Slowly and gently, Damien set her down on her feet, and waited for her to gain her balance. The front of the sheet had dipped rather low in front, enough that he could see the top of her breasts. Nice plump breasts, with smooth skin. Hell. He forced his eyes back to her face, which proved just as distracting. She had the most amazing light-green eyes, the color of sea-foam.
“I’m not sure what to say really, besides thank you. I-I don’t know any of you,” she said.
“We’re not exactly big on formalities here. Say what you mean, and don’t be afraid to kick Blade in the shins when he puts his foot in his mouth, which I promise you he will.”
“Blade? Someone here has the name ‘Blade,’ as in a knife?”
“It’s a nickname, actually. You’ll know him when you meet him. He speaks his mind.”
“And you, big guy? If you say anything inappropriate, should I kick you in your shins?”
He couldn’t help the grin that broke out on his face. She was cute and daring. “I won’t break, Sweetness, so use your best judgment and remember to touch anything you like.” For a second, he worried that she’d kick him in the shins right then, but her smile reappeared.
She would have made a good shifter, this one, with her resilience, easy-going-nature, and good humor. All right, there weren’t as many shifters he could credit with having good humor these days, not with how aggressively the WSSO had become in hunting them. Even so, it would have been nice if she’d been a shifter. Then maybe she could stay, and he could get to know her better.
“Is there a store where I could go so I can get some clothes?” she asked as she drew the sheet higher.
The way the sheet hugged her form, he could see she had curves in all the right places. Then again, he’d already seen her naked. He’d tried not to look when Pryce and Aloe had been cleaning her up and treating her wounds. But hey, a guy can only avert his eyes for so long. “No stores nearby, but I’ll ask one of the women here to lend you whatever you need.”
“I’ll pay them back. Eventually. I didn’t have any money on me when you found me. You know, no pockets and all.” She was leaning against the doorframe, too weak to stand unsupported. Yet she still managed to crack a joke and smile.
Why did she have to be human? “You remember that night?”
“Bits and pieces mostly. I remember being cold. And thirsty. Hungry. Cold.”
“You said cold already.”
“They researchers turned the A/C up high during the day, when they were in there with me.”
Bastards. They couldn’t even be bothered to give her a blanket, not that that should surprise him, given the blatant disregard for her health. It was as if they’d left her in there and had been waiting for her to die from neglect. Humans. Vile, all of them. Well, except for one.
She ran one hand down his forearm, leaving a trail of heat behind that went right to his cock. Her fingers stopped on the hand he’d placed against her ribs to steady her. Her touch was quickly getting addictive.
“I got it from here, big guy.”
“Damien,” he said.
“If you can call me ‘Sweetness’, I figure I can call you whatever I want.”
“‘Big guy’ sounds so brainless.”
“Brawny, not brainless. I know the difference,” her eyes were focused, intense. “Or would you prefer ‘Hercules’?” she asked, sounding oh-so innocent again. His cock was really throbbing now.
“Hercules was a God, wasn’t he?”
“Half God, half human technically. You’re like him.”
He’d rather not be compared to a human, half or otherwise, not that he could tell her that. “I’ve been called a few things in my life, but never God-like.”
Her laugh was feminine, rich and full of sunshine, and it made his jeans that much tighter.
“I guess I better watch what I’m saying around here after all. You’ll take me too literally. I was referring to your strength.”
He’d stopped listening at ‘take me’ and focused on the simple task of leaning past her decadent scent and turning on the bathroom light for her. She held the wall as she entered the bathroom, her balance clearly still off.
When she shut the door, he leaned against the hallway wall and tried to get his mind off of her to give his cock a chance to ease. He hadn’t brought a human to his pack; he’d brought a temptress. He swallowed hard, still remembering the simple image of her sheet dipping low on her chest.
