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Wyatt could hear the Lycan shouting from the living room, but he tuned out the words, his attention riveted on the macabre scene he found as he burst into her room. Elise was trapped beneath a second assailant on her bed, struggling to get free, while the sadistic bastard pressed his forearm across her throat, cutting off her air. The male also wore a black balaclava over his head, concealing his features. As Wyatt threw himself at her attacker, he sucked in a sharp breath, searching for the male’s scent, but there wasn’t one. Like a blank canvas, there wasn’t a single speck of Lycan musk to pull into his lungs—a trait this one shared with his partner—and it screamed Whiteclaw. After the attack some of the Whiteclaw and Donovan wolves had made on the Runners a few weeks ago in the Alley, they knew the wolves had developed a drug that not only made them violently strong, but also camouflaged their scent. But if this were another Whiteclaw attack, why come after Elise? Because of her brother and his association with the Runners? Had it made her a target, just as Eric had feared?
Digging his claws into the male’s side, Wyatt tried to bite out the Lycan’s throat, but was blocked by a powerful blow to his jaw. The male was unbelievably strong—another sign that he’d been amped up with the “super drug” that blocked a wolf’s scent—and Wyatt had to use every ounce of strength he possessed to pull the bastard off the bed, away from Elise, and hurl him across the room. Moving quickly back to his feet, the Lycan released his claws, looking more than ready to fight, until the sound of screeching tires on the street outside signaled the arrival of the other Runners.
“Next time you won’t be so lucky,” the male snarled, apparently realizing he wasn’t going to win now that backup had arrived. Without another word, he turned and retreated, running down the hallway. Wyatt heard the Lycan growl something at the one he’d left in the living room. Either the guy had already gotten free or the second Lycan helped him, because there were suddenly two sets of pounding footsteps as the pair made their way outside, around the side of the house and into the wooded park. Fighting back a bloodcurdling howl, it took all of Wyatt’s willpower not to run after the monsters and rip them to pieces. He wanted it so badly the need was like a festering wound in his gut—but he couldn’t leave Elise. Not when she needed him. Not when she was wheezing, stammering a broken, whispered phrase under her breath that was slowly breaking his heart into tiny, irreparable pieces.
“Rather die, rather die, rather die...”
Turning toward her, Wyatt quickly shifted the upper half of his body back into his human form and retracted his bloody claws and fangs, not wanting to frighten her any more than she already was. The instant he’d pulled that asshole off of her, she’d scurried into the far corner of the room and hunched down with her arms wrapped over her head. Her eyes were glazed, her mind a million miles away. Hiding...wanting to be anywhere but here. Not that he blamed her.
Taking his phone out, he called Carla’s cell, telling her that he had El but needed whoever had come with her to search the woods at the back of the property for two Lycan males. Ending the brief call, he shoved the phone back into his pocket and focused on the woman he had been more than ready to kill for.
“El?” he whispered, crouching down a few yards away from her. He tried to catch her gaze, but her vacant stare was focused inward, her head slowly shaking from side to side, body huddled into a tight ball that made her seem so fragile and small. “Baby, I need you to take a deep breath and just look at me, okay? You’re safe now. No one can hurt you.”
He waited, holding his position as he kept speaking to her in a soft voice, doing his best not to spook her. He was starting to think that maybe he should call Reyes inside to talk to her, when Elise finally blinked her eyes a few times and looked at him. She seemed to only just be realizing that he was there.
“W-Wyatt?” she croaked, shivering so badly that it shook her words.
“Yeah, it’s me, El.” He started to edge a little closer, but stopped when she made a sharp, choked sound. Before he even knew what was happening, she’d launched herself at him, nearly knocking him over, her face buried against his blood-spattered chest as she bawled in deep, wrenching sobs. He held her in a crushing grip that was too tight but seemed to be exactly what she needed. After a minute or two, her trembling began to ease, the violent crying melting into a soft wash of tears.
“Did he hurt you?” he rasped, dreading her answer.
“N-no. You got here in time.”
“Thank God,” he groaned, undone by the way she felt in his arms. He wanted to keep holding her, for hours on end, but his time was already running out. He sensed the exact instant she started to make her way free of the terror, her body stiffening in his arms as she pulled her head back, lifting her tearstained gaze to his worried one.
