Page 57 of Craved By a Wolf

He had a point.

She shrugged anyway. “I might have made it without your help.”

MacKinnon sat up as best he could again, levelling a dark look on her that made her feel he wanted to put her over his knee for being so sassy with him, but there was a glimmer of something in his eyes, there among the irritation and anger. Did he like her teasing him?

“You were chained.” He smoothed the hard edge from his tone, removing the bite from it, and looked her over, from her face to her hands. His voice softened further, a teasing note to it now. “Couldn’t use your wee hands to swim. You would’ve drowned without me, lass.”

She rolled her eyes.

Enjoying herself and the way they were falling into an easy kind of banter that made her forget her anger and what a dick he could be at times.

He reminded her.

“What made you jump from a tower anyway? Was a reckless move. You could have drowned.”

“What made me jump from a tower?” She glared at him, making sure he saw how angry she was again as she thought about that day, as she replayed making the hardest and most terrifying decision of her life. “An overbearing bastard thinking he could do as he pleased with me. The alternative to jumping was being the whore queen to a nymph king, and I would sooner die!”

MacKinnon went quiet again as he stared at her, his eyes bright gold and his mouth set in a hard line. Piercing. Calculating. Rage simmering. She had hit a nerve.

His whole torso flexed as he clenched his fists.

“Explain yourself,” he growled as his expression darkened, his eyebrows knitting hard to narrow his eyes as he flashed fangs with each word he pushed from his lips. “The nymphs who are after you—”

“Are sent by their king. My ex. He got clingy, and I got bored of kissing his arse and petting his ego, so I kicked him to the curb. I didn’t know he was a king.” Although she should have spotted the warning signs, but she had been too swept up in good sex.

MacKinnon bit out, “Kings always think they can take what they want. Well, he cannae have you. You’re mine.”

Hella’s jaw dropped.

She snapped her mouth closed and backed off another step, earning herself a furious look from the wolf. “Spoken like a true king.”

He frowned at her.

Her heart raced, adrenaline surging as she pushed the question to the tip of her tongue, needing to know the answer to it even as she feared it. Her instincts about him couldn’t be wrong. She needed to know they were right. She needed to know how much trouble she was in. Shifter males were notoriously possessive, but nothing compared with the tales she had heard about their pack leaders.

“You’re an alpha, aren’t you?”

The air seemed to seep from the room as he sat there in silence, confirming her suspicion.

Hella backed off another step. “I figured as much. You have all the hallmarks of an alpha. Demanding. Ordering people around. Thinking you have a right to control anyone and anything. Toownanyone.”

He reared back against the pillow, as if she had physically struck him with that last one, and glared at her. “I’m no’ like that, lass. I’d never own anyone.”

She had struck another nerve.

Her gaze dropped to his chest. A chest that bore so many scars.

Something clicked into place and weighed her heart down, instantly vanquishing her anger and destroying every shred of hostility she felt towards him, replacing them with another emotion.

Pity.

She whispered, “Because someone owned you once.”

MacKinnon exploded in a rage so fierce the bed didn’t stand a chance even with her spell reinforcing it. The two posts cracked under the force of his anger as he moved to his knees and surged towards her, his arms at his sides. His hands flew forwards as the wooden beams broke, the other ends of his shackles swinging wildly in front of him, and she tensed as he lunged to his feet.

Fearing he would come at her and do something they would both regret.

But rather than seizing hold of her, he pushed her aside and barrelled down the stairs, and she flinched as she heard the door break.

---