Page 10 of Wolf Claimed
Rafe had spent most of last night pounding some sense into Kingsley and the two other shifters who’d been spreading rumors about Alyssa, trying to make her look guilty of Graves’s murder. The DSA agents had interviewed and cleared her along with all the other humans, but Maddox got the sense Rafe had a lot of pent-up anger last night and setting Kingsley straight had been a convenient excuse to work it off.
Now, Rafe stared out the row of windows, toward the woods. “Did you hear my question?” Maddox asked.
“They suspect a shifter.”
“What evidence do they have?” Maddox asked.
“They don’t need evidence. They’re human, we’re shifter. They’ll pick one of us to pin it on. It doesn’t matter who did it, only who gets blamed for it.”
“I see why your alpha threw you out.”
Rafe slammed his cup of coffee down. “He didn’t throw me out. He sent me here to fulfill our part of the treaty.”
“Any news?” Tiernan asked as he sat down with a tray heaped with bacon, eggs, and toast.
“Hungry, Tiernan?” Rafe said, straining to keep his face neutral, but Maddox caught the alpha’s subtle glare at Tiernan. A mixture of anger and confusion swirled in Rafe’s eyes. No doubt he’d caught Artemis’s scent, a very strong feminine musk coming from Tiernan.
“He built up an appetite fucking Artemis last night,” Maddox said, hating that he had to play the indifferent shifter, the one who couldn’t care less since clearly Rafe wasn’t as practiced at hiding his emotions.
“I was trying to be discreet about it,” Rafe said. “Something you know nothing about.”
“An alpha heir being discreet? Huh!” Maddox laughed as he rose with his tray. He’d lost his appetite the moment he smelled Artemis on Tiernan. He’d walked away from them yesterday when he’d seen how heated things had turned. Smelling Artemis’s arousal for Tiernan had stirred his wolf and him too much to stand there and watch what would happen between the two. He’d walked away, ignoring what might happen. Now he had to deal with the consequences. Tiernan had claimed her. Next, he’d blood-bond her, make her his permanently.
Fuck! There was something about Artemis that called to Maddox in a way he hadn’t experienced since Isabella. Hell, evenwithIsabella. He wanted Artemis, but Tiernan had her. Or would as soon as they blood-bonded.
Maddox knew he should step aside. He’d had his chance at happiness. He’d blood-bonded Isabella, had a close relationship with her, had sensed her every emotion and need through the blood-bond. But something had always been missing between them, and he was starting to understand what that was. He hadn’t wanted to admit it before, because he’d failed Isabella and she’d deserved the best.
When he was with Artemis, and even when he wasn’t, he felt this bone-deep need to be with her, to hear her laugh, to listen to her views, and banter with her. Every time he saw the determined female, his entire body lit up with the need to thrust into her, to take her, to make her his in a way he’d never felt for Isabella.
“It’s none of your business what happens between me and my mate,” Tiernan said.
Like a fool, he’d backed away last night when Tiernan had drawn Artemis into his arms. Maddox had waited for her to push Tiernan away, to tell the scout to take his wolf and go to hell, but she never did. She wanted Tiernan, and now she’d slept with him. But that didn’t make her Tiernan’s.
Maddox slammed the tray back down on the table. The room fell silent as all eyes, human and shifter, turned to him. “She’s not your mate until you blood-bond her,” Maddox said, not bothering to lower his voice. All the shifters would hear him, anyway. And the humans. . . Fuck them if they didn’t know what a blood-bond was. They were a clueless bunch of spineless worms. Fuck, now he was thinking like Rafe.
“Did you blood-bond her?” Rafe asked. His jaw looked as tight as Maddox’s chest felt.
“No,” Tiernan said, clenching his fists.
Relief swept through Maddox. Maddox still had a chance to create that bond that would make her his fully so that no other male, Tiernan and Rafe included, could take her from him.
“What’s a blood-bond?” Artemis asked behind him.
Maddox spun around. He hadn’t scented her entering the mess hall. He should have been more attuned to her, like Tiernan was. Maybe that’s why he’d failed Isabella. Selfishness ran in white wolves, too concerned with themselves and no one else in the pack, even those they mated.
Tiernan rose and practically leaped over the table to get between her and Maddox. “Let’s go somewhere private where I can explain.”
“You had your chance to explain,” Maddox said. “Apparently, you screwed her without telling her everything. You don’t care about her, Tiernan. Only what you can get from her.”
Artemis paled and Maddox realized he’d said too much, especially with the other humans and shifters watching.
“I’m not hungry. I’ll see you at roll call,” she said, leaving her tray on the table as she tore out of the room as fast as she could.
* * *
ALYSSA
Alyssa racedout of the mess hall. She couldn’t believe Tiernan had told everyone. Now, they all knew, shifters and humans. None of the trainees or instructors would ever respect her. It was okay for a man to have sex during training, even with another agent or instructor. But there had always been and would always be a double standard which branded the female agent as a whore or worse, incapable of doing her job.
