The Wolf Princess: The Wolf PrincessOne Eye Open (The Pack)

by Karen Whiddon

  Except Alisa. Even as he had the thought, he questioned it. She could have anyone—rich and handsome and royal and famous. Why would someone like her want him?

  Yet she’d kissed him. She’d been the one to invite his touch. Now knowing of her beauty, he could find no logical reason.

  From somewhere, he found his voice, dredging up the necessary words. “Thank you. I now have a better idea of your appearance.” Even to himself, he sounded like he’d swallowed a bucket of rusty nails.

  “And you’re disappointed.” The hurt in her voice told him she’d taken his reaction differently than he’d intended. She breathed in quick, shallow gasps, as though holding back a very raw, very powerful emotion. “I should have warned you. I’m not very pretty.”

  “Not pretty?” Stunned, he hesitated, blinking in bafflement. “I can only tell you what I saw with my fingers. And you are a very beautiful woman.”

  A soft gasp escaped her. For a moment, he thought she might be about to argue, but instead, she rushed over and gave him a quick, nervous hug.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I mean it,” he told her.

  “I know you do.” The disbelieving tone of her voice told him she thought he was lying to her, if out of kindness or as a means to an end, he didn’t know.

  “Stop.” Unable to help himself, he reached out and traced the line of her cheek once more. “You know I don’t flirt. I’m telling you the truth.”

  Her breath hitched, making him wonder if the experience might have been as shattering for her as it had been for him.

  Despite everything, despite knowing she was out of his league in more ways than he could number, his desire had not quieted. Instead, his need had grown stronger. He burned for her, ached for her, his body throbbed for her.

  Heart hammering in his chest, he took a deep breath, and then decided the hell with it. Reaching for her, he pulled her closer and slanted his mouth over hers a second time.

  Instead of pulling away, as he had half feared she might, she moaned and opened her mouth to his. Heat flared, blazed as their tongues mated. His skin tingled where their bodies touched, the jolt of her nearness making his insides jangle.

  Still, he tried to maintain some semblance of control, even as it rapidly shredded around him. His body, already more aroused than it’d ever been, swelled even more, straining the front of his trousers. He craved her, ached to bury himself deep inside her, to experience the thrill of her wrapped tight around him.

  Evidently, she felt the same way. As she curled her body into him, he realized the rest of her was as perfectly proportioned as her features.

  Inside, his wolf watched silently, radiating approval rather than actively fighting him. His beast wanted this as much as he did.

  She moaned and pressed her lips against his, her wordless cries asking for more. As he covered her mouth with his, the hunger inside him grew. Craving more, he deepened the kiss. She tasted like she smelled, yet better, more sensual and womanly and…his.

  Damn it. He froze. She wasn’t his. She never would be. Only an idiot would even entertain such a thought.

  What the hell was he doing?

  Pushing himself off her, he took a staggering step back. Breathing harshly and completely disoriented, he took little consolation in the knowledge that she sounded equally off balance.

  Still, that didn’t make him any less of a fool.

  “That shouldn’t have happened.” He ground out the words, knowing if anyone had to apologize, it should be him. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” Her flippant tone was laced with what, oddly, sounded like pain. “I enjoyed it as much as you did, just like the first kiss.”

  For an aching moment, he wished he could gaze down into her face and see the look in her beautiful eyes, drown in the desire he knew must have darkened her gaze.

  Removing his dark glasses, he dragged his hand across his eyes, fervently wishing it could be so. As he did, there…on the very edge of the darkness… Was that a shape, different from the nothingness that was all his eyes were able to perceive?

  For a second he felt dizzy. Wishful thinking? Or reality? He blinked, trying again to make sense of what was happening, and then inhaled sharply.

  He wasn’t sure he entirely believed what he was seeing. Yes, seeing. Instead of complete and utter blackness, there was a distinct lightening at the edge of the darkness. A sort of shadowy gray that gave a hint of the possibilities beyond.

  Could it be that his sight, believed to be lost forever, might be returning to him in tiny increments? How was this possible and… The thought was so staggering he felt it like a punch to his stomach.

  Was this miracle due to Alisa somehow?

  He must have cried out, made some sort of sound.

  “What’s wrong?” she murmured, touching him again. “Braden, talk to me. Are you all right?”

  All right? He was better than that, a thousand times better. If he dared let himself believe…

  Yet hope and optimism and magic were not part of the repertoire of a physician who all too often saw the worst life could throw at people. Inoperable brain tumors never miraculously healed, Alzheimer’s never magically vanished. So why would he believe he could be any different? Why would his sight suddenly reappear?

  Had it really? Or had he imagined that brief, wonderful moment when black became gray? He needed proof, something tangible that he could measure and probe.

  Failing that, he needed…her. Wrapping his arms around her slender back, he pulled her close.

  “Alisa,” he began, hesitant and uncertain yet wanting her to understand. “For just a nanosecond, I thought I could actually, almost, see.”

  She gasped, mouth pressed into the hollow of his throat, making him realize just how tall she was.

