Page 44 of An Unexpected Claim

Chapter Twenty

Nathan

Peyton whirled around and glared at me, but her indignation had no effect.

I was too furious with her. She deserved a hell of a lot more than one smack to the ass as far as I was concerned.

“Get dressed,” I ordered, then marched down the hall to my bedroom and shut the door. Leaning back against the wall, I took a deep breath and tried to release some of my anger so that I wouldn’t turn right back around and blister Peyton’s ass for scaring the shit out of me.

How did this woman strip away years of learned patience and rational thought in a matter of seconds? The woman knew exactly how to push my buttons and I hadn’t even known they existed. No one ever made me lose my temper these days. Not for centuries. Even at my most deadly, when I’d faced down the worst evil imaginable, I’d always been cool and methodical. I lived by logic and analytical thinking. But Peyton managed to blow all of it away in one fell swoop.

I’d managed to escape disaster at work for an afternoon and came home early so Peyton and I could talk. When I’d found the house empty, my first reaction had been irritation, especially when I hadn’t found a note of explanation from her.I’d specifically told her to stay home and hadn’t considered the idea that she might not obey. People rarely defied me.

Then the fact that she hadn’t left a message started to percolate in my mind and I wondered if it was because something had happened to her. My wolf was pacing, his emotions on a rollercoaster like mine, but in a more primal way. He didn’t understand why some of my anger was directed at Peyton, he just wanted to know where the hell she was and that she was safe.

I searched the whole house for signs of forced entry or a struggle and found nothing, but I caught the faintest trace of her scent out back. I walked down to the water and inspected the area for a trail or any indication of where she’d gone.

I could tell she’d been alone from the lack of any other scent, but the brief rush of relief I felt swept through me with rage biting at its heels.

She’d gone out alone?

I’m going to kill her.

She’d intentionally put herself at risk by going out in the open, alone and unprotected.And pregnant.

I’d jogged back to the house, my anger mounting with every step. What if something happened to her? What if he got to her? Took her? Hurt her?

These questions sparked fear and it swirled around with my lack of control over the situation. If I wasn’t with her, I couldn’t protect her. It was what I did. But for some reason, one I’d been trying to decipher, it was different with Peyton. The emotions built on each other until they exploded into the fury consuming me.

I quickly undressed, leaving my clothes in a pile on the ground, and shifted in the air as I sprang off the porch.

My wolf began tracking her, something we were both extremely skilled at. Our best option was to follow her scent, but we almost lost it a few times because it was so faint. How long had she been gone? Everything I was feeling was amplified with every few minutes that passed.

Her smell eventually disappeared at the lake.Fuck. We were going to have to search all over to catch it again because there was no way for us to tell where she’d climbed out of the water. Or if someone had dragged her from it.

Scanning the area, we spotted the falls and I wondered if perhaps she’d gone to the cavern underneath. My wolf had the same thought, and he dove into the water, swimming as fast as he could to the smooth rock ledge behind the crashing wall of water.

A small amount of relief trickled through me when we caught her scent again. Then we returned to our hunt.

By the time we finally found her panther, dark had fallen—it came early in the autumn, so it wasn’t all that late, but the time wasn’t the issue. The danger lurking in the cover of darkness was.

After a couple hours of searching, my emotions stewing the whole time, seeing her relaxed and asleep on the grass turned up the heat. Knowing she was completely unaware, making herself vulnerable to every danger, sent it all boiling over.

My wolf had practically tamed Peyton’s cat, and I found myself envious of their simple nature. She didn’t follow meekly along, and I had the feeling she wasn’t happy to be ordered around, but she didn’t fight it. She followed my wolf’s lead, submitting to the alpha. Felines were not easy animals to impress or tame, so her acquiescence was extremely telling.

Our animals felt the same connection, but I was wary of the fact that they might believe there was more to it. If they became too attached, it would be very difficult to stay away from Peyton without my wolf going mad, and that never turned out well for the animal’s human side.

When we arrived on my land she shifted, returning to the stubborn, frustrating, incredibly sexy womanwhom half of me wanted to throttle and the other half wanted to fuck. Although doing both at the same time was an interesting idea as well.

Now that I was alone in my room, I expected to swiftly calm down, but it didn’t happen. Running my hands through my hair, I exhaled harshly, then stalked to my closet and grabbed a pair of sweatpants. I twisted my hair up at the back of my head and by then I’d gained a little control over myself. My wolf was wary of my attitude, seeming unsure that he wanted to confront Peyton. In his mind, her cat had submitted to him, so the situation had been handled. Unfortunately, I had the feeling I was in for some hissing and clawing from the panther’s human.

After opening the door to my room, I walked into the hall and frowned when I scented that Peyton was still in her room. I padded down to her door and rapped on it with my knuckles. “Kitchen,” I barked before turning to leave. Then I stopped and turned back halfway. “Don’t make me drag your ass out of there, baby,” I warned.

I didn’t wait for her reply before continuing to the kitchen. My stomach grumbled and I decided to make us dinner. She needed to eat, and I needed something to occupy my hands because the desire to wring her neck—or spank her—was still plaguing me.

About two minutes before I would have gone to get her, she finally trudged into the living room wearing shorts and a loose T-shirt. She looked tired and a part of me wanted to simply let this go and tell her to rest. But that part was shouted down and skulked away.

The gold flecks in her emerald eyes swirled with desire when they perused my naked chest. Hunger for her welled up inside me, but I refused to give in to it until Peyton and I had reached an understanding. Considering the furiousness in her gaze, she wasn’t likely to be open to it at this moment anyway.

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