Page 45 of Craved By a Wolf

He chuckled, the warm sound out of place given they were still being pursued. Two of the nymphs had re-joined the group, but the wolf was outpacing them. He was fast, she gave him that. There was a chance they might survive this.

“Grant MacKinnon,” the wolf muttered.

Her eyebrows shot up and she twisted to look at the back of his head. “What?”

“My name. You never asked for it.”

She huffed. “I never wanted to know it.”

He didn’t miss a beat. “Most call me MacKinnon and those I like call me Kin. You can call me Kin.”

He liked her? She refused to let the warm fuzzy feeling that stirred take hold of her. He only liked her because he thought she was his mate.

He planted his hand on her backside and she scowled and awkwardly reached around to swat him away.

“Quit getting handsy, wolf.” She slapped his large hand until he moved it away, taking hold of her legs again.

It didn’t stop the heat that rolled through her, a hazy quality to it that had her tempted to ask him to plant it back on her bottom again and palm it this time. Good gods, she needed to get laid.

And not by the wolf.

Hella focused on pulling together what remained of her strength and drew down a slow breath as she emptied her mind. She muttered the incantation under her breath and the wolf tensed, and she knew why. Magic charged the air around her as the spell gathered strength, rapidly forming between her hands.

The black-purple orb twisted and distorted, jagged violet ribbons crackling over its surface, and she stared at it as it grew, as she funnelled more of her strength into it, aware this was her last and best shot but hesitant to take it.

Abyssal magic was dangerous.

Forbidden for a reason.

If she screwed this up, the black hole she was creating could swallow half the town.

“What the bloody hell are ye doing, witch?” MacKinnon growled and she ignored him, because she couldn’t risk losing her focus.

One slip was all it would take to wipe out everyone in the immediate area, including her and the wolf.

“Just a little more,” she murmured, shaping the spell now, keeping it low level enough that it wouldn’t place her beloved town in danger but would deal with her pest problem.

The moment she felt it was ready, she released it.

It bobbed towards the group of nymphs, gently rising and dipping through the air around fifteen feet above the ground, moving slowly.

The foolish males were too focused on catching up with her and the wolf to pay attention to the innocuous five-inch sphere heading towards them.

The moment it was above them, it expanded with a deep humming sound that hit her in her chest and swallowed them whole, together with a neat section of the pavement, and then shrank back in on itself and disappeared.

“What the bloody fuck was that?” MacKinnon twisted with her, swinging her around on his shoulder so violently that her queasy stomach almost rebelled, and then a split-second later continued the pivot so she was facing the shallow crater in the street. He grumbled, “Starting to think you’re a wee bit dangerous, lass.”

“You’re onlystartingto think that?” She couldn’t hold back her smile as she said that and was glad he couldn’t see it and know she was beginning to enjoy their banter. She didn’t want him getting ideas. Speaking of which. She pressed her hands to his shoulders and shoved upwards. “You can put me down now.”

“No.” He tightened his grip instead and kept running. “Not until you’re safe.”

“I am safe,” she countered.

The low, vicious growl that pealed from his lips and the way his fingers dug into her thigh told her that he thought quite the opposite. Because of his instincts? She had never delved too much into life as a shifter, because it had never really interested her.

Until now.

Was MacKinnon a slave to his instincts? She had heard tales of male shifters losing control to their instincts, unable to resist obeying their animal side, and she had heard even more frightening tales of what a male like him was capable of when it came to their fated female.

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