Page 67 of Blade's Battle
Anna pulled her hand from Tess’s grip. “You searched for your wolf and found him. And my wolf came back for me. I won’t leave him.”
Blade’s eyes never once left Anna, even as Tess slipped out the door. She knew it would only be a matter of minutes before Tess brought Damien and the other shifters back. This might be her one and only chance.
As Anna stepped away from the sofa, Blade stepped in her path, keeping her from entering the kitchen. One hand gently drew down her face, down her neck, and then over her left breast as if he was touching something that wasn’t real.
“It’s me. Anna.”
He wrapped a large lock of her hair around his fingers, seemingly entranced by her curls. She stepped into him, and then he took a decisive step back. His eyes grew wide. Fear, of her. With another step to the right, she turned him. Another two steps and she backed into the kitchen. Slowly, without breaking eye contact with Blade, Anna reached for one of the knives hanging from a magnetic strip on the wall behind the sink.
“Blade, you have to come back to me, so we can blood-bond.” Anna winced as she sliced across the palm of her left hand. She needed to do this, to save Blade.
His nostrils flared as he caught the coppery scent of her blood, then his fingers glided down her arm, gently caressing her flesh until his hand rested on the hilt of the knife she held. As he eased it from her grasp, she wondered how lucid a shifter had to be to blood-bond.
“Anna,” he said, his voice raspy as if he’d been yelling or howling a lot.
“Yes, Blade, it’s me.” She ran her hands over his face. The blood from her hand was running down her arm. She tried to take the knife from his hand, to cut his palm and then join hands with him to perform the blood-bond, but he wouldn’t let go of the knife
“No,” he said.
“We have to. Or you’ll go feral.”
“No,” he repeated it was a strain to say that much.
Then everything happened at once. The door flew open and four large wolves entered, teeth bared. Blade placed himself between Anna and the wolves, the knife with her blood still in his hand. Blood dripped down her hand to the floor. The wolves scented the air.
“He’s not feral! Don’t hurt him!” she shouted.
And that’s when Blade shifted and leapt at Damien’s wolf.
* * *
BLADE
Blade paced in the cell. It was one of two cells deep in a cave a few miles from camp. The cell contained more provisions than usual. Cot, pillows, blanket, food, water, candles, matches, even a book. A mystery. One of Frank’s books no doubt. Blade’s friends had given him enough to make him comfortable, just not what he needed. Anna. Yet he had no right to expect her to visit him. They had to protect her. From him.
He didn’t remember everything that had happened in the past two days as he battled his wolf for control, except something had happened in the woods with Anna. He remembered hearing her voice shake with such terror that he’d found the energy to temporarily overtake his wolf. She’d been on the ground, her dress thrown up above her bare backside.
He’d run, far and long, only to be chased by wolves, his friends most likely. They’d thought he’d gone feral. For a while there, Blade had thought that too. But Anna had pulled him back, and she was the reason he had the strength to keep his wolf from completely taking over.
“Anna,” Blade said, barely able to get her name out. His wolf wouldn’t relent any control that he had seized. Even now, Blade had to focus all his energy on maintaining the tenuous dominance he now held over his wolf. Speaking, taking his focus off his wolf was risky andhard.
Callen’s eyes followed Blade as he paced. “She’s fine. Mostly.”
Blade swallowed. “Tell me.”
“Shit, Blade. This isn’t going to do anyone any good.”
“Tell me!”
“She’s shaken up. You attacked her, and then she waited to hear that we’d put you down. Then you show up again. How do you think she is? Scared shitless. But despite all common sense and advice against it, she wanted to blood-bond you. You turned her down. Why?”
He remembered the smell of blood as it dripped from a cut on her palm. She had asked for his hand. His wolf fought him, knowing full well that the blood-bond would permanently silence him. Seeing the fear in Anna’s eyes had convinced Blade that he had to defer to his wolf, for Anna’s sake. His wolf was so strong. If Blade had let her cut him, his wolf might have tried to kill her.
And there was no guarantee a blood-bond would save him at this point. What if it didn’t? His Anna, his Angel, was strong in so many ways, except she’d been emotionally damaged by her first blood-bond, blaming herself for what had happened to her husband. If something were to happen to Blade too, what would that do to her?
“Damn it, Blade! This is madness. Why didn’t you blood-bond her when she offered?”
“Couldn’t risk it. I didn’t have full control of my wolf.” Blade slid along the bars to the ground. “And she’s not ready for it.
