Awakened By The Wolf

While everyone else inundated him with their sobs and wails, waiting for the inevitable, she had read to him, shared the little gossip she knew, held his hand when tremors of pain had wracked his body, willed him to breathe when his lungs failed. Kissed his tightly bandaged head, begging him to live.

The day she saw him awake, she left the hospital and never visited him again. What was the point? On the road to recovery, he didn’t need the likes of her mooning over him any more than he did now. “I’m very sorry for the terrible ordeal you went through.”

Chapter 5 (#uc3bf57b6-9594-5302-9547-4c5212104a78)

Bitterness fisted in Brice’s throat. What he had suffered was insignificant considering his brother died because of him and his damn nosy nose.

Cassidy mysteriously revitalizing his scent receptors couldn’t be a good thing. Neither were the gentleness in her voice, the genuineness in her eyes or the mess of curls cascading over one shoulder.

Brice twirled a red ringlet around his finger. A man might promise foolish things to feel those silky strands sweep his stomach or tickle his inner thighs. He rubbed the curl against his cheek. The feminine softness eased the ever-present knot in his chest.

No woman had affected him to such a degree, and it was a damn shame Cassidy did. He had time only for a passionate night or two, and she didn’t seem the type for a brief, inconsequential fling.

He dropped the curl. “Shoes?”

She retrieved a pair of loafers, but he needed more support for his leg.

“Not those. I left a pair of Timberlands somewhere.”

“They aren’t here,” she said, rooting around the closet.

“Check under the bed.” He tilted his head as she hunkered down, shoulders touching the floor, hips high in the air.

“I can’t see anything,” she grunted. “Wait, I feel something.”

Brice felt something, too. It grew more demanding each time she rocked forward to reach beneath the bed. Oh, the things he could do to her.

“Ah-ha.” She surfaced, his shoes in tow, and promptly dumped them in his lap. “Anything else?”

His gaze rested on her chest, so close and damn near eye level. The way her nipples puckered against the fabric of her T-shirt when she breathed soothed his residual annoyance from walking into the room to discover she had discarded his jersey.

The urgency to feel her touch again threatened to overpower his restraint. Wahyan females had sleek, sinewy bodies. Cassidy’s skin had a suppler texture. Her muscles, although strong, were more pliable. He’d enjoyed how she pillowed him when he’d pinned her to the porch and wondered how gratifying it would be if she pulled him into her softness rather than fought him off.

Brice massaged the bunched spot between his eyebrows. The handful of aspirin he’d taken after his shower hadn’t kicked in. His entire body throbbed. Overworked muscles teetered on the verge of spasm, his leg hurt more than it had in a long time, the bridge of his nose pinched every time his nostrils flared to catch Cassidy’s scent, and his groin, for chrissakes, was sore from a solid kneeing and tight from on-and-off-again erection.

After he visited Granny at the hospital, he might crawl into an empty room and ask Doc Habersham for a morphine drip. Banishment be damned. Brice needed some relief.

“Grab me a pair of socks.” Most of the time Brice recognized the general look of an irritated woman. The sharply arched eyebrow, the tightly pursed lips, a hand resting on a hip, fingers tapping out a count. Any man, human or wolfan, should have enough sense to placate that look.

Apparently, tonight he didn’t. When Cassidy didn’t respond, he nodded toward the dresser. “Bottom left.”

She gave an exaggerated “Ugh.”

“What?” Brice opened his palms in a halfhearted shrug, intrigued by her vacillation from sweet and doe-eyed to pissed and prickly in a matter of seconds.

She snatched open the drawer, threw him a pair of white socks and stomped out of the room. “Would it hurt you to say please and thank you?” echoed down the hall.

Wahyas had little need for those particular human social graces. While living with Granny, he’d been more conscious of the etiquette. She would expect him to treat Cassie with the utmost Southern charm. However, if he did, the effect might backfire. Cassie’s annoyance provided a safety barrier. A breach could lead to a world of trouble he had no time to mediate.

Tying his shoes, he stared at the two ragged suitcases in the corner and the sparse belongings that only an hour ago had been angry missiles. He didn’t know why she had so little, but when he left he would make sure Cassidy Albright had everything she needed.

His stomach lurched, preparing an imminent launch into his throat.

Oh, God. Not this again.

When he’d awakened in the hospital after the attack, the scent of blood and bowel and death had imprinted in his nose, blocking all other smells. He seldom ate because of the debilitating nausea. Nothing cleared the stench and the relentless ordeal pushed him to the feral edge until one morning, after a brutal night of vomiting, he woke up and couldn’t smell a damn thing. No one could explain why.

With his stomach settled, he ate solid food again, and he could relax around people because their scent no longer slapped him in the face like decomp. Being scentless was a godsend.

For about six weeks. Then he realized the downside.

No earthy musk before the rains. No whiffs of smoke from campfires in the fall. No more sweet-smelling flowers or fresh-cut grass. No comforting scents of family, or friends, or the enticing fragrance of females.

Yeah, he could survive without ever smelling anything again, but his experiences were muted and dulled. Much like watching a Technicolor 3-D blockbuster on a twelve-inch black-and-white television. A lot was lost in the downgrade.

Over the years, the devastating loss became a penance. A constant reminder that if he hadn’t been so curious about tracking a strange scent, he wouldn’t have stepped in a trap, the rogues wouldn’t have found them and Mason would still be alive.

God-awful nausea reeled in his stomach with a vengeance. Hands balled into her comforter, Brice pressed the shabby material to his face, grateful and relieved her scent lingered in the threads. Sucking in a deep, exaggerated breath, he held her unique fragrance in his lungs, counting the seconds. Her residual essence filtered through not only his body but also his soul, warming every nook and cranny of his being. Stirred by the phantom familiarity, Brice’s wolf instinct prowled his conscience.

Mine!

No, she wasn’t. He had only a few days to settle matters with his grandmother. Then he had to leave. For good. His future lay outside Walker’s Run, and he intended to embrace it alone. He had best keep his cock in his pants and his hands off Little Miss Albright’s feisty body, except to smell her. Luckily for them, it would take time for his errant mating urge to reach the fucking point of no return. He could handle a few days of temptation.

Meeting him in the hallway, his temptress chucked him a set of keys. “My car will get you to the hospital and back. It just needs a few cranks to start.”

“Oh, no.” Brice caught her arm before she locked him out of the bedroom. “You’re coming with me, Cassidy.”

“It’s almost midnight, and I have to be at work at six.” She twisted out of his grip. “And call me Cassie. Cassidy is too formal considering—” her eyes took all of him in “—well, everything.”

Brice stood straighter. Plenty of women had stared, ogled and gawked at him. None had blushed so prettily or affected him the way she did.

He wanted to tease her. Test her boundaries. And conquer them.

No, no, no!

No conquering allowed.

“All right, Cassie, you have two options.”

“Oh, really?” She cocked her hip and folded her arms across her waist. Such a cute little protest.

“Put on your shoes and come with me like a good little girl.” He stepped close enough that she had to tilt her head to keep eye contact.

She didn’t balk. “Yeah, that doesn’t work for me. What’s the second?”

“Barefoot and braless, hog-tied in the backseat.” He made a point to stare at her chest until her nipples pebbled against her thin T-shirt.

“What kind of choice is that?” Her skin colored to the exact shade he wanted to see.