Page 10 of Blade's Battle
“That will work. Just don’t tell them who took you. Despite how much I despise Drake, giving humans a cause to enter wolf-shifter territory is a bad idea. Assuming Drake hasn’t figured out who helped you escape, the treaty between his pack and mine is still intact. If police or military enter gunning for Drake’s pack, my pack will be drawn into a war we won’t be able to survive, let alone win.”
“I’m not looking to cause trouble. For anyone.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I want to get away from him. I’ll take my chances on the interstate. If the police don’t pick me up on the highway, I’m sure someone will. I’ll be careful, not get in a car with anyone who looks suspicious.”
“You think I’d leave you on the interstate where anyone could grab you?” he asked, stunned. “I meant what I said. I’ll make sure you get home, even if I have to steal a car and drive you there myself.”
“I can drive.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“And I won’t steal someone’s car.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you trying to help me? Why go out of your way for me?”
“Because you need to get out of here.”
“And you want nothing in return?” she asked, her suspicion clear. Drake and his pack had done a number on her.
“I’d take a kiss.” Hell, that wasn’t the thing to say, not after what she’d been through, but he’d been thinking it and he wanted to make her laugh. Except the words had come out way too serious and not lighthearted as he’d intended. It was no wonder, given how his wolf had been distracting him, trying to force him to reach forward and run his hands down her arms, steal a kiss even. It was a miracle he hadn’t already done so.
Her eyebrows raised. That sweet round face of hers looked so innocent that he questioned if he was pushing her when he should be pulling back.
“I. . . I think I can handle a kiss,” she said, her voice slightly shaky.
Inside, his wolf growled, displeased at how she’d hesitated as if he couldn’t be trusted. Blade shoved his wolf down, knowing the anger was misplaced. Drake had done this to her. If Hayden didn’t do something about that good-for-nothing brother of his soon, Blade would.
“It’s not an obligation,” Blade said as he winked, what Tess called his ‘go-to move’ with the ladies. Once. . .oncehe’d winked at Tess, to irritate Damien, and now she was convinced he was a ladies’ man.
“Besides, I think Tess would rip me a new one if she found out I touched anything more than your hand.”
“That doesn’t sound like her.”
It wasn’t, but he was trying to put Anna at ease, draw out that smile of hers again. “Tess can be demanding when she wants.” That was the truth. Tess had been hounding him to rescue Anna until the day he finally left. It was a good thing she’d pressured him and Damien. If Blade had been even five minutes later. . . Blade quashed the image of what that shifter would have done to her.
“I don’t know her too well,” Anna admitted.
She looked nervous as if his help depended on her friendship with Tess. The rescue had started out that way, but the moment Blade had seen Anna naked, trapped in a cave without light, and about to be raped by the very shifters guarding her, this rescue had taken on new meaning for him.
The desire to kill those shifters all over again had intensified as he had carried her this morning. He had felt every one of her ribs all too easily. On top of everything else, that bastard Drake had been starving her.
“Tess didn’t say much about you, other than your name and that you needed help. That was enough for Damien. He’s our alpha and her mate.”
“Enough reason for him to rescue me, maybe, but not reason enough for you, I’m guessing.”
“Rather daring talk for a human in your position,” he said, talking without thinking again. Once he’d heard she was human, Blade had been against rescuing her. He’d also been against Damien taking Tess back to their pack; at the time he’d thought she was human. It hadn’t mattered that they’d found Tess barely alive at the research facility they’d raided, though it should have.
Blade had always thought Damien rather closed-minded. As it turned out, Blade was the one who couldn’t let go of his hatred for humans. Humans presented a huge risk to shifters. Except Anna didn’t have it in her to hurt anyone, even if she wanted to. There was a sweetness, a gentleness to her.
“Why don’t you like humans?”
“I have my reasons.” Hell, he didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but he didn’t owe her or anyone an explanation.
She winced as she lowered herself to sit on a felled tree. “I’m sure your reasons are justified, whatever they are,” she said, with a smile that was as fake as the day had been long. And it wasn’t even noon yet.
“They’re justified, and I don’t need you or anyone else telling me otherwise,” he bit out, harsher than earlier. Yeah, he was definitely on a roll, being an ass to her when she clearly didn’t deserve it. And he couldn’t blame his attitude on his wolf. This was all on him. She’d struck a nerve, and he didn’t have the guts to tell her it wasn’t something he talked about much, especially with someone he didn’t know.
“I’m the last person—human or shifter—to judge,” she said, her frown quite obvious this time.
At least it was an honest reaction. He much preferred a genuine frown to her fake smile. He didn’t need anyone to coddle him or try to make him feel better. He’d been on his own a long time before Damien took him in. Now he had Callen, Hayden, Pryce, Frank—hell, even Damien—to tell him when he screwed up or when he finally did something right. Brothers, shifters who stood behind him no matter what, despite his past.
This woman, she was getting under his skin in a way that was risky. He needed to focus on getting out of Drake’s territory.