Then those soft, glistening eyes narrowed with fury, and he knew all hell was about to break loose.
* * *
“What are you doing here?” Elise yelled, trying to push away from the bare-chested Runner. But she couldn’t budge free from his tight hold. “Oh, God. Are you stalking me?”
“Shh. Calm down,” he murmured, his deep voice soft and soothing, as if he were trying to gentle a frightened child. “It’s okay.... It’s not like that.”
She fought to control a fresh round of shivers, hating that he was a witness to her weakness, but knew she was failing. The quivering began in her bones, radiating outward, born as much from anger as it was from fear. “Then explain it. R-right now,” she stammered, unable to keep her jaw from shaking.
With a rough sigh, he lowered his arms, letting her go, and a rush of cold swarmed in to replace his delicious heat. As they both moved to their feet, he said, “Your brother put you under Bloodrunner protection after what happened that day with Farrow, when you thought someone had been in your house.”
Elise blinked, unable to believe she’d just heard him correctly. Bracing herself with a hand against the nearest wall, she shook her head. “What did you just say?”
He sighed again, rubbing the back of his neck. “You heard me.”
Anger straightened her spine. “He had no right to do that!”
“He did it because he cares about you. And he was even more concerned about your safety after the attack at the Alley.”
“So then you’ve all been watching me?” she choked out. “Spying on me, like I’m some pathetic little thing that gets spooked by her own shadow?”
His nostrils flared as he sucked in a sharp breath, his jaw rigid. “Those weren’t shadows tonight, Elise. Those were two asshole Lycan males intent on hurting you.”
“I don’t care! You had no right. Not behind my back.” She swiped angrily at her tears, furious that she’d so completely lost control in front of him and couldn’t seem to get it back.
She flinched as he moved, then felt like an idiot when she realized he was only unknotting the sleeves of the flannel shirt that was tied around his waist. “It’s okay,” he told her, a husky edge to the words that touched her senses on an even deeper level than the fear—one she wasn’t willing to acknowledge, not even to herself. “I’m just giving you my shirt.”
“What? Why?”
Keeping those dark eyes on her face, he said, “Your dress is ripped, sweetheart.”
She gasped, looking down in horror to see that the entire left side of her bodice had been torn during her struggle with the Lycan, revealing the heavy swell of her breast and the pink tip of her nipple. “Damn it,” she hissed, clutching the tattered fabric over her chest as she lifted her head and glared at him. “And don’t call me that. I’m not your sweetheart.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Okay.”
“Okay? What does okay mean?” she snapped, the words as brittle as autumn leaves as she grabbed the shirt out of his big, rugged hand and quickly pulled it on over her tattered dress.
“It means I’m not going to argue with you about it when you’re upset,” he said affably.
She lifted her brows. “But you’ll...what? Argue with me about it later?”
His lips curled with the barest fraction of a smile. “Depends on whether you keep telling me not to call you sweetheart.”
Elise tried to storm past him then, too overwhelmed to deal with his crazy brand of charm, but her stupid knees buckled with her first step and the room spun. Before she could tell him to go to hell, he had her swept up in his strong arms, clutched against his broad, muscular chest as he carried her over to the bed. But instead of setting her down and moving away, he sat down on the edge of the mattress, then carefully deposited her beside him.
“How did he get the jump on you?” he asked as she quickly scooted over, needing to put more distance between them.
“I didn’t know he was behind me.”
Damn it. The instant the words left her mouth, Elise realized her mistake, her heart lurching into her throat. Turning her head away from him, she tried to hide behind her hair, which had long since fallen from its twist, but he lifted his hand, pushing it behind her ear. Then he caught her chin, bringing her face back around. “They had their scents masked, but why couldn’t you hear him? Or sense him?”
It took considerable effort, but she forced a smirk onto her face to hide her shame as she jerked her chin free, then met his dark gaze with her own. “That’s none of your damn business, Runner.”
He opened his mouth, no doubt ready to argue that point, when Jeremy’s deep voice called out from the living room. “Hey, Pall, where are you guys? We let ourselves in through the kitchen door. Me and Cian need to talk to you.”
