Page 38 of Wolf Claimed
“You’re scared of me. Still.” Maddox shook his head as he leaned back against the wall. “Go if you’re too afraid to be here.”
Not knowing what he wanted, thinking he blamed her for her father’s sins. She walked toward him, a shifter who could easily kill her. She was brave, this female.
Her hand moved toward his face. He fought the urge to catch it, to force her away and keep her from touching him, but hecravedher touch like it was the air he needed to breathe.
Delicate fingertips danced over his forehead, down over his cheek, to his jaw, and then over his throat and neck, tracing the shape of each muscle until she reached his chest. She rested her splayed hand on his pectorals. Through the cotton shirt, he felt the heat of her skin and gritted his teeth, the need to feel her skin directly against his becoming too powerful to ignore.
“Rafe says you know what happened. That you heard us,” Alyssa said, her voice higher pitched than normal. Worried, but unashamed.
He said nothing because there was nothing to say. He’d heard and smelled too much.
Her brow crinkled. “I seem to always do or say the wrong thing around you, Maddox. Why is that?”
She hadn’t done anything wrong except unwittingly remind him of why he couldn’t have her. From the first time he’d spoken with her, he’d felt alive. It had been just over a year since the virus claimed Isabella. A part of him had died along with his mate, until Alyssa and her resilience, her determination, and all those little awkward fumbles when she was nervous stirred something inside of him.
This female cared. Abouthim.And he didn’t have the guts to tell her he wanted her, that she made him feel alive. The weight of Isabella’s death had been drowning him, but Alyssa made him forget all of that.
“Leave, Alyssa. Now,” he practically roared as he pulled away from her and kicked open the push bar so hard the door swung out and dug a huge chunk of concrete out of the stairwell wall before swinging shut again.
Clothing exploded off of him as he shifted and raced down the stairs. His wolf took the steps six at a time before he finally reached the ground floor and threw his body against the push bar, not caring how much slamming into metal hurt his shoulder. The door opened, letting him escape into the fresh air and pre-dawn light.
As he raced into the woods, his paws striking the ground and the wind sifting through his fur, he heard Alyssa calling after him, loud enough to wake the entire dorm. His wolf dug his front paws in, his back half swinging around. A thick expanse of trees obstructed his view, but he could make out her white top against the green foliage. She’d left the building, left Rafe’s and Tiernan’s protection to chase after him.
Maddox poured all his energy into his wolf, running at top speed to return to her. By the time he reached the dorm, she was gone, and the scent of five shifters hung in the air, none of them allies.
* * *
ALYSSA
Dumb.Stupid. Not a brain in your head, Alyssa scolded herself. She’d run after Maddox, forgetting the danger that would put her in. Most of the shifters in the dorm wanted her dead because of her father.
Being discovered hadn’t been a real concern when she was first assigned to the DSA program because she’d had the anonymity of a codename and a false identity behind that. Even the Secret Service didn’t know her birth name. She’d changed it legally when she left home. She certainly never dreamed she’d be framed for murder and that a DSA agent would use an illegal truth serum on her, let alone be bold enough to let all the trainees witness the interrogation. What the hell had Gallagher been thinking?
Now she had to deal with the consequences. When she ran out of the dorm, she’d made herself vulnerable. Someone had grabbed her from behind, bound and gagged her before she could yell or draw her gun.
She’d spent the last twenty minutes slung over a shifter’s shoulder like a sack of flour as he ran, flanked by other shifters, into the woods. Her stomach flipped numerous times as she hung upside down, the shifter running incredibly fast. She never wanted to think about or eat food again.
When the shifter finally set her down and removed her gag, she turned and threw up. Barrett, the shifter who’d carried her, sneered, grabbed her roughly by the back of her neck, and shoved her into a cave miles from the training center.
“If you think killing me will hurt my father, you’re wrong,” she said, amazed she could gather the strength to talk without throwing up again. “Woodrow Monroe hates me almost as much as he hates shifters.”
“You’re smart, for a human and a female, and you’ve got guts, but I’m not buying any of your lies.”
“So, what’s the plan, Barrett? Kill me, deliver my body to his doorstep, wherever that is?”
The shifter raised an eyebrow.
“That’s right. I have no clue where he lives. I haven’t seen him since I was seventeen when I left home. I don’t care what happens to him. He deserves whatever hellish punishment you can dream up for him.”
“And you’ll share in that punishment as soon as we capture him.”
“I haven’t harmed a single shifter.”
Barrett crossed his arms. “What do you call having sex with Rafe and Tiernan?”
She cringed. Did everyone know her about personal life? First Maddox, and now these shifters who wanted revenge no matter who it hurt, namely her.
“We can smell them on you, female. You’re corrupting shifters, giving them a different type of death from your father, but death just the same.”
