Page 11 of Blade's Battle
“Stay here,” he said, walking away without an explanation. He needed distance from her, from this woman who had a way of reminding him of home, not Damien’s pack, but the one he’d left behind so long ago, the one that would haunt him until the day he died.
Blade walked far enough to escape her intoxicating scent. What he and his wolf really needed was a run to settle that all-consuming restlessness that had crept up on him. Thinking of his birth pack had set off his wolf this time, not that it took much these days. The entire time he’d carried Anna, his wolf had been completely silent, as if it were his wolf’s arm he’d been stroking with his thumb and not hers.
“Blade?” her voice reached for him. For as eager as he was to get back to her, he was still too unsettled. He didn’t want to take his frustration out on her, but he couldn’t leave her alone for long.
The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end. Blade scented the air, caught nothing unusual, but just the same, his instincts said to grab Anna and run. Blade raced back to where he’d left her.
Anna was gone.
In under a minute, he found her scent, a unique mix of sunshine and flowers. She hadn’t traveled far, a few hundred yards into a patch of Rocky Mountain columbine. She was standing there, surrounded by dozens of lavender and white flowers, crushing flowers against the red, plaid shirt. Her scent had changed, her fear prevalent once again. Blade’s insides knotted, knowing this was above his paygrade.
“Anna?” he softly called out to her.
“The shirt smells like him,” she said, her voice shaking as she struggled to hold herself together.
The crushed remains of several flowers drifted from her hands. Small bits and pieces of the petals stuck to her shirt and under her nails, but it was that haunted look in her eyes that nearly gutted Blade.
“I’m not complaining. I’m grateful to have clothing, e-even h-his. But the smell. . . It makes it harder to forget.” Tears dulled her gorgeous blue eyes.
Since the moment he’d given her the shirt to wear, he’d been smelling her attacker’s foul scent as it clung to her like a disease. He’d chosen to ignore it, to focus on her sweet, floral scent beneath the male’s stench, never once considering how that foul smell could be affecting her.
The columbine’s slight but rich aroma wouldn’t be enough to mask the shifter’s scent. Nonetheless, he crushed several of the flowers in his hand and gently brushed the remnants on the top of her shirt. “Closer to your nose, so you can smell the petals better.”
Blade quickly clipped another flower and slipped the stem into her hair—rat’s nest that it was. “The lavender’s a good color for you.”
Wide eyes followed his every move, the scent of her fear gradually dissipating.
His Angel had grown quiet again, as quiet as when she’d first dressed in the shirt and they’d run from the cave. Then, a slight smile graced her sweet face. Seeing her smile brought such joy to him, especially if it meant he’d helped drive her fear away.
“Time to get going, Angel.”
She followed him, her limp more pronounced than earlier. Without warning, he scooped her back into his arms. It was amazing how that simple contact with her calmed both him and his wolf. He’d never heard of such a thing happening without a blood-bond. Maybe it was simply her scent that appealed to him. The scent of a female could be quite heady, especially to a male about to go feral.
Whatever it was, it wouldn’t last long. With his wolf growing more restless each day, Blade would have to find a shifter to blood-bond soon.
Bright blue eyes were staring at him. “You don’t need to carry me. I’m fine,” she objected, as he expected, but she wasn’t fighting him like the other times.
“The bottoms of your feet say otherwise.”
She bit her lip. The expression was too damn sexy to ignore. His cock throbbed, and he pictured her stretched out naked beneath him. This was all going to hell. First, he’d killed two of Drake’s pack at the cave, another two that had been trailing them, and now he couldn’t find a safe route back to his pack or even to the highway, as he’d promised. They were going in the wrong direction, and he had to contend with a woman, a human no less, whose every move distracted him, making his mind wander from his task of reaching home to thoughts of kissing her, touching her. . .
That oversized flannel shirt hung a bit too low off her left shoulder, flashing enough of her breast to catch his eye. Blade bit his tongue, curtailing the desire to flirt.
“Please put me down.”
“You’re in no shape to walk.” Maybe they should cut over through Liam’s territory. At least that would get him away from Drake’s pack.
“I promise, I won’t wander off again if you put me down,” she said, her voice rigid now. Fear was rolling off her like water off a rock.
The moment Blade put her down, she looked away. He’d have to go slow with her. What the hell was he thinking? There was no ‘going slow’. This wasn’t a date. There was no possible future, let alone a blood-bond, with her. She washuman.
And he’d left her alone not out of necessity, but because he couldn’t get his own emotions, let alone his wolf, fully under control. Drake’s shifters could find them at any moment—he had to pull himself together fast. “I won’t let him hurt you,” he said, hoping to reassure her, even though she had every reason to doubt him with the way he’d left her suddenly.
There it was, that fake smile he didn’t like. Then, she started walking—limping—back up the path.
“Are you afraid of me, Anna?” he hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but the idea of her being afraid of him, of hiding herself from him bothered him, more than it should. “Is that why you don’t want me to carry you even though your feet are torn up?”
She was staring at him, blinking those gorgeous blues at him. “I don’tknowyou.”