The corner of his mouth twitched with a wry, fleeting grin. They both knew that Jeremy and Cian, two of the most highly trained hunters the pack had ever known, could use their acute sense of smell to pinpoint their exact location in the house. Which meant they weren’t so much asking where they were, as they were inquiring as to whether or not they were decent enough for company. Idiots! She never should have danced with Wyatt at the reception. Now these jackasses were never going to let them live it down.
“We’re back here!” Wyatt shouted, and Elise quickly wrapped the flannel shirt even tighter around her body. In the next moment, a rain-soaked Jeremy and Cian came into her bedroom, followed closely by Carla and Mason, who were equally waterlogged. She could only be thankful that Eric hadn’t come prowling in with them because she was too on edge to deal with her brother at the moment. She hoped to God he’d stayed at the Alley, enjoying his wedding night. These four were bad enough!
Whipping her head to the side, she scowled at the gorgeous jerk sitting beside her on the bed. “Did you have to call everyone?” she seethed, hoping he could tell just how furious she was with him.
He gave an innocent shake of his head. “Hey, I didn’t make the call. I asked that Browning guy to do it when I was rushing inside.”
“Your neighbor called Mason, but we were already on our way up to check out something else,” Jeremy offered as an explanation, before shooting a frowning glance at the puddle of water he was leaving on her floor.
Before she could fire off another sharp-edged remark, Cian crossed his arms over his chest, propped his broad shoulders against the wall and cut his piercing gray gaze from her to Wyatt. “So what happened?” the Irishman asked them, lifting his brows. “The neighbor was waiting out front when we got here, but he didn’t know anything. Just said that he heard screams and fighting. We searched the woods back there but couldn’t pick anything up to follow. And the rain is coming down hard now. It hasn’t left anything on the ground to track.”
Keeping it short and succinct, Wyatt gave them the rundown. “I think whoever the scouts spotted on our land tonight paid Elise a visit. I was searching the woods behind the house when I heard her scream. There were two Lycans inside her house, wearing masks that covered everything but their lips and their eyes, which were brown in their human forms. I fought them, and they took off when they heard the rest of you show up.”
She could tell by the look on the Runners’ faces that they knew he’d left out a portion of the story. And though she understood why he would have to fill them in later about what had happened in her room—that she’d very nearly been the victim of another sexual assault—Elise was thankful that he didn’t make her sit there and listen to a recounting of the horrific event.
Looking at the others, Wyatt asked, “Can you guys give us a second?”
“Sure,” Mason murmured, clapping his hand on Jeremy’s damp shoulder as he steered his partner toward the door, motioning for the others to go before them. Without looking back, the handsome, rugged Runner said, “We’ll take another look outside and see what we can find. Maybe we’ll get lucky and pick up a scent.”
“Yeah, about that,” Wyatt grunted, sounding kind of shocked and embarrassed. “I forgot to mention that they had their scents masked.”
A few stifled curses could be heard out in the hallway, as well as a low laugh that sounded as if it was coming from Cian, who probably thought that important lapse had something to do with her. Mason was at the back of the group, and he stopped and turned in the doorway with a scowl that would have scared the hell out of most people. “No scent at all—same as the ones who attacked us in the Alley?”
Wyatt nodded. “Yeah. Just like those assholes. They were also stronger than they should have been.”
“Shit,” Mason growled, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Did they say anything that might reveal their identity? Or what they were doing here?”
They both shook their heads, but Elise wasn’t sure Mason believed her. “We’ll take that look outside,” he told them, “but I want you both at my cabin for a meeting in the morning.”
She frowned as the Runner left the room. She didn’t want to go to the Alley tomorrow morning. After tonight, all she wanted was to...to... Hell, she didn’t know what she wanted.
“How long will it take you to pack?” Wyatt asked, his deep voice pulling her from her troubled thoughts as he moved to his feet.
She tilted her head back, staring up at him in confusion. “Pack what?”
“A bag. You can’t stay here by yourself. You’re coming home with me.”
Her jaw dropped as she blinked. “Is that some kind of sick joke?”
