Page 54 of Wolf Desired
“I’m notready to mate anyone, but I will help you. We’ll figure it out, I promise.” She pushed up on her toes and kissed Tiernan on the mouth.
Tiernan slipped his tongue in and cupped the back of her head so she couldn’t pull away until he’d done a thorough job of ravaging her mouth. He left her dizzy and gasping for breath as her body thrummed for more.
They heard voices coming from inside the dorm getting louder and the vibration of footsteps pounded against the metal stairs.
“Let’s get out of here,” Maddox said, eager to avoid the other trainees.
Tiernan grabbed her hand and quickly headed for the trees, take a circuitous route. Leaving the wind at their back, she realized, to carry their scent away from the other shifters. It seemed both of her shifters agreed avoiding the others was a good idea. She wasn’t sure why precisely, and this wasn’t the time to ask them.
* * *
RAFE
Rafe peeredout the window of the second-floor office of the decaying building across the street from the anti-shifter’s drug operation. They’d set up shop in an old warehouse in a long-abandoned industrial park. He’d been watching their targets for four hours, waiting for Maddox to arrive. Before the office door opened, Rafe scented Artemis, Maddox, and Tiernan. The three strolled in, Artemis’s hand in Tiernan’s. She wore a pair of dark jeans with a pale pink t-shirt and a black leather jacket.
They’d brought her. Against his orders. He couldn’t believe they’d fucking brought her.
“Why is she here?” Rafe demanded as Maddox leaned against the door. The damn guard knew how to follow orders, but he’d chosen not to.
“Hello to you too,” Artemis said, her hand still locked to Tiernan’s. “And thank you so much for trying to cut me out of the group after pulling me from a team that would have let me be involved in their op.”
That sarcasm of hers didn’t sit well with him, but it didn’t surprise him. He hadn’t told her before pulling her from Kingsley’s team or talked to her about keeping her off the op. Any op. Probably because he knew deep down his instincts to protect her went against the goals of the program. Humans and shifters learning to work together was a concept he was still getting used to, but endangering a female went against his nature. He could, however, see himself working alongside her—she was bright and open-minded compared to the other humans—but he could not imagine allowing her to go into a dangerous situation like this one.
“Kingsley and his team would have abused you and you know it,” Rafe shot back, hoping to put an end to any argument. “You weren’t safe with them.”
“Is that your goal in this program, Rafe? To see to my safety personally?”
“My goals is to keep the shifters in line so the DSA doesn’t accuse us of breaking the treaty through non-compliance. Or worse.”
“What could be worse?”
“Abject indifference. We need this program to work, to show we’re doing our best to work alongside the DSA and not against them.”
“So you kept me away from Kingsley to keep the peace. Fine. I can see that and honestly, I don’t want to be near his team. But you have no right to keep me from participating in this op.”
“I have every right. I’m the team leader. I won’t risk the lives of this team, yours included, because you can’t follow orders.”
“Can’t follow orders?” she repeated in a high-pitched voice.
He wasn’t being fair, but being alpha wasn’t about being fair. Anger, he could handle. At least by leaving her behind, she’d be alive.
“That’s what I said. And if I told that to Graves, do you know what he’d do?”
“Throw me out of the program.”
He hadn’t thought about that, and he didn’t want to destroy her career or humiliate her. He was hoping the mere mention of Graves would get her to cooperate and return to the dorm. Instead, the color in her cheeks turned bright pink, making her look so damn adorable he wished he could forget about the operation and the DSA right now and work on getting along with her.
He didn’t like how they’d left things personally.
It was a good thing Maddox and Tiernan were standing right there, watching this stand off or he would have caged her against the wall and kissed her until she was offering to do anything he wanted.
Or kneeing him in the balls. He could see such a confrontation going either way with her.
“I can handle any order you throw at me.” To emphasize her point, she crossed her arms over her chest and stood her ground. She wasn’t going anywhere.
“Then prove it.” He slammed the camera into her hands. “Stay in this office, and record while the three of us arrest the anti-shifters in that warehouse.”
“You want me to sit here recording?” she said, her disbelief clear.
