Page 54 of Callen's Captive
“I’ll owe you one, or several if you’d like, but we have to get going. The wind’s picking up and we might be in enemy territory.”
He was seriously planning on taking her farther into the forest. “A goodbye kiss then?”
“You’re coming with me,” he repeated, as if she hadn’t heard him the first time. She was panicky, not deaf.
“I’m going back to civilization. With or without you.”
“Go ahead then. I won’t stop you.”
That delicious tower of muscle crossed his arms over his chest and stood there. Her frustration and anger with him mounted. No, he wouldn’t stop her, but he wasn’t going to escort her back either. He had a lot of shifters to save. She didn’t need him; she’d be fine on her own.
Kate spun on her heels a full three-sixty. Trees, trees, and more trees. Her panic mounted as she turned one way, then another, her eyes searching for any indication of which way to go.
“Can’t you just point me in the right direction?” she asked, her voice shaky as she pivoted where she stood, trying to deduce which way ledoutof the forest. Her stomach twisted and a cold breeze traveled through her. She felt really sick, like she was going to throw up.
“I could, but I won’t.”
“Bastard,” she said as she started walking. And here she had always thought of Callen as honorable. He was using her ignorance of the forest to get his way. She would not be manipulated like that. It was outrageous, unfair, and. . . God, she wanted to hurt him, show him what it felt like to be lost and scared and cold and. . .
He was following her. She desperately wanted to run into his embrace and let his body, his presence, calm her.
Tears filled her eyes, but she refused to let him see how much she was falling apart. Why the hell was he following her, anyway? He had a pack to save. Wasn’t that the whole point of not helping her? No. He had said it before, he wanted her. Somehow she didn’t think he’d pull such an underhanded trick just because he planned to have some fun with her. He was like all the rest of the guys who manipulated the circumstance, hoping to get lucky with her. Those assholes pushed her out of their car or stranded her at the movie theatre the second she said ‘no.’
“Stop following me,” she said after several minutes. “Go find your pack. I don’t need you anymore.”
“What if you have another panic attack?”
“I’ll be fine. Always am.”
* * *
CALLEN
The hurt in her voice, the loneliness, as if no one cared, drilled home how alone Kate was. His stomach twisted, but it was better to continue deceiving her, keep her moving in the direction of his pack, than letting her return to Riverview or another town where the WSSO would find her.
In the forest, he could protect her, and he finally recognized this section of the woods. Three years ago, Callen and Blade had tracked a shifter to the lake two miles back, a shifter who had gone feral. Callen shuddered from the memory of putting the shifter down. That was the worst part of his job, having to put down a shifter who had done nothing wrong except have the misfortune of his wolf going feral and posing a risk not just to other shifters, but to humans as well.
Presently, he and Kate were on the outskirts of Drake’s territory, which meant this area was not the safest for either of them. They needed to go north, and the faster they crossed Drake’s territory, the better.
“You’ve had these panic attacks before?” He wanted to keep her talking and focused on anything other than the woods that terrified her.
“I told you I didn’t want to go into the woods. I wasn’t just saying that because I don’t like getting mud on my shoes.”
She had told him that, but he hadn’t really listened before. For an enforcer who was supposed to know how to listen, to read between the lines, he was doing a shitty job when it came to her.
“But you’ve been in the woods before, twice in fact.”
“How do you know that?” From the sound of it, she was trying to mask the sound of her sniffling. His Kate was upset, hurt, and crying because he was an ass, and he could do nothing to console her. They needed to keep moving.
“On our way to the cabin, we crossed your trail. That’s when I first scented you.” Callen had been so caught up in her scent that he had allowed it to distract him, almost costing Anna and Blade their lives.
“I was worried about Anna. I hadn’t heard from her in months. I was hoping she was simply caught up doing research, but something didn’t feel right. She’d been good about contacting me at least once a month before then. When I reached the cabin, there was no sign that she’d been there in a long time.”
“How did you reach the cabin?”
“I hitchhiked to the nearest access point from the road.”
Of course, she did. There was nothing riskier for a woman than hitchhiking. Except for hacking the WSSO.
