Page 20 of Connected

As he returns, he frowns. Her expression tells him just how much pain she’s in. “You okay to walk or you want me to carry you? It’s just through those trees—not far. Somewhere drier, that we can shelter and get some rest.”

“No, I don’t want you to carry me. Zak, really, I’m fine. You’ve got enough problems of your own. Just show me the way.”

She grips his hand and follows him into the darkness.

As they reach the rocky hideaway, she slumps down with relief—glad to be out of the wet but happier to be away from that hell hole. Her skin’s wet, and surprisingly, she shivers with a chill.

Zak frowns—a wolf feeling cold is an oddity and he’s concerned. “Kat, are you cold?”

“You know I am a little. I guess maybe because there’s no Luna?”

“I don’t know, but come here.” He beckons her over then sitting behind her, pulling her close, he wraps his strong arms around her.

Kat leans her head back against his chest, enjoying the radiating warmth of his body on hers. She’d never contemplated how weak she would be without her wolf’s strength. How without Luna she would be just a woman—ahumanwoman—with all the weakness and vulnerability of ahuman.

Placing her hand to her shoulder, she massages the knotted tension in her neck muscles. She sighs; exhausted but comforted to know that the large wolf is protecting her. She closes her eyes. Zak leans against one of the larger boulders, using the solid rock for support. It’s uncomfortable, but he stays quiet and doesn’t complain, just continues to stroke Kat’s hair and comfort her while she rests.

“Zak,” she whispers softly, “why don’t you go? You could leave me here and go. You’d be able to shift—you’d be so much quicker without me. I’m just slowing you down.”

“Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me? Do you really think I’m gonna leave you here, alone? Like this; this helpless?”

“I’m not helpless, I’m just… incapacitated,” she smiles.

“Well incapacitated, helpless, whatever you wanna call it, I’m not leavin’ you. You do know what would happen, right, if Digby found out I left you? At the very least, he’d cut off my balls and serve them up to me as a starter. So no, I’m not gonna be leavin’ you anytime soon. Now, shut the hell up and get some rest. We’ve gotta leave here soon—put some distance between us and that place before Alvarez comes back.”

“Hmm…” she sighs and taking a breath she nestles tightly against him. His warmth is so nice and again she closes her eyes.

Brushing her hair to one side, Zak inspects her neck. It’s red-raw, and the silver burns are like a ring of small blisters. He closes his eyes and lets out a growl from deep inside his chest while dreaming of what he’s going to do to Alvarez when he comes back for him.

***

Kat sniffs, her nose irritated by a strong odor—the smell from the blood on the shirt.

In pain, she rubs at the cut on her arm. Since Alvarez removed her implant, everything now smells ten times stronger—the blood that covers them, and Zak’s heady wolf scent.

Still wrapped in his arms, she can really appreciate the warm comforting masculine smell. It’s a long time since she’s properly smelled a male wolf. Zak’s scent has an earthy tone and is potently intoxicating but mixed with the stale shifter blood, it’s not so good. He may not actually be alpha, but he’s as damn close as it comes to being one. If it weren’t for Darius and Digby being head of this pack, Zak would undoubtedly be the leader himself.

“Urgh… Zak, you stink!”

“Yeah, well you don’t smell so great yourself,” he laughs.

They both flinch as a sudden crack of lightning flashes across the sky, and then the rain comes again. It fills the warm night air with a freshness and Kat stands up. Stretching, she removes the filthy shirt from her body and steps from their resting place out into the tropical storm.

The wet runs in torrents over her skin and she tips her head back, allowing the cool water to soothe the hot burn marks on her neck.

Zak smiles, watching her—then he, too, steps from their sheltered cave to join her. He can’t help but stare at her naked body and think just how beautiful she is—imagining how magnificent the wolf contained within that body might be.

“What the hell’re you doin’?” He smiles, watching as she now rubs her hands over her arms and down her legs.

“I’m trying to clean off some of this blood and get rid of this hideous smell. Now that my sense of smell has returned, I can’t stand it—it’s making me feel nauseous.” She turns around to look at him and places a hand on her hip as the other rubs the ache in the crook of her neck and she smiles.

All he notices—in the dim light of the moon—is her wet curls hanging loosely around her shoulders and the way her nipples peak in the cool air. Coughing, he corrects his thoughts and looks away—embarrassed by how turned on she’s making him feel.

It’s not exactly his fault, more the result of the shift he endured earlier. It’s been a long time since he shifted for that length of time and dealt with such a frenzied attack but now he remembers how enjoyable the after-shift feeling is—although he also remembers how hungry it makes him, which is not so great when you have no food supplies.

“Zak… I’ve been thinking. We really need to go back and get them out of there—those other wolves. That poor wolf mom, I mean, she’s lost her pup, and she’s not even gonna know what happened. We can’t just abandon them there.”

“Kat, I said no. I told you, we’ll go back when we get the others. We need help first—we can’t protect them on our own. Hell, you can’t even shift right now, so we can’t help them at all. And what did I tell you about what Digby would do if I left you? Yeah, well, if I take you back there, then my dick is gettin’ served with my balls, and you know that.”

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