Page 4 of Wolf Desired
She had to get out of here, fast, and form some plan that could keep six agents and twenty-one shifters from finding her. Shifters presently sniffing the air, no doubt capturing her scent.
As Alyssa sprinted for the trees, she hoped she would remember something about how to elude shifters.
* * *
RAFE
Rafe staredat the female as she ran into the woods in a straight line at top speed, fast for a human but too slow to outrun any of the shifters here. That bastard Graves had it in for her for some reason. Not that Rafe cared. She was human, after all, but still, a female. And it went against his grain to stand by while a male abused a female. Though this female looked like she didn’t want anyone’s help, least of all a shifter’s. Each time he’d made eye contact with her, her scent which already wreaked of fear, spiked. She feared shifters, that much was clear, but she hadn’t given in to her fear.
Though each time Graves tried to intimidate Artemis, Rafe’s wolf had growled in defense of her. That had been unexpected. Rafe wasn’t one to ignore his wolf, but getting involved with humans and their selfish ways would cause trouble. He’d play their foolish games here, but only because his alpha had ordered him to do so.
Go to their training. Get to know them, Rafe, and work with them. At worst, you’ll help them bring down some of the anti-shifter groups hunting our people. At best, you’ll learn that not all humans are bad. Some can even be trusted.
His father, his pack’s alpha, had always been tolerant of humans, though Rafe never understood why.
“She’s mine,” Tiernan said, approaching Rafe from behind. Rafe had met the blond shifter from Liam Greyson’s pack in Colorado a year ago when Rafe had approached them about the vaccine for the Shifter Elimination Virus. Half of Rafe’s pack had been infected before they finally received the vaccine from Greyson’s pack. Dozens of shifters had died. Almost as crippling was that the dozens who had contracted the virus and survived had lost their ability to shift.
“That’s a ballsy claim, considering you don’t wear her scent, Tiernan.” Rafe kept his anger in check. He didn’t like being told what to do, especially by a shifter from another pack. But he liked Tiernan, more or less. The male had proved himself last year, arguing with his alpha until he convinced him to share the vaccine with Rafe’s pack. “I bet you haven’t even met her.”
Tiernan’s blue-gray eyes flashed black. His wolf had an interest in the female, apparently.
“Just giving you fair warning. I intend to take her. I don’t want to have to fight you for her, but I will if necessary,” Tiernan said.
“She’shuman,” Rafe said, saying the word that left a foul taste in his mouth. He never understood why any shifter would want to mate a human.
“I don’t care that she’s human. She’s mine,” Tiernan said, with a determination the scout had shown last year when he’d argued with his alpha. The scout went after what he wanted, with a raw and unparalleled strength Rafe admired. Then and now.
Rafe had to admit, the female was beautiful with thick blonde hair that bounced about her shoulders—before she’d pulled it back and braided it—that made her look more like a goddess than a human. And those hazel eyes that wavered from blue to green fascinated him. It was her allure, that pull he hadn’t quite figured out yet, that made looking away from her so fucking impossible.
Human, he reminded himself.Hardly worth the risk.
“We’re here to work,” Rafe reminded Tiernan. “Taking the female could rile the human males. Go into one of the towns and find a female for the night. One that we don’t have to work with.”
“I intend to blood-bond her.”
Rafe turned his full attention to the scout. “You’d risk losing your shifter abilities by blood-bonding a human?”
“My wolf approves of her,” Tiernan snapped.
No, this wasn’t the same easy-going shifter from a year ago. There was definitely something else going on with him. “You don’t have to do what your wolf says,” Rafe added. “You’re in control, not your wolf.”
Tiernan stared at the spot where the female had disappeared into the woods. “Not always,” he said in a low voice so the other shifters wouldn’t hear.
Fuck. Tiernan was going feral. He needed to blood-bond a female to settle his wolf.
“Return to your pack, then. Find a female shifter to blood-bond. Your alpha, ass that he is, will understand and send another to take your place here. I doubt the humans will see it as a breach of the treaty.”
“Times up,” Graves called out. “Pursue when ready. You have one hour to catch your mark.”
“Let’s go, before she gets too far,” Ike, one of the humans, said to a group a few feet away. “We can catch and hog-tie her in minutes if we stop standing around.” The shifters in his group didn’t look worried. They could easily catch a female who was running on foot. They’d taken in her scent already, which annoyed Rafe. Granted, he’d done the same, inhaling her sweet scent, longer than necessary, too. There was something about that female that appealed to him, almost making him forget she was human.
Tiernan stormed toward Ike until Rafe grabbed his arm. “It’s just a training exercise, the reason we’re here,” Rafe said. “The humans won’t hurt her.”
“He’s planning to tie her up.”
“That’s just one of their expressions. I think.”
Tiernan jerked free of Rafe’s hold and bounded into the woods.
