Page 64 of Wolf Desired
Despite her effort to ignore Graves, his words had begun to sink in with her. As the shifters and humans piled out of the room, Alyssa squeezed by several to get ahead of her team.
“Artemis, wait up,” Maddox called. She waited for her teammates. “You can’t let Graves get to you.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why are you running ahead?” Tiernan asked, even as his expression soured. “You’re trying to get away from us.”
Her eyes moved from shifter to shifter. Three very different, very handsome, and honorable shifters. “I just need some time alone. Time to think for a bit, okay?”
“I was hoping to spend some time with you,” Tiernan said.
More than what Graves said was bothering her, but it wasn’t something she could share with her teammates. But she had to tell them something.
She caressed Tiernan’s face. “I’d love to spend some time with you, but right now, I need to sort out some things in my head. Despite what you think of Graves, he had some valid points in there. I can’t afford to lose my edge. And not just because it puts my life in danger, but I’d be risking you, Rafe, and Maddox, too.”
“But—”
“Just a few days, okay? But if your wolf gets to be too much, you come to me. No need to struggle. Come to me any time, day or night. I won’t abandon you. I care too much about you, Tiernan.”
A smile crept onto his face, which lifted her spirits. As for Rafe, he stood there stoic and not saying anything at all.
“And here I thought we’d been getting along these last few days,” Maddox said.
While waiting for the last three teams to return from their ops, her team had worked on basic training. Runs, take-downs, target practice, and reading the latest intel on anti-shifters. There was a lot of intel, and most had mentioned Woodrow Monroe.
Woodrow Monroe. Another cold shiver went through her as it did every time she thought of him. Just reading his name had soured her mood and reminded her of why she was in this training program. Seeing his name on those papers had unsettled her and she couldn’t tell her shifters why.
Her shifters. She still wasn’t sure if she should be thinking of them as hers. Mainly because they weren’t. Not exactly.
“I just need some time. To think. To regain my focus, okay?”
“You’re sending us away,” Rafe finally spoke.
“Just a few days.” She looked at each shifter. She wanted all of them, and she hadn’t figured out how to accomplish that. Telling them why she was in this program would complicate matters, personally and professionally. As if they weren’t already complicated. . .
Three shifters.
“Take all the time you need,” Tiernan said with a huge smile.
Tiernan, her optimist. The shifter was generous with his offer, considering how little time he had left. And it took so little to make him happy. She wished she could give him more. . . give him everything he wanted.
“You’re tense. I could help you with that,” Maddox offered, waggling his brows.
Her eyes flicked to Tiernan, expecting to hear a growl, but he remained silent. Maybe he was deferring to Maddox, or maybe he sensed just how tense she was. Or maybe he finally believed her when she said she cared about him. She did, and yet it never felt like he believed her.
“You’re such a flirt,” she said to Maddox.
“Only with you. Flirting with Tiernan and Rafe gets me nowhere.”
“I bet it doesn’t,” she said, laughing. “Thank you, Maddox.”
“For the offer?”
“For making me laugh.”
The thought of being away from them, even if it was just a matter of keeping her distance from them by working out in the gym and practicing on the gun range where they never went, already made her miss them. Tiernan always comforted her with his soft-spoken manners and made her feel wanted, loved. Maddox was her realist who helped her sift through all the bullshit so she could focus on what was important. And Rafe, her growly alpha heir, made her feel so damn desirable and sexy, all while challenging her to be better, to do better.
When had she become so attached to these three shifters?