When she finally emerged, she had draped the sheet over one shapely shoulder like a Roman Goddess. Maybe there was something to this God idea of hers. If it meant she’d continue wearing that sheet, he could reconsider the name Hercules.
“Damien’s a nice name,” she said in a cheery tone. “What does it mean?”
“Someone who subdues,” he said as he scooped her up again without asking. She didn’t object. That worked out nicely, perfectly in fact. He was carrying a near-naked woman down the hall toward his bedroom and imagining a lot of fun ways to earn his name.
She’d fallen quiet though, too quiet.
“I won’t hurt you, Tess,” he said as he laid her down on the bed in the guestroom.
“I know.” She pulled the blanket over her and turned onto her side, her back to him now.
Before she turned over, her eyes clouded with tears. He’d hit a trigger. She was hurting, physically and emotionally, and he had no idea how to help her. Hell, he shouldn’t be having feelings for her, let alone worrying over her state of mind. Get her healed enough to answer some questions, then ship her off to a city a hundred miles away so she could never lead anyone to his territory. That was the plan.
Except now he had the maddening urge to keep her here and shield her from the outside world, especially those bastards who had hurt her. The need to go back to that research facility and kill the humans his team had left behind was growing with every tear that slid down her cheek. Stupid policy of only killing in self-defense. He and Hayden needed to revamp some of their rules. With how the WSSO was changing tactics, it was time they do the same.
Tess curled in on herself, pulling away from him. He hated leaving her like this, but she needed some time alone to process all she had been through. Damien smoothed the hair back from her face. What possessed him to be so bold with her, he didn’t know.
“Call if you need anything.” Damien gently squeezed her arm, careful to avoid her injured shoulder.
“Thank you, Damien,” she said, her voice soft but strong.
He closed the door behind him, but the thick wooden door only muffled her crying. Damien took the stairs three at a time, shifting to his wolf form before he struck the landing. Scraps of clothing flew in all directions.
Normally he’d take the time to strip, but not with her cries provoking his wolf. In a streak of silver, he bounded past Hayden and Callen who were in the living room. They’d been waiting to speak with him, but he couldn’t handle any discussions right now, not with his wolf demanding he kill those who had harmed her. He needed to run, to vent the excess anger and energy. Even if he ran a hundred miles, Damien knew the sound of her crying would be forever imprinted on his soul.
* * *
Damien ran until long after his limbs started to feel the burn. When he passed the small lake where he liked to hunt deer for the third time, he halted. Hell, he was literally running in circles. He couldn’t even bring himself to run to the outer sections of his territory, to be so far from her, Tess, the sweet human with the light green eyes and smile that warmed his heart. She was a complication in the middle of a very dangerous and messy situation. Everything in him said that above all else he had to protect her.
The smell of a deer caught his attention. Too bad he wasn’t hungry. A hunt would satisfy part of the wolf in him, the part that needed to leech off the excess energy that running alone could not do. It’s not like he could sate his other needs with her. Even if she wanted him, he couldn’t have her.
She was human.
He had
to keep reminding himself of that, no matter how curvy and soft, how sweet, or how her scent gave him ideas about licking her everywhere, and not in wolf form. Definitely not in wolf form. That was the problem; he could satisfy his human side with her—if she were willing—but never his wolf. They could never blood-bond. That was like peeling back the wrapper of a candy and never being able to bite into the succulent center. He’d certainly like to bite her, playfully of course. Oh, he could peel back her clothing, lick and suck, even lose himself in her warm heat, but that would be it. Without the blood-bond to tie them together, it would be a meaningless coupling with no future.
A branch snapped behind him, and he ticked his left ear back. Hayden had been struggling to keep up with him since Damien had left the house. His wolf had tried to lose Hayden by taking a different path and sprinting ahead faster than Hayden’s wolf could follow. Ultimately, Damien had had to rein his wolf in, even at the expense of Hayden catching up. Talking with Hayden was preferable to giving Damien’s wolf control, even in so minor a situation. His wolf was becoming more brazen, more unpredictable, each day.