  “Are you certain?” She sounded hopeful and breathless.

  Though they hadn’t known each other all that long, he felt like their connection was more intimate than he’d ever experienced with a woman. With her, he could only share the truth. “No. Not at all. It might have only been wishful thinking. But I swear there was a lightening at the edge of my vision, a dark gray rather than the black nothingness.”

  “Really?” Drawing back, she gripped him by the upper arms. “Is it still there?”

  He stared ahead, squinting slightly, considering. Longing, wishing. “No. It’s gone.”

  “But still… That’s a reason to hope, wouldn’t you say?”

  Hope. He swallowed hard. As foreign to his line of work as Darwin’s theory was to a Southern Baptist preacher. He shoved his dark glasses back on his face.

  “I don’t believe in hope,” he finally said, aware of the sharpness of his reply. “I don’t believe in miracles.”

  Then, as she sagged against him, he realized she did. Of course she did. “Listen, Alisa. If you’re waiting for a magical cure, a lightning bolt to shoot out of the sky to suddenly make me normal, you need to face reality. I’m blind. I can’t see. That’s how it is.”

  He could feel the tears on her cheek as she shook her head against his chest. “But surely it’s not permanent. If you’ll just let yourself believe.”

  He hardened his heart at the optimism in her voice, aching. In that instant, he realized that if he could, he’d give her anything she wanted. Anything within his power to give. Which, at this point in his life, was absolutely nothing. No matter what he’d once been, he couldn’t give her this.

  “Alisa,” he said gently. “I’ve seen numerous doctors. The best of the best. My blindness is permanent. I told you. Even our Pack Healer—she who can cure anything and anyone—failed.”

  “Because you didn’t want to be healed,” she cried. The pain in her voice nearly broke him. That she could feel so deeply, so strongly, when they’d only just met. This should have terrified him. Oddly enough, it didn’t.

  But because he could do nothing else, he straightened his shoulders and squared his jaw. “That’s not why. It’s not even
logical.”

  “You know what? Sometimes things happen in life that can’t be explained away by reasoning.”

  Now she sounded angry, which was good. Much better than sorrow, at least. Anger he could respond to in kind. He refused to let himself mourn. Not his lack of sight nor…her.

  “Why do you care so much?” he asked her, genuinely curious and frustrated, all at once.

  Silence. Then, pushing herself out of his arms, she moved away. “Do you really have to ask? I know you’re leaving here eventually, but still…”

  Like a sucker punch to the gut, her words registered. She was right. In the midst of this crazed obsession with her, he’d managed to forget that once he’d concluded his experiments and went home, he’d most likely never see her again.

  Though intellectually he’d been aware of this fact ever since the instant he heard her wonderful voice and breathed her tantalizingly feminine scent—how could he not?—emotionally, the very concept of spending the rest of his days without hearing her or feeling her touch was enough to make him want to give in to grief for the first time and howl.

  So not like him. What the hell had happened to him?

  Throat aching, he tried to force his thoughts elsewhere. His eyes stung. Glad of his dark glasses, he cleared his throat and turned away. Damn emotion. The one part of life that continually defied logic and the one thing above all others that he sought to avoid.

  Her soft touch on his arm stopped him. “Don’t you want to have your vision back?”

  “What I want has nothing to do with anything.” He spoke harshly, well aware she wouldn’t understand the double innuendo. “Life isn’t like that. The sooner you realize the truth, the better off you’ll be.”

  The soft hitch of her breath as she released him was the only hint that he’d hurt her.

  Yet when she spoke, her voice was strong and even and as courageous as ever. “Do you know how many people have said that to me over the course of my life?”

  Frustrated, he shook his head. “Then why haven’t you listened? You’re going to be badly hurt if you don’t.”

  “I don’t understand you,” she retorted. “At all.”

  “Good.” Each word felt like it was ripped from his throat. “It’s better that way.”

  “Better that you refuse to see endless possibilities? How is closing yourself off better than daring to dream?”

  “How easily you say that,” he mocked, “when all I want from you is the secret to your ability to remain human. That’s all I want from you.”

  The instant the words left his mouth, he realized how hurtful—and false—they were. A lie, when he wanted more, so much more. He’d spoken without thinking, another pitfall when he let emotion win over logic. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Apology accepted.” The crisp tone to her voice told him she had taken his statement exactly the way he hadn’t meant it. “There is a formal dinner to attend. If we don’t want to be late, we need to leave now.”

  Dinner? He’d managed to completely forget about that.

  He shook his head, the tightness in his throat almost impossible to force words past. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going. You’ll have to attend without me.”

  She went silent for a moment, no doubt trying to judge whether or not he was serious.

  “All right, then,” she finally said, sounding like someone else. “Have a nice evening.” Then, judging from the sound of her footsteps, she turned and marched away without him, leaving his door as wide open as his heart had been.

  Chapter 9

  Alisa barely made it around the corner before the tears started, running silently down her cheeks like rain. Why she was crying, she didn’t know. But she felt like a hole had been ripped in her chest.

