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their bubbly little friend walking toward them, towing a masterpiece of male wolf toward them. Bianca couldn’t help but notice that he was nearly seven feet tall and seemed to be perfectly formed. Kathy’s diminutive height brought her just about to his elbow. The little wolf chattered at him, but he didn’t seem to hear a word. His eyes met Bianca’s, and his perfectly-cleft chin and rugged jaw actually dropped. She felt her own chin lift in stubborn challenge. She knew what other wolves called her. Albina. An abomination, a creature so horribly useless, it must be destroyed so that it couldn’t pass on the defective gene—the one that made her eyes more sensitive and her skin burn more easily in the sun. But that was in her human form. As wolf, she was as ruthless and powerful as any other, and she’d proven it many times. As a woman, she couldn’t help but feel an attraction to a big bad wolf like this Jack that Sara had brought to them. In jeans and a T-shirt with a leather jacket tossed over it, he could have been every bad biker-wolf cliché, but on him, it worked. Black hair flowed back from his face, just a little too long, just messy enough to look rakish, not so much as to look unkempt. Dark brown eyes seemed to burn right through her, in anger or surprise or even attraction, she couldn’t say. His jeans clung to muscular legs in all the right spots, and she just knew that the jacket would hide powerfully-built shoulders. Under her appraisal, his purposeful stride faltered a bit.
    Good, let the man shake a bit, she thought.
    Sara’s arm wrapped around Bianca’s shoulder.
    “Lovely, he won’t hurt you. He gave me his word,” Sara whispered. “But he certainly looks like he’d like to toss you over his shoulder caveman-style and carry you out of here.”
    Bianca rolled her eyes and returned her attention to her drink. Men like Jack Murphy had never cared to sweep women like Bianca Stone off their feet. Sara might think her lovely, but Sara was neither a man nor a wolf. How many times had she seen the look of revulsion when a wolf realized she wasn’t just fair-haired and pale, but albino? One look in those lavender eyes of hers, and the challenge was as good as offered; it was always just a matter of time. They’d try to hide it, out of fear or out of respect to Monica, their Alpha and her friend, but in the end, prejudice and fear found its out, and she had the scars to prove it. No one had proven her inferior yet; this man wouldn’t, either.
    “Well, sisters, look who I found, being extra punctual and stuff,” Kathy bubbled as they approached. Tiny Kathy pushed Jack firmly into a chair next to Bianca and sat down on the other side next to the dark-haired, sun-kissed wolf, Ellen, with a satisfied, lupine grin. “ Isn’t he something, boss?” Kathy’s touch against Bianca’s brain felt like bubbles bursting, like Bianca had taken a deep drink of carbonated water and it had fizzed against her nose.
    “My name is Jack Murphy,” the man said in a gruff voice, still staring at Bianca.
    Bianca turned her head and looked Jack directly in the eye, catching a whiff of his scent. Holy hell, he smelled amazing. Wolves had an earthy, woodsy smell to them, and his personal scent was saltwater and sunshine, like he’d lived by the ocean his entire life. The contrast of woods and ocean rolled across her nose, and it seemed somehow so vitally appealing, she felt herself imagining that scent all over her, mixing with her own.
    Reining in her thoughts, she introduced herself. “My name is Bianca. If you want to live, you won’t make any jokes.”
    In spite of her inner turmoil, her voice was clear, unwavering. She was accustomed to being teased about her name, which meant “white.” Her chin lifted again, and she felt an overwhelming urge to lift it higher and roll it back to expose her throat to this man. She steeled herself against that impulse. She absolutely could not make herself vulnerable to