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