  All she could think about was to wonder what had just happened back there, in Braden’s room? She barely knew this man. But they’d kissed and it had been…unexpected. Wonderful and earth-shattering and… Sweet hounds of hell, she was a complete and utter fool. Why had she allowed him to kiss her? Allowed? She’d practically begged him for it.

  The intimacy of his fingers whispering across her face had brought to roaring life the desire that always seemed to simmer inside her when she was around him. She’d wanted him then and—if she was perfectly honest with herself—she wanted him still.

  She thought of her sisters and how they’d be absolutely appalled if they were to find out she’d kissed the American doctor. She pictured her parents’ shock and her younger brother’s amused laughter. For once, he wouldn’t be the one who’d messed up. It would be she.

  And Braden had even admitted to her that all he wanted from her was the answer to her ability. She was an experiment to him, a lab specimen. Nothing more.

  The low, insistent throb of another of her headaches threatened. Covering her face with her hands, she shook her head, then winced at the pain. No one could know. She knew what they all would say because she’d heard it before, though never in relation to her love life.

  No common sense. They’d been saying that to her for years. Too much education coupled with too little actual experience, walking around with her head in the clouds, while wearing permanent rose-colored glasses—she’d heard them all and pretended the words didn’t wound her.

  But they had. Deeply. Her intelligence canceled out her glaring lack of beauty. Even so, her detractors had tried to strip that from her by claiming she had no common sense. For the most part, she’d ignored them.

  Until now, the only area no one had ever been able to find fault with her had been her love life, because she didn’t have one. She hadn’t wanted to. She’d gone on dates, flirted, and pretended she cared. But she hadn’t. Not until now.

  Oh. My. She was attracted to not only an American, but a man who’d made it abundantly clear his only interest in her was scientific. No doubt he had some research or experimental motivation for the kiss.

  Worse, she wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to feel his hands on her body and to run her own fingers over his. She wanted him.

  And all she could do apparently was rub her throbbing temples and ache and cry like a blubbering fool. Which she most certainly was not, despite what anyone else might think.

  She’d get over this. She had to. And as long as Braden—and everyone else—didn’t know, she’d be fine.

  Straightening her spine, she wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. Wait a minute. Why on earth was she crying, anyway? She was Princess Alisa of Teslinko. So she and Braden—Dr. Streib, she reminded herself—had shared a kiss. So what? She found him fascinating, likely because he was different. It wasn’t as though she’d never kissed anyone before. In her half-hearted efforts to find a relationship, she’d kissed plenty of men. Just because none of them had started that simmering spark low in her belly, it didn’t mean she would go and do something foolish, right?

  Exactly. So what. If she admitted the truth, she’d been wanting to kiss him for a long time, ever since she’d first seen his craggy features and heard the rasp of his masculine voice. So she’d finally given in to temptation. Nothing more. She didn’t need to make a big deal out of this. Being overly dramatic had always been another of her faults, at least according to her siblings.

  She could deal with this. She would. She had to.

  Still, no other man’s kiss had ever made her feel so…delicious. She shivered, touching her lips with her fingertips.

  His kiss had been magical. And if she felt cheated just because she wanted to kiss him again, well, she’d get over that. Because it could not happen again.

  Decision made, she squared her shoulders and blotted at her face with a tissue from her clutch purse. Hopefully she hadn’t managed to ruin her makeup. She had a formal dinner to attend.

  Stopping short, she cocked her head. Damned if she was letting him weasel out of this event because of a single stolen kiss. She needed an ally and he’d promised to be hers. Now she’d hold him to his word.

>   Stomach turning somersaults, she pivoted and marched herself right back up to his room.

  With the door still open, she was able to steamroll herself inside. He remained where she’d left him, motionless, apparently lost in thought.

  She had a fleeting thought—had the kiss affected him as much as it had her?—then banished it. The kiss didn’t matter, couldn’t matter. They both needed to forget that it had ever happened.

  As far as she was concerned, it hadn’t.

  “Excuse me,” she said politely from a few feet away, aware he’d been so lost in his own mind that he hadn’t heard her return. He spun around, the expression on his rugged face so intense that she instinctively took a step back.

  “What do you want?” he practically snarled. Then, appearing to collect himself, he dragged his hand across his mouth. When he spoke again, he sounded completely different. Cultured and polite, as one should be when speaking to a princess.

  He also sounded distant. She realized that she didn’t like it one bit.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked quietly. “You’re going to be late for your formal dinner.”

  “I came back to get you.” Bravado and determination moved her closer. “You promised to assist me tonight. I’m not letting you weasel out of this dinner so easily.”

  “Weasel?” He cocked his head. “Did you pick that up in college also?”

  She refused to be sidetracked. “Of course I did. Even if English is not our native tongue, we know slang, just like anyone else. Now please, Braden. Come with me.”

  Still he didn’t respond, just continued to face her with his dark glasses obscuring his sightless eyes.

  “Please,” she tried again. More flies with honey and all that.

  When he didn’t reply, she realized she had to go with the truth. “Honestly, I’d really like you to go.”