Page 85 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
Linc’s eyes lit with fire from within. “Vee,” he said with more strength than I’d thought he still possessed, “I am not leaving you alone. Not now, not after what happened. I’ll sleep outside ifI have to, but thatthingis still out there. I won’t risk it coming for you. I can’t.”
Swallowing was suddenly impossible. My throat was dry and blocked with a lump the size of my fist at the protectiveness he was exuding. Regardless of how weak he was, how hurt he was, Lincoln still wanted to be there. For me.
If I let him. A man who shouldn’t be where he was. Who shouldn’t have the wounds he had. Who shouldn’t … who shouldn’t … anything. None of it should be!
“Vee,” he said softly, taking my hand and squeezing it in that annoyingly reassuring way that could always break through the darkness. “You can trust me. I swear it.”
I stared at where my hand was sandwiched between his thick paws, disappearing into the giantness that was Lincoln. My gut was telling me he meant it. That I could believe him and be safe with him.
But then I looked up. Into his eyes. One blue. One amber. The same eyes as the wolf.
Impossible …
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sylvie
My entire musculoskeletal frame groaned in relief as Lincoln’s weight disappeared, following his body down onto the couch in my grandmother’s living room. It was still her house, in my mind. Which is why I winced so hard when the furniture protested loudly under the sudden bulk deposited onto it. The wood creaked, and for a second, I thought it was going to give out. Lincoln more fell than anything, but the couch held together, for now.
Letting out an audible noise of relief, I gently stood up straight, my hands on my lower back to help stretch it out. Getting Lincoln back from the forest had been a blur of grunts, groans, yelps, and sweat, earned one shaky, wobbly step at a time. It would have been hard enough on solid, even ground, but to move him through the forest? Pure hell.
The only way we’d even made it was because he’d regained some strength partway through. Not much but enough that my spine wasn’t slowly being compressed like a spring anymore. Not fully, at least.
“Are you okay?” Lincoln asked now, staring up at me from his makeshift throne of blankets, made double-thick to act as a protective layer for the couch itself. “Did I hurt you?”
“Maybe my ego,” I muttered, still stretching. When I straightened again, the floor seemed an inch or two farther away as my spine unclenched. “I always told myself I was decently fit, that in a fire if I had to, I could haul a man out of harm’s way. But now …”
Lincoln smiled, his eyes twinkling with amusement. “I am … larger than most men.”
Don’t look. Don’t look.
I was so tired and sore, I managed to follow through with my mental process. I didn’t look at his groin from the obvious double entendre. I did, however, end up having to tear my eyes away from his biceps. His gouged and bloodied biceps.
That recognition brought me right back to the present, snapping me out of whatever spell his voice had tried to cast on me.
“What you are is a man who is no position to make jokes,” I said, my hands on my hips, glaring down at him. “You need to offer up some straight answers, or I’m calling an ambulance right now. No hesitation. I’ll tell them to send the police too.”
Lincoln’s eyes had never left mine, but now they darkened, his face tightening into a straight-mouthed stare that reflected the mood change. The ice in his blue eye hardened. The fires in the other danced higher.
“You don’t have to call them,” he said slowly. “I told you that already.”
“No?” I said, crossing my arms. “Maybe I should call the pound instead.”
There it was. I tossed the crazy idea out into the air between us, finally vocalizing it.
Lincoln didn’t seem shocked by the suggestion. He did blink, very slowly, taking his time. “Why would you call them?”
Anger surged up, burning away the tired ache in my muscles and sending fresh frenetic energy to my brain. “No,” I snapped, stabbing a finger at him hard enough he leaned backward.
“No?”
“Yes. I mean, no. No more of that, Lincoln. You aren’t going to do that to me, not anymore. No more gaslighting. No more distraction. No more avoiding the question, hoping I’m too stupid to push it. I know what I’m seeing.”
Lincoln rubbed his jaw, wincing as his fingers found yet another bruise. “What are you seeing?”
It was another question, not an answer, but perhaps it was fair I answered it.
“First, there’s this, thisthingthat comes out of the damn tree in my yard after a lightning strike from a storm that never actually existed. It kills the tree dead. Doesn’t burn it, just turns it to dead black wood. Then of course the trunk splits apart, the monster you fought comes out and chases me into the forest. That’s thefirstfucking thing I’m seeing.”
