Page 10 of Her Wolf's Demands

His muscles strained, ready to take flight. Instead of leaving me behind – I kinda expected him to be the arsehole who ditched me when it came to a fight – he placed his hands on my shoulders and looked down at me. “Stay in human form and use your senses. Smell the air to detect how many wolves there are.” Stroking my cheek, he smiled gently. “Keep the noise to a minimum and don’t engage any of the wolves, especially Kieran.”

“Why not? The bastard owes me an explanation.”

His nostrils flared, his jaw tightening as his gaze searched mine. “Very well. If the opportunity arises, you can talk to him, but only if I’m by your side. I will not allow any harm to come to you.”

“As sweet as that is…” I grinned when he raised his eyebrows. “…I’ll use my magic to defend myself if I need to. If he was aiming to violate me, he has to pay.”

Ducking me under the chin, Malone tried to contain his humour. “Spoken like a true alpha’s mate.”

A shudder moved me, shaking my whole being. In this moment, with my mate, in the woods about to face an enemy, I felt the roar of my inner beast, desperate to be heard. How long had she been suppressed within?

“Let’s go.”

Without hesitation, I followed him through the trees. My senses were alert, seeking anything out of the ordinary. My nose sniffed, my eyes sought. The shadows were dense, moving as one.

Footsteps ahead made the hairs on the back of my arm rise up. Manual’s scent wafted up my nose, followed by Lionel’s. They were close by.

Malone headed straight to the treeline, his shoulders hunched and his head twisting one way and then the other. I admired his graceful prowess, completely aware that he could also snap a neck within seconds. The contrast was a turn on.

“Ahead and down into the second field,” Manual whispered, pointing out through the last of the trees.

Malone inclined his head, gesturing to them to fan out. Lionel’s wolf shape trotted away, disappearing to the left. Did they have a system of attack already in place? Would I ruin the dynamic?

My breath was shaky as we moved to the edge of the woods and peered into the fields beyond.

“They’ve never got this close.” Malone’s voice was barely a whisper in my ear. “If I need to shift, stay out of the way.”

“There,” I murmured, spotting the lumps of shadow in the field below.

Just as the word left my lips, the smell of coffee and deer wafted up my nose. Kieran. How had I not noticed how strong everyone’s scent was until now?

A shudder moved me as Malone stroked a hand down my arm, lacing his fingers through mine. The tingles were doubled, no doubt heightened by the adrenaline that filled us.

My stomach clenched when I counted the wolves, who were sniffing around the field, drawing closer. We were higher up, our vantage point looking down onto them.

If they had never managed to get close before, what had changed?

“We’ll stop them in that field,” Malone hissed in my ear.

There were at least eight wolves, far too many for us to take down alone.

An excited buzz made me lurch forward when Malone stepped to the right, clearly wanting to approach them away from the woods.

Tugging my hand, Malone encouraged me to speed up. Our footsteps were silent as we paced around the first field, ducking as low as possible. Conveniently for us, there was a six foot hedge between the fields. We had to hurry, though, or the wolves would sense us before we reached them.

“Della?”

Too late.

Kieran’s voice echoed across the field. We paused before turning slowly, coming face to face with the man who had threatened to rape me. There, I’d admitted it.

Heat fired within the pit of my belly as I stepped forward, released Malone’s hand and incited a fire spell.

Kieran jumped back when flames flared up near him, a squeak falling from his lips. His friends, all in wolf form, appeared behind him, snarling and snapping as the light from my fire illuminated them. Anyone would think that Kieran was the alpha of the Crawley Pack.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, my hands starting to shake when he held up the blanket he had given me the first night I’d turned.

Shit, he had used my scent to track me down. And it had led him straight to the Brighton Pack’s camp. The wolves would love me even more now. Not.