Damien glanced behind him for the white wolf. Hayden was his best friend and knew him better than anyone, but Damien’s wolf and this entire situation had Damien on edge. He had to figure out what to do about the WSSO. The humans had been taken shifters for months and killing them, but why? What was happening in that lab?
Callen interviewed everyone they had rescued and none of them could explain why they had been kidnapped. A few shifters had been taken into rooms and beaten, but for no obvious purpose. Three of the dead shifters found in the morgue had belonged to Damien’s pack. They hadn’t had time to retrieve the bodies, and he’d have to find a way of explaining that to the families, too.
Maybe he should send Blade back with a team to retrieve the dead shifters except that would put more of his pack in danger. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was going right of late.
Damien and the other two pack leaders affected would be meeting soon, and he needed a game plan, or they’d end up stuck with one of Liam’s or, heaven forbid, Drake’s plans.
After running for hours, trying to sort through all the issues, Damien had gained no insight. He simply couldn’t focus. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. Tess. That’s what worried him most. She should be nothing to him, nothing more than a source of information. In truth, she was so much more.
Damien should do as Hayden suggested, but the very idea of sending her away angered him. He didn’t care if her presence offended Liam and Drake. Either alpha could use her as an excuse to cancel the summit, or worse, create a permanent rift between the packs at a time when they desperately needed to work together. But no one told him how to handle his pack.
“Damien?”
“Not ready to talk, Hayden,” Damien said, after he shifted back to human form.
“I know, but listen.”
A wolf’s howl broke through the woods. That was Callen, his enforcer. He wouldn’t be calling Damien back unless there was trouble. And if it was trouble that Callen couldn’t handle, it was serious.
Chapter Three
TESS
“Stay away!” Tess yelled, swinging the broken water pitcher in front of her at anyone who came near. Four men, each bigger than the last, were standing in her room and trying to convince her to drop the jagged glass. The unconscious man on the floor was bleeding from the head, thanks to her. She hadn’t meant to swing the pitcher that hard, but he’d been hovering over her when she’d woken. And he had smelled wrong. There was no other way to describe it. Every fiber of her being had gone from relaxed and dreaming of a certain tall gray-eyed man who smelled like anise to high alert, all because of that mangy, brown-haired guy bleeding on the floor.
None of the other men in the room caused the hairs on the back of her neck to rise, but they were all standing there with hands outstretched like they were ready to capture and cage her. She wouldn’t let anyone put her in a cage again. Ever.
“We just want you to put the glass down, Tess,” Pryce said. “You remember me, don’t you? I’ve been treating you. I won’t hurt you.”
“I won’t go back in a cage,” she said, swinging the shard in one hand while struggling to keep the sheet wrapped around her with the other. Her shoulder was throbbing, her heart was racing, and her legs and arms felt like jelly. Oh, how she wanted to sleep, but she couldn’t. They’d take her away. Cage her.
“Flashback?” the dark-blond with muscles on muscles said.
“I don’t think so,” Pryce said.
The man on the floor moaned, and she jumped away from him so fast she didn’t see the blond edge his way behind her. With an iron grip, his fingers wrapped around the wrist holding the shard, while his other hand locked onto her hand holding up the sheet. The sheet fell to the floor, leaving her completely naked.
“Drop it,” he said, his voice calm but demanding.
“I won’t go back,” she yelled, a wail tearing from her throat as he took hold of the glass and carefully eased it out of her hand.
She wasn’t sure what happened next except she heard the glass fall to the ground and shatter as Damien pinned the blond to the wall. Then the man with a tattoo of a wolf on his forearm grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the room.
With his forearm against her chest, Tattoo Guy pinned her to the wall in the hallway, while the quiet dark-skinned man with yellow flecks in his eyes seemed content to sit back and watch. Yellow Eyes had been there the night of the escape near a truck, but she couldn’t remember more details about him. He had muscles easily twice the size of the man who had her pinned to the wall, but Yellow Eyes simply stood there watching.
