Page 44 of The Night Calling
By the moon, he wore nothing but damn jeans again. Seriously, I would have to get some of his shirts from his closet and leave them here, so he could put them on, because staring at his glorious, naked chest was killing me. Even with the scars, he was exquisite.
At least like this, I could stare without shame.
There was no denying he was one of the finest wolf shifters out there. Tall and wide, with thick arms and thousands of smooth muscles, a face with sharp lines that seemed to have been cut by the gods of beauty and envy, his warm brown eyes, and the dark brown hair that curled behind his nape.
It was a freaking shame we didn’t belong together.
I shook my head. What the hell was I thinking? It didn’t matter if we belonged together or not. Shane had always been a jerk and I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of having me drooling over him.
“Raika,” he said, his voice as sharp as his beautiful face. “I know you’re here.”
“How?” I asked, knowing that he would be able to pinpoint my location now.
Shane turned his face in my direction. “Your scent.”
Shit, for a moment, I forgot Shane’s sense of smell was even better than mine, especially because he wasn’t wearing shackles around his wrists.
He pushed away from the rock and walked toward me as the tingling sensation inside me started again. In a few seconds, the potion’s effect was gone, and I was visible again.
Shane halted three feet from me. “What were you doing?”
I shrugged. “What do you mean?”
“You were staring at me.” One corner of his lips curled up. “Enjoying the view?”
I scoffed. “You’ll never change, will you? You’ll always be a conceited jerk.” I was supposed to trust this man to save us all? What the hell was I thinking?
“If only you knew,” he snarled.
I took a step closer to him and raised my chin. “Knew what?”
He held my gaze, but ultimately, he shook his head. “We don’t have time to argue. You can say whatever you want to me, but wait until after we free the pack.”
I frowned at him, crossing my arms. “You asked me to meet you here.”
He nodded. “Two of my friends arrived last night, Killian and Lavinia. They are both vampires, though Lavinia was a witch before turning and she retained all of her magic. They are outside the barrier, assessing it.”
“Assessing it?”
“Lavinia is trying to find out if she, or maybe a group of witches, can bring the barrier down.”
“Because with the barrier, they can’t come in to help you take Conri down.”
“Exactly.”
I bit my lower lip, thinking. Shane’s gaze shifted to my lips for two seconds before returning to my eyes, the gleam in his eyes darker than before. “Hm, I was wondering … you don’t have a concrete plan yet, right, but you want to invade the pack lands to fight Conri and his demons, right?”
“Right.”
“What if we could coordinate things, and this witch friend of yours found a way for me to break the shackles? I could break everyone’s shackles and we could attack from the inside at the same time you came from the outside.”
Shane’s eyebrows curled down. “You think everyone would join the fight?”
“Well, everyone is rusty, but I know everyone wants out. Even if not all of them fight, the others will at least be able to get out of the way.”
Shane nodded. I could see the wheels in his mind turning. “That’s an idea. When I do come up with a plan, I’ll take that into consideration and let you know.”
I frowned. So much like a bossy alpha and he wasn’t even one yet. Which made me think … would he let me go once he became alpha? His father wouldn't allow my family and me to move away. He hated us, but instead of letting us disappear from his sight, he kept us close—as an example.