Bounding over the field, he followed the trail back to the wizard’s cabin. Outside the tall chain-link fence, he paused.
The steel trap was empty. The woman had escaped.
Muzzle lowered, he sniffed the ground, picking up traces of blood and gardenia and sour fear. There, toward the dead tree.
A pale of moonlight dappled the meadow beneath the tree’s spindly limbs. Dominic raced across the field. The scent grew stronger, making his blood pump strong and thick through his veins.
At the tree, he found her, curled inside the hollow trunk. Crimson dotted the ground by her foot. Dominic shifted back, clothed himself by magick and squatted down. Admiration filled him. She was a fighter, this one. She’d dragged herself into the tree to get warm. Gently he lifted her into his arms, her silky black hair tumbling over his arms. She moaned.
“You’re safe now,” he soothed.
Beneath his hands, he felt delicate bones, so frail he could snap them in two. But this hunter was tough. The facade hid an inner core of steel. A worthy opponent for a powerful wolf.
An equally worthy mate.
A distant rumble broke the quiet night. Dominic watched the four-wheeler approach.
“I gave you orders to stay put,” he snapped.
“You gave orders to go home. If you wanted me to stay, be specific.” Michael left the engine rumbling as he climbed off. He removed a thick wool blanket from the attached trailer and went to cover the woman.
Dominic growled, his possessive instincts going haywire at the thought of another man touching her. Michael backed off, holding up his hands.
“Pax, boss. Was just trying to help, not stake a claim.”
With extreme care Dominic laid her in the trailer, climbed in and covered her with the blanket. He examined her ankle. Not broken, but bad enough.
As they headed for the lodge, the woman stirred a little and moaned. Dominic laid a warm hand on her icy cheek. Anger rose up in him, hot and swirling.
He’d like to break Belaramos’s fingers, one by one.
Strength radiated from the woman. He’d felt it in the bar, beneath the cover of buxom redhead glamour. But it wasn’t until he’d caught a whiff of the scent she’d failed to entirely eradicate that he could not resist. He had to kiss her.
Dominic bent over her, inhaling her delicious scent cutting through the metallic odor of blood. Deep inside he felt kinship with this woman who’d risked her own life to save a wild wolf.
He wanted her, badly. His wolf howled at the thought of mating with her, climbing between her legs to mark her as his own. His incubus blood surged hot and thick with the remembrance of her sweet arousal in the bar as he’d kissed her.
“Down, boys,” he murmured, cupping the woman’s cheek with a warm palm. “Let her heal. She’s not ready to come to me. Not yet.”
There would be plenty of time later for what both wanted.
“Alexandra Kostra,” he murmured, enchanted by the soft skin beneath his caressing thumb. “Finally, I’ve got you.”
Alex was home, snuggled in her bed. Fragrant pine and delicious warmth surrounded her. For the first time since her stepfather threw her out, she felt peaceful.
The scent of pine and fresh rain grew stronger. Alex struggled to keep the feeling intact, knowing it would evaporate like morning mist.
“Wake up, little warrior.”
The deep voice stroked over her body like a velvet lash. She remembered the events of the previous night and braced herself for the burning pain in her ankle.
Alex opened her eyes as a light snapped on.
She was clad in a pair of soft flannel pajamas, lying in a pine bed big enough to hold five people. Moonlight streamed past plain white curtains, spilling on the soft white carpet. The room had crammed bookshelves and an enormous pine dresser. A fire crackled in the stone hearth.
In a handsome wood rocker, Dominic sat, regarding her intently. He looked sexy and dangerous, dressed in a thin black shirt and tight black jeans. Firelight glinted off his black hair and amusement danced in his bright blue eyes. He hooked his thumbs through the belt loops.
“The sleeping princess awakens at last, in time for the handsome prince to give her the kiss she’s longed for,” he murmured.
Cold, cruel and intensely sexual, his body was hard and tempting. A woman would want to run her hands through those thick locks of dark hair, clasp him close as he devoured her mouth and laid her on the bed….
Alex shuttered the thought and made a quick assessment. No weapons. He’d stripped off her knives and gun. But she had the only weapon necessary. Her glamour. Dominic must never find out her real identity.
“Try kissing me. I bite.”
“Promise?”
“I never make promises I can’t keep.”
“Pity. I have several places on my body I’d like your mouth on.”
“In your dreams. What am I doing here? And where is here?” Alex scanned the room, searching for a weapon.
Dominic cocked an eyebrow. “Saving you. You would have died out there. You’re in the House of Eros, the lodge of my pack.”
Tension knotted her stomach. The infamous playhouse, whispered to host the darkest sexual proclivities. They said he had a basement with walls lined with fur, tables where he liked to tie up willing females and tease them until they screamed with pleasure….
Definitely not a hotel she wanted to stay at. Alex tested her ankle, rotating it around and winced. Still a little painful but healing. But that didn’t make her helpless. Or stupid. Dominic advanced, his big body taking up all the space in the room. Alex fisted her hands, fighting the instinctual urge to turn from the sensuality flaring on his face. Remember his hands stroking slowly over her skin that first time ten years ago…
She gestured to the pajamas with little pink bunnies on them. “Nice clothing. Is this what you make all your women wear when you strip off their clothing?”
“They belong to Claire, a member of my pack. Freshly laundered. She and the other females undressed you and got you into bed.”
He tossed back the covers, studied her ankle. “It will heal. I applied a poultice of herbs and special lotion. Should be fine in a day or two.” Dominic pulled the covers back.
“You applied it?”
“With my own two hands.” His voice dropped to a dark whisper. “I enjoyed every moment of having them on you. Although I prefer my lovers to be conscious.”
Her lower belly tightened as she thought of Dominic smoothing the lotion over her ankle, lingering and slow, a sensual caress as he rubbed and stroked….
Not.
