And maybe he would make her buy him a new pair of boots while he was at it.
His mood darkened as he stalked through the streets, trying to shut out the muttered comments about his bedraggled appearance. He glowered at a few of the witches, silencing them and making them shrink back with only a look in their direction. He had been in a bad enough mood the last time he had been in this town, and then he had been dry, fed and fully clothed. Now he was wet, hungry because he hadn’t eaten in over a day, and missing his boots.
The scent led him down a side street, growing stronger. His head fogged a little, filling with a vision of moorland and Hella among the heather, her blue hair tumbling around her slender shoulders and her green eyes bright as she spun to look at him, a smile on her tempting lips. He growled, the low rumbling sound echoing around him as he crossed a street and followed her scent down another alley. He paused at the end of it and breathed deeply, trying to figure out which way she had gone. He took a few steps towards the middle of the street and the scent grew weaker. Same thing when he tried heading right.
Which meant she had gone left.
Kin stormed up the road, his pace quickening in time with his pulse as her scent continued to grow stronger. Tension built by degrees as he closed in on her, an ache growing inside him as his wolf latched onto her signature, pinpointing her inside one of the buildings.
He breathed harder, couldn’t stop growling as he thought about kissing her, as his mind filled with how good it had felt to have her curves pressed against him and her hands on him and the way she had looked at him, a spark of fire in her eyes that had called to him.
By the time he reached her door, he was too far gone to be civil.
He kicked the blue door in, burning for that kiss—for her.
A mindless slave to his need for his female.
Her scream pierced the fog in his head, dissipating it in an instant, and she twirled to face him.
Gods, she truly was beautiful.
Her blue hair hung in tangled threads, clinging to her pale skin in places, and her dress still stuck provocatively to her curves, teasing him to the point of madness.
MacKinnon stalked towards her, growling as his wolf instincts demanded he claim what was his.
Her throat worked on a hard swallow and she backed away from him, her blue eyebrows furrowing as her eyes remained locked with his. She tensed as her bottom hit a long counter, glanced back at it and then her gaze darted to him, and her lips parted.
He glanced at the wooden counter too, a growl pealing from his lips as he stared at it. It would easily support her weight while he took her. Flickers of the other witch’s words ran through his hazy mind. Hella had to accept him. It was the only way to satisfy this curse.
This craving he felt for her.
He shifted his gaze back to meet hers and didn’t miss the spark in them that said she might accept him—that this attraction wasn’t one-sided.
On another low growl, he closed the distance between them down to nothing, bracing himself for her retaliation.
Only she didn’t fight him as he swept her into his arms and his mouth descended on hers, claiming it as his prize.
He groaned as his entire world crumbled around him, reshaped by the feel of her soft lips yielding to the hard press of his. She opened for him, an eager wee thing that roused his passion and had his mind leaping forwards as she deepened the kiss. Her sweet moan sent a shiver down his spine and he clutched her tighter, drawing her closer as it filled him with a need to devour her.
To stake a claim on her.
Her small hands brushed down his arms from his shoulders to the point where they met her waist, and she reached behind her. They gently took hold of him and she tried to prise his arms away from her, but he refused to let her as he angled his head and stroked her tongue with his. She trembled and loosed another sultry moan, lightly ran her blunt nails down his forearms and tried again. He sensed the need in her and let her have her way this time, curious as to what she wanted to do with him.
When her hands curled around his wrists and she brought them up between them, he thought she meant to make him cup her breasts. He opened his hands, eager to touch her, to tease the hard little points that her dress concealed.
And snarled when cold metal kissed his skin.
His wrists dropped as she released them, weighed down by something.
Kin reared back and looked down at them, and his throat closed in an instant, the haze of passion clearing in a heartbeat.
Manacles.
She had shackled him.
He turned a vicious growl on her that came dangerously close to a whimper as a chain appeared on both of the heavy silver cuffs and snapped to an anchor point near the door behind him, yanking him away from the witch. Panic lanced him, fear swamping him to extinguish every other emotion as he looked from one wrist to another and fought his bonds.
“This cannae hold me,” he snarled and kept fighting, every muscle on his body flexing as he leaned forwards, straining against the chains. “I broke those shackles you wore in Lucia.”