affected his wolf, intensifying his urge to shape-shift.
This made absolutely no sense. Braden had no scientific rationale on which to base this supposition. Yet simply being in the same room with her resulted in an epic battle between his human and wolf natures.
Something about her mere presence in his proximity spoke to him on a subconscious level. Something primal, compelling. And completely without reason. The scientific part of him abhorred such illogic.
But the part of him that was wolf didn’t care about reason, or logic, or even common sense. The wolf inside him reacted simply to external stimuli, which in this case was her. Princess Alisa was, for some unknown reason, the catalyst. His wolf reacted to her with a violent certainty.
Making him at war with himself.
Not good, especially since his first impression of her wasn’t a good one. The woman was stubborn and arrogant. He could hear it in the impatient, irritated tone she used.
Of course, he supposed that was to be expected. She was royalty, after all, not used to mingling with common mortals like himself. Presented with an opportunity to do something that might help not only her own country but shifters around the world, she’d balked. No doubt she planned on sulking like a spoiled child and making things as difficult as possible when they worked together, hoping to shorten the amount of time he would require her.
Her ploy wouldn’t work. He’d tough it out. He might not like her, but he had no choice. If he could have chosen another subject to use in his research, he definitely would have.
But her kind was rare. In fact, she was the only one he’d heard of who could go so long without changing and continue to exhibit no outward signs of madness. So he would have to use her, whether he or she liked it or not. Life wasn’t always a bowl of cherries, something that had been proven to him over and over.
She’d imperiously demanded he remove his dark glasses. He’d complied. After he’d done so, he waited for whatever pithy comment she’d come up with.
He heard the sharp intake of breath that indicated she’d only just realized the extent of her rudeness. Waiting for the inevitable apology felt a bit anticlimactic, so he decided to head her off at the pass.
“Now, about the experiments … I was thinking four hours in the morning before lunch, then if you can spare the time, another two hours in the afternoon. Will that work for you?”