“You cause a single bruise, Blade, and Damien will skin you alive,” Yellow Eyes said.
“Stay out of it, Callen.”
Callen then, the dark-skinned man who watched with the eyes of a predator, was staring at Blade as if Callen was counting down, giving Blade one last chance to relent.
“Shit,” Blade said, releasing her.
Tess sucked in her breath to hide the pain in her shoulder when Blade released her. She slid along the wall to the floor and drew her knees up to her chest, to cover as much of her naked body as she could. Running would be the smart thing to do, but she wasn’t sure she had the energy.
Given Callen’s calm demeanor and his bulging muscles, he had to be an enforcer. Very few fooled with an enforcer, which explained Blade’s deference. He knew his place in their hierarchy.
Shouting and growling erupted from her room, though her brain could be playing tricks on her at this point. The hallway wall shook, a body being slammed against it from the sound of it. That happened two more times, but neither man with her was concerned. They kept their focus, and their eyes, on her. Granted, a few minutes ago she had attacked a man, but really, they didn’t even flinch at the sound of another body—hopefully not the same one—slamming into the wall.
Blade, the angry guy with the wolf tattoo, disappeared into another bedroom and came back with a long-sleeved, gray shirt. “Put this on,” he said, tossing the shirt to her.
Tess slid her head through the neck and gritted her teeth while she maneuvered her left arm into a sleeve and pulled the shirt on. Her shoulder was in too much pain to slide her right arm through the other sleeve.
Both men continued staring at her, which made keeping eye contact really hard. Looking anyone in the eyes at the lab had always ended in a beating, but this wasn’t the lab, and she needed to establish a position of strength among these men, even if it killed her.
Which it might, given the sound of the brawl in the bedroom.
“Who’s the big guy with the dark-blond hair?” she asked about the man who’d taken the glass shard from her and who Damien had attacked.
“Frank,” Callen said, from his spot against the wall opposite her. He had one leg bent behind him, his foot flat to the wall as he leaned back, all casual, like this was a normal event around here. Maybe it was.
God, she was so screwed.
“He wasn’t trying to hurt you,” Blade spat out, pacing up and down the hall, a restlessness eating away at him.
“You weren’t even in there,” she said.
“I know Frank.”
And she knew none of them, except for Damien… a little. He’d rescued her, brought her here, and watched over her. She had repaid him by attacking one of his men.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone,” she said, knowing that sounded rather lame considering she bashed the guy’s head in.
“Then why attack Ian?” Blade asked.
Her entire body tensed at the animosity in his voice and the way he stared through her, his distrust pouring off him like sweat from a man wearing a fur coat in the Florida sun.
“We just got him back. What did he ever do to you?”
Blade was standing over her, all too similar to how the man with the mangy brown hair had leaned over her before she cracked the pitcher against his head. This time she didn’t have a pitcher or even a book to hit him with. She wanted to throw up. This hallway, this entire house, was starting to feel like a cage. Her skin became flushed, and spots were appearing before her eyes. She needed to get out of here.
“Don’t,” Callen warned. She had barely glanced at the steps, but he’d known exactly what she was thinking. He was watching her like a hawk.
Tess rested her head against the wall and stared past the banister to the great room below. Focusing on the large windows in the front of the house was easier than facing Callen and Blade or thinking about how the shirt only reached her upper thighs. She took a deep breath. The shirt smelled nice, calming, like black licorice, like Damien. That was perhaps the only thing keeping her from running, or crawling, given how crappy she felt.
As Blade resumed his pacing, the other men piled out of the bedroom. Pryce carried Ian, the man she had hit with the glass pitcher. Her eyes clamped shut, and she leaned as far away as she could when Pryce carried Ian past her.
Damien’s Dilemma Page 3
