Page 7 of Wolf Desired
Maddox froze. Just like with Isabella, he couldn’t move. Even as his wolf nipped at him to save her, his body locked up.
“I’m okay,” Artemis puffed out as she lowered herself to a sturdy branch.
The coppery odor of her blood, mixed with that sweet honey vanilla bouquet Maddox had come to recognize as her scent, filled his nostrils. “You’re injured.” He didn’t know where exactly, but the mere fact that she was injured irritated him.
As did the fact that he and his wolf had taken such an interest in her.
“A minor cut,” she called down amid heavy breathing. “Give me a sec. Need to. . . catch. . . my breath.”
“I’ll come up to help you.”
“No! I’m not coming down. Not until—”
“Not until your hour’s up? I figured that part out.”
“Good, maybe you’re not so dense after all.”
He had a good mind to smack her bottom for insulting him. But he’d insulted her first, so she got a pass. This time. Though he liked the idea of smacking her finely shaped backside. Just enough to arouse her, make her pliable to all the dirty and delicious things he could do with her.
“I’m coming up,” he announced as he started climbing.
“No, don’t!”
The second he reached her, his wolf started growling until Maddox shut him down fast. The last thing the female needed was his wolf growling and scaring her. Her cheek and neck were scraped, she had a bloody nose, and her top was torn, exposing the top of her left breast.
Maddox worked at calming him and his wolf, trying not to care, but that was harder than he expected. She’d been injured because of him. He should have backed away, left her alone, but he’d given in to his attraction to her, to his curiosity to see what it was about the human that had stirred his wolf. And him.
Working with a human, having a fragile partner, would distract him from the assignment. He preferred the solitude of being a border guard. Being responsible for another, especially a human? Forget it.
“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” she said, as she clutched the top of her shirt, trying to keep herself covered.
Soft. Vulnerable. And yet so very strong.
“Why?” he said, trying to remove the condemnation from his voice. This wasn’t the time to yell at her for needlessly risking herself, all for a challenge.
She shrugged. Whatever her reasoning was, she wasn’t going to share.
A twig snapped in the distance. His wolf’s hackles went up instantly, placing him on alert, not for himself, but for her. The need to protect her appeared out of nowhere, shocking him, but he could ponder that later. Right now, he had a job to do.
Maddox inhaled deeply, trying to ignore her luxurious scent and identify who or what was approaching. “Your trick at the river didn’t last as long as you’d hoped. I scent two. . . no, three heading our way. If you come down now, you have a chance of outrunning them. But if you stay in this tree, they’ll surely take you.”
“You meancatch, don’t you?”
He had to remember this wasn’t his pack and while she was an unmated female, she had protection here. Her position, the agents around her.Him.
“Yes, I meant catch.”
“Why are you trying to help me, 86?”
Maddox held his hand out to her. “I don’t want to see you get hurt. Is that so hard to believe, female?”
Those sultry hazel eyes stared at him as if she didn’t believe him. Well, he wasn’t going to beg her to believe him. But he wouldn’t leave her either.
“Suit yourself,” he said as he climbed down. “You got up there by yourself, you certainly can get down. Run or don’t. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m just here to fulfill the treaty.”
As soon as he reached the ground, she started descending the tree. She moved gracefully, like a puma, enough to make him wonder if she were part cat shifter, but another draw of her scent confirmed she had no shifter in her. Artemis was all human, with a delectable scent that stirred a part of him that had remained numb since Isabella’s death.
When she reached the ground, she adjusted her clothing and reached for her back pocket. “Damn. I lost it.”