“Naw,” Carla drawled, popping her head back into the room from the hallway. She’d obviously decided to ignore Wyatt’s request for privacy. “I know what Pall’s joke face looks like, and that isn’t it. He’s dead serious.”
Gritting her teeth, she said, “I’m not going anywhere with you, Pallaton.”
He pushed his hands into his front pockets, his eyes hooded as he watched her stand up, grab a couple of clean towels from the basket of folded laundry that was sitting on her dresser and start laying them out over the puddles that’d been left on her floor. “Don’t let pride make you stupid, El. You know this is the smartest thing you can do.”
“Wow. Do you have any idea how arrogant you sound right now?” She clenched her teeth as she tossed a towel to Carla, then snapped the last one open, laying it over the water that had dripped off of Cian. “What is it with you guys always bundling up us little women and dragging us off to the Alley? Where in God’s name did you all get the idea that we can’t survive without you around to protect us with your big bad selves?”
He didn’t say anything in his defense when she turned back to him with a blistering glare. But he didn’t need to. He simply shifted his gaze to the bruise she could feel forming on her cheek, then lower, to where she was clutching the edges of his shirt over her chest, reminding her of just what he’d saved her from, and she trembled with fury as he slowly lifted that knowing gaze back to hers. “You son of a bitch,” she whispered, and his expression tightened, the skin around his eyes and mouth revealing his tension and rage, though he seemed determined not to express them in front of her. For some reason, that just made her even angrier.
“We can argue as long as you want, but it isn’t going to change the outcome. Either you come back with me, or I’m planting my ass here with you. And I do mean with you, El. I won’t be shoved out on that short-ass sofa in your living room. There’s not much left of it, anyway.”
“You’ve lost your freaking mind.”
“Probably,” he muttered, scrubbing the palm of his hand against the hard angle of his jaw. “But it doesn’t change the fact that you need a keeper.”
“I can stay with my brother!”
He arched one perfect midnight brow. “You do realize this is his wedding night, don’t you?”
She flushed, wracking her brain for an alternative. “With Jillian and Jeremy, then.”
“Won’t work. They’ve already started turning their spare room into a nursery.”
She blinked, stunned. “She’s pregnant?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. But they’re hoping she will be soon and wanted to get a head start on things.”
“Oh. I...I didn’t know.”
As if he knew exactly what she was thinking, he said, “They only just decided this week to start on the nursery, or I’m sure she would have told you.”
She chewed on the corner of her lip. “I can always sleep on their sofa.”
Zoing! His right brow arched again, as if it was spring-loaded, those dark eyes starting to glitter with a spark of humor, as if he were beginning to find something funny in her belligerent desperation. “When I have a perfectly good spare bedroom? I don’t think so.”
She was so frustrated she wanted to scream. “Who cares what you think, you arrogant ass? I do not take orders from you! Why can’t you just leave me the hell alone and stop trying to control me?”
Hmm. Maybe yelling at him again wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had. He suddenly wasn’t looking as if he still found this funny, the muscle pulsing in his jaw telling her he was done with this particular argument. “I’m not interested in controlling you. I’m just trying to keep you the fuck alive. So pack your goddamn bag and start acting like an adult instead of a stubborn child. Carla and I will drive you down and she can help you get settled.”
“Carla? Are you two bunking up together now?”
Carla snorted from her position in the doorway, making Elise flinch, since she’d somehow forgotten the female Runner was standing there. “You think I’m gonna live with that jackass?” The blonde laughed under her breath, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. “I’m not that crazy!”
Elise looked to Wyatt for an explanation. With a shrug, he said, “I just thought it might make you more comfortable to know that she’ll be around a lot. Her cabin is right next door to mine.”
“But we are not an item,” Carla added, shuddering. “I love the guy, but I don’t want you putting any sick images in my head. I’ll be scarred for life.”
It was dizzying, how she could go from being so pissed off one moment to wanting to bang her head against a freaking wall in the next. Glancing from one Runner to the other with a look of pure, disgruntled confusion, she said, “You two are so weird.”
“Yeah, we get that a lot.” Carla laughed.
At the same time, Wyatt growled, “Can we get a damn move on?”
