Page 39 of Fated to the Warrior Wolf

“Damn, look at her glisten. She’s the hot kind of trashy. You don’t want to take her home to your mother, but I’d love to bend her over that weight bench. You know what I mean?”

My upper lip curled at their disrespectful talk, but I stayed silent as I searched the gym for who they’d pinpointed.

“Trashy?Lookat her. You know she’s a good lay. Who cares if she’s a mutt? I’d still tap that ass even if it is half-human. It’s not like you’re going to bite her, just fuck her.”

“Yeah, well, rumor has it somebody’s already tapped her, and she’s knocked up.”

Two things happened simultaneously. The asshat’s words sank in as Leigh popped up from a deep squat, kettlebell clutched between her hands. She had hot pink headphones on, and her back was to the two men ogling her.

Red fell over my vision as they laughed, and I grabbed both of them by the back of the neck.

“What the hell, man?” Karl had the bad sense to complain, whereas Sven played possum as I dragged them both from the room.

“The hell is that I’m challenging you two. Apparently,somebody needs to dust the ring off and teach you some fuckingrespectfor the females of this pack,” I snarled, not releasing my grip.

“You can’t challenge both of us,” Karl complained again, clearly too stupid to know when to shut the hell up.

I ran him into a nearby stack of free weights on the way by, knocking a twenty-five pounder free to roll across the gym, but I didn’t stop to pick it up. I had asses to beat.

I almost made it to the door of the gym, silently seething as I imagined all the ways I was going to punish these two ingrates before I fired them on the spot for disrespecting Leigh, when I heard her.

“Gael?”

I froze, Leigh’s softly accented voice calling to me like a siren song from the old stories.

“What’s going on?” she asked with a worried frown.

I shook the two men in my hands, my voice low and full of painful promises. “You move or speak, and I’ll bury you in a shallow ditch by day’s end.”

Two frantic nods, and I released them to turn toward her. She’d popped one ear of the headphones off, kettlebell dangling from one hand. She looked like she’d just stepped out of a damn fitness magazine, and if it wasn’t for my rage at the two assholes behind me, I’d be fighting a major boner.

Who knew workout chic did it for me?

Hell, I didn’t care what she was wearing.Leighdid it for me.

“Nothing you need to worry about. Just taking out the trash,” I said, unable to keep the ice out of my tone even as I pasted on a poor excuse for a smile.

“The… trash.” She said the words slowly, clearly, as her gaze landed on the two men—no, fuck that; men didn’t talk about women that way. The twoboysbehind me. “Is everything all right?” she asked, taking a step toward me.

“Absolutely fine.” I gave her my best cocky grin, and theworry line between her eyebrows disappeared. My wolf rumbled his approval, and I found myself stepping forward against my will, letting my hands possessively grip her elbows as I leaned in and sucked in a deep lungful of her scent. She was indeed glistening with a light sheen of sweat, pheromones on full display.

My wolf’s rumble deepened, and my eyes flew open as it hit me square in the chest.

Coffee and cream… but there was something else there, something deep and complex. I let my nose touch her skin, chasing her perfume like an addict.

Vanilla.

“Gael, you’re starting to freak me out. What’s happening right now?”

I couldn’t do this with an audience. Especially not an audience of fucking idiots who didn’t deserve to share the same air as my girl.

“Trust me?”

“Umm, yes?”

I nodded, then spun back toward the two idiots as I slid my cell from my pocket. “Reed. I’ve got two members of pack security who are fired, effective immediately, who will be waiting for escort outside the doors of the gym. Can you send someone to pick them up and see them off pack grounds?”

“Gael, always a pleasure. Is there a reason you’re not handling this? Security is your purview, and I’m busy catching up on restaurant work,” he said, and I ignored the self-righteous tone because there were more important things in life.

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