She was waiting for it. He could see it in her eyes. She was waiting for death and for some unnerving reason, he didn’t like it.
In fact, he hated it.
Rune shoved aside all his feelings, purging them and allowing a cold and calculating sort of calm to wash through him instead. The same calm he had used countless times to focus his mind and his body before a fight.
Only this battle wasn’t going to be fought with fist and fang. It was going to be fought with words. Something he wasn’t accustomed to doing, but he would learn on the fly because he wanted to know what a lone wolf female was doing up in the valley.
Of course, that meant he needed her to shift back so she could answer his questions.
He doubted she was going to come quietly. That edge her amber eyes were slowly gaining said he might have to fight her after all. Dangerous. If they fought, he might not be able to control himself. He might not be able to stop himself from hurting her.
And for some damned reason, he didn’t want to hurt her.
Rune mentally prepared himself, steeled his mind and told himself that he could take a few hits if it meant she survived to answer his questions. He could.
She snarled and bared fangs at him as he approached her, even though he held his palms out in front of him, trying to show her that tonight was her lucky night and he wasn’t going to kill her. When he eased into a squat near her rear quarters, she snapped at him and tried to move, yelped as the wire pulled taut and cut deeper into her flesh.
“Idiot,” he muttered and grabbed the wire, intending to pull it towards him to loosen the grip it had on her.
She really didn’t like that.
In a lightning-fast move, she whipped around and sank her fangs into his left forearm, growling the whole time.
Rune flinched and growled right back at her as pain burned up his arm, as warm blood slid over his skin beneath his black fleece, but he didn’t miss a beat. By lunging for him, she had moved closer to him, loosening the wire. He let her use his arm as a chew toy as he tugged at the loop of the wire with his other hand.
The second the loop was large enough for her to free her leg, she released his arm and made a break for it.
Rune grabbed her by her scruff, fisting it hard, and pinned her to the ground. She snarled, wriggled and desperately tried to break free, her good rear leg scrabbling around in the pine-needle-strewn dirt, stirring the scent into the cooling night air.
“Not so fast, little wolf. I’ve got questions and you’re going to answer them.”
He growled and shoved her down. Her amber gaze slid to lock with his. His mood took a sharp, dark turn as anger shone in her eyes, as he realised that she wasn’t going to give him what he wanted, and the bite marks she had left on his arm throbbed and stung. He let his claws out and dug them into her skin, giving himself a better grip on her and making it clear she wasn’t going anywhere.
“You’re going to answer my questions.”
Rune held her gaze.
Snarled.
“If you don’t, you won’t live to taste that freedom I just gave you.”
Chapter 3
Callie had gone from one bad situation to another. She growled as the big male manhandled her, tightly gripping her scruff, his nails piercing her skin, making it sting. Payback. It was payback for what she had done to him. He wanted to hurt her, to make her bleed as she had him, and wanted her to know that out of the two of them, he was the stronger and more dangerous.
Anger and fear were joined by irritation and a serious dose of shame as he stood in one fluid motion and hauled her into the air with him. He held her aloft before him, as if she weighed nothing, the muscles of his right arm flexing hard beneath his form-fitting black zip-up fleece. Fire blazed in her scruff where he held her in a vice-like grip, her weight pulling on it as she hung from his hand, her legs dangling above the dirt.
Callie reacted fiercely, the feeling he was mocking her rousing a reaction in her that she couldn’t contain. She couldn’t stop herself from twisting and snarling, snapping her fangs at him and shaking her head. The bastard was belittling her. He was making it painfully clear that she was no match for him. That feeling grew, spread poisoned tendrils through her mind as he just stared at her, his pale blue eyes ice-cold and impassive. She kicked her back legs, jerking her entire body in a bid for freedom.
He only tightened his grip in response.
She bared fangs at him, kept on growling and snarling, viciously snapping her teeth at him. He was right to hold on to her. If he released her, she would sink her fangs into somewhere that would be far more painful for him than his arm.
The big brute arched a dark eyebrow at her.
As if her fury, this rage that burned inside her, born of the fact he was drawing a line between them by holding her like this, by easily caging her, meant nothing to him. She wasn’t weak. She might be female, but she was strong, and if he let her go, she would prove that. She would make him see that he was wrong about her, and about females in general. She would rewrite his opinion of her gender in blood.
His blood.
“Calm down,” he grunted as she made another attempt to wriggle free of his grip.
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one being held at someone else’s mercy, threatened with death if he didn’t answer their questions.
The wolf in her said to keep struggling, keep fighting, and she would escape his hold. The more logical side of her brain said that there was only one way out of this. She wasn’t sure she wanted to take it.
She settled and slowly swung towards him as she went still, allowing her to see him. To see those cold eyes. That scar that said he was a fighter. The hard and unyielding cut of his mouth as his lips flattened.
Callie had never been shy, but something about this male made her acutely aware of how naked she would be if she shifted back.
It was the only way to make him release her though.
At least, she hoped he would release her.
The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.
“Wolves,” he scoffed, spitting that word as if it was disgusting to him. He sneered, his lip curling, and muttered, “Should’ve known you’d have a bent moral compass too. You’re all the same. Thinking you can do as you please. Thinking only of yourselves.”
The look in his eyes shifted, backing up his words and making her feel he would rather kill her than spend another second in her company.
It was the last straw.
Callie willed the shift, giving up her fight to hold on to her wolf form. Her feet easily touched the ground as her body morphed, bones lengthening and changing as her fur swept away to reveal flushed skin.
Skin that flushed even deeper pink as she grew intensely aware of his gaze on her naked curves.
She turned to face him, covering her awkwardness by stoking her anger, denying the hot flash of desire that rolled through her by focusing on her rage, on the fury born of what he had said to her, speaking of her as if she was despicable.
He didn’t know her.
She planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “What’s your problem?”
The brute stared right back at her and growled, “You’re my problem.”
Callie swept her left arm up and knocked his hand away from her nape, must have caught him off guard because he looked pissed as he lost his grip on her. He lunged for her and she hopped back a step, placing herself beyond his reach and making sure she landed on her good leg.