When Elise simply remained where she was standing, he exhaled a short, exasperated breath. “Stop wasting time, El. If you don’t come with me, then I’m moving in here. Which is it gonna be?”
“Fine,” she snapped, making it sound like another sharp four-letter F word. “I’ll pack a bag, Dad.”
He ran his tongue over the front of his teeth, but didn’t call her out on her snotty attitude. Instead, he simply said, “Good. And make sure you pack enough.”
“Enough for what?” she asked, already walking toward her closet.
“A few weeks, at least.”
Oh, hell no. “A few weeks?” she growled, spinning toward him with another furious scowl. “Are you insane?”
“Getting there,” he muttered, heading for the door, the motion making all those mouthwatering muscles do interesting things under his tight, burnished skin. Even his freaking back was gorgeous, which just struck her as incredibly unfair. “If you want to argue about it, save it for the Alley,” he said over his shoulder. “Right now we need to get the hell out of here.”
“Why?” she whispered, his gritty words making the fear she’d been fighting down start to rise right back up. She licked her lips, struggling to stay calm, but it felt like a losing battle. “You don’t think they’re coming back, do you?”
“I don’t know what to think, Elise. But it’s better to be safe than sorry. And you’ll be a hell of a lot safer there than you are here.”
With her pulse pounding in her ears, Elise watched him leave the room, thinking he was probably right about her physical well-being.
She just wasn’t too sure about the rest of her.
Chapter 4
After getting a still-irritated, snippy Elise settled in his spare bedroom, Wyatt grabbed a T-shirt and then walked back to the cabin’s living room, where Carla waited for him in one of the leather chairs that sat across from his sofa. Too on edge to sit down, he made his way over to the empty fireplace, crossing his arms over his chest as he braced his back against the mantel.
“What?” he grunted, since his partner was staring at him with a bemused expression on her face.
“Nothing,” she murmured.
Choking back a groan, he said, “I’m tired and in a shitty mood, Reyes. So, please, just spit it out.”
She coughed to clear her throat, then shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s just that you’re not usually this tense, Pall. You look ready to crack.”
He shrugged, not knowing what to say.
“So what’s going on with you two?” she asked, sounding genuinely concerned.
“Don’t know.” He rubbed his jaw as he glanced at the bottle of whiskey that sat on the sideboard against the far wall. Rolling his shoulder in a restless gesture, he kept his voice low as he said, “I want her. But I’m worried about her, too. So I’ll put the other on the back burner for the time being and help her deal with whatever’s going on.”
“You want her how?” Carla questioned.
He arched a brow. “How do you think?” His tone was dry.
Not one to mince words, his partner asked, “You’re just looking for sex?”
Wyatt scowled. “Do we really need to have this conversation? Because not to sound juvenile or anything, but it’s kinda freaking me out, seeing as how you’re one of the closest things to family I still have. And I sure as hell wouldn’t talk about my sex life with my sister, if I had one.”
“Yeah, I get that. And I’m sorry about the ick factor. You know I love you—but I like Elise, too.” A notch started to form between her pale brows, just visible beneath the edge of her bangs. “I don’t want to see her get hurt if you’re only looking to get laid.”
“I’m not going to break her heart,” he muttered, shoving a hand back through his hair in a telling act of frustration. “Hell, a woman like her would never fall for a guy like me in the first place. But it doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun together.”
The notch on her forehead got deeper. “What do you mean by ‘a guy like me’? What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” he grunted. “Just drop it.”
She didn’t respond right away. She just sat there staring at him from the edge of her seat, studying him, making him feel like a bug pinned down under a microscope. He didn’t care for the feeling. And now he really wanted that damn drink. Heading over to the sideboard, he poured more than a little whiskey into a glass, then walked back and took a seat on the sofa.
“Gee, thanks for offering me one, too,” she drawled wryly. “And you know what I think? I think you’re full of bullshit.” He started to argue, but she cut him off. “And you’re blind if you don’t think that Elise is interested in you. Like really interested. Yeah, she’s skittish. She has good reason to be. But when you’re not looking at her, she’s watching you. She can’t keep her eyes off you.”