Page 62 of Callen's Captive
“Don’t antagonize him, Callen!” Kate whispered from behind.
“Really, Ford? With a treaty between our packs, you should be a bit more diplomatic, like offering a gift when you’re on our land.”
“She leaves here, with me.”
“Oh, that’s why all the hostility. You think I’m asking you to hand her over for keeps. Relax, Ford. We’re happy to let you return home with her. We’ll even escort you. We’re just going to play with her for a bit first, that’s all. Call it a travel fee for crossing through our territory.”
The two other shifters spread out. With the rock behind Kate and Callen, they were trapped. Without warning, all four males shifted. Callen finished shifting all of a second before the other three, but it gave him the time to leap first. His wolf slammed into Chitman, sending both shifters into a roll. Now she understood why the other two shifters had moved away. Callen couldn’t take all three at once if they spread out.
Callen’s wolf tore into Chitman, biting arms and legs, sending blood everywhere. His yelps made Kate’s stomach turn, but it was the other two wolves she had to worry about as they skulked past Callen and Chitman.
Kate grabbed a fist full of dirt and flung it into the brown wolf’s eyes. “You bitch,” the shifter swore when he shifted back to human form and swung at her. A dark hand reached out, grabbed the shifter’s fist, and wrenched it back with such speed she barely registered that Callen had shifted back to human form. Kate heard a sickening snap of bone just before the tan wolf lunged at Callen. Callen rolled, taking the second shifter with him and placing him in the direct path of the charging wolf.
Wicked fast, Callen shifted back to his wolf form. The massive wolf positioned himself between her and the threat. Yellow eyes practically glowed as he snarled at the tan wolf. Kate sank her hand into Callen’s fur. She needed that connection, to feel his strength, his determination.
Callen’s head dropped low between his shoulders, a prey preparing to attack. The second she released her hand, Callen lunged at the tan wolf. The tan wolf raced into the woods, Callen closing the gap fast as the two disappeared from sight.
The shifter with the broken arm had disappeared, but Chitman had shifted back to human form. He was naked, bleeding from various bites, and heading straight toward her with a murderous look in his eyes.
Callen hadn’t returned.
Kate tore through the plastic bag in her backpack and withdrew her gun. She leveled it at Chitman who stopped five feet from her.
“Tell her to put the gun down, Ford,” Chitman said over his shoulder.
A low growl started behind Chitman. Yellow eyes glowed in the dark. Kate bit back the cry of relief. Callen hadn’t left her.
“If she kills me, it will destroy the treaty.”
The growl behind Chitman intensified.
“I think that’s your cue to leave while you still can,” Kate said, keeping her voice as level as the gun she aimed at him. “And tell your alpha the next time he or any of his shifters threatens me or Callen, I won’t restrain myself.”
* * *
CALLEN
Kate was as courageous as she was beautiful, but the incident with Drake’s shifters never should have happened. Callen glanced back at Kate as she followed behind, exhausted. They’d been hiking for five days since the river nearly drowned them. Hell, he’d totally dismissed what she’d been going through since before he found her. Two weeks of dodging and running from the WSSO were wearing on her as much as her fear of the woods.
She wouldn’t admit her fatigue, however. His strong, beautiful Kate never admitted weakness, including her sexual inexperience. She didn’t trust him. That’s what this awkwardness between them came down to. Oh, she trusted he wouldn’t hurt her, but she didn’t trust her heart to him. He’d read her expression when she’d faced off with Chitman; she thought Callen had left her. She still expected he would leave her, abandon her at some point. He’d have to prove her wrong. He’d move heaven and earth for her.
“You haven’t said anything about what happened back there,” she said.
“There’s nothing to say.” There wasn’t. He’d screwed up, again. He’d let his desire for her, his need to be inside her, cloud his judgment. That wasn’t like him in the least. Why was he so off his game lately?
There was no way Chitman and his friends would ever have gotten that close to him had he been paying attention. He was very lucky it was Chitman’s group who had attacked instead of well-trained shifters. Going up against three of Drake’s guards would have been ugly. The thought of what could have happened to Kate if he had lost made his wolf growl.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice shaky.
He forgot his growling made her nervous. “Sorry, my wolf’s mad. Didn’t mean to scare you.” He wanted to reach out to her, to take her hand, but he wasn’t ready to be rebuffed. Not that she didn’t have every right to turn him away. She certainly did. He hadn’t protected her, not as well as he should have. She never should have been exposed to that filth. They’d threatened her, in front of him and his wolf, no less.
Callen and his wolf had both wanted to rip their limbs off and leave them as food for the rodents, but she wasn’t ready to see that. She’d been upset when he’d beaten the clerk, and shredding a shifter—three—was a bloody, gruesome sight that even some shifters couldn’t stomach.
The rush from the fight and his fear for Kate had left Callen with an insane amount of pent-up energy and no way of releasing it. Sex, hard sex, would do it, but he wouldn’t use her like that, even if she consented.
A virgin. . . Hell, he’d nearly thrust into her, no condom, no birth control, no attempt to prepare her or even ensure he took it slow for her first time.
He kept hearing Chitman’s words over and over again. How dare Drake’s shifters threaten Callen’s mate! No, that wasn’t right. She wasn’t his mate. He had never asked her to be his mate, nor would he because he couldn’t, not as long as he wasn’t fully truthful with her. And here he had chastised her for not being truthful with him.
