He knew that now.
If he’d just let her have a place in Command, she would have stayed. But that would have meant having no chance to escape whatever it was she made him feel whenever he was around her too much.
It was the hunger for her.
His hands clenched on the steering wheel. The physical, aching hunger he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge, hadn’t wanted to give in to, had roused the beast within him.
He wished he could put the bastard back to sleep.
And if his brother’s troublemaking tendencies weren’t enough, Rule had decided to add his particular brand of bullshit to it. The least he and Graeme could do was take turns making his life hell instead of trying to drive him insane in one day.
Staying close as Chelsea drove through Window Rock, he followed her first through the drive-thru of a popular coffeehouse, again. The size of the cup of coffee the employee handed out the window had him wincing in acknowledgment of her sheer stubbornness.
The woman could give lessons to a mule on sheer determined pride.
And she had enough pride for a dozen Breeds, let alone one little woman.
That determination could well end up getting her killed if he wasn’t careful. The two Breeds trailing them were good, he’d give them that. Draeger and Tobias were about the best security team he’d run across. But even the best made mistakes.
Every instinct Cullen possessed warned him that Chelsea was in a hell of a lot more trouble than any of them suspected.
The Coyote who’d attacked her was a known Genetics Council soldier. He hadn’t attempted to abduct her, he’d tried to kill her. The fact that she’d managed to stay alive long enough for the two Wolf Breeds shadowing her to get to her amazed Cullen. No Breed, especially one who still followed the Genetics Council, was that damned sloppy. They were too well trained and too damned fanatical when it came to their orders.
So what the hell was really going on?
As he pondered that question, he drew to a stop directly behind Chelsea at the final traff
ic light at the end of town, his gaze scanning the area. Draeger and Tobias were two vehicles behind in the beige SUV they were driving that day.
Traffic appeared normal, as did the pedestrians moving along the sidewalks. Nothing seemed unusual. No glints of sunlight on gunsights, nothing to indicate any danger, but his instincts were humming. Hell, they’d been humming since Chelsea had resigned and he’d been too damned distracted to figure out why.
He should have convinced her to ride from the Bureau with him and made Tobias drive her truck, he thought, catching her gaze in the rearview mirror, but she’d argued she could drive the damned thing herself. And he was trying, God knew he was trying to let her have a measure of that independence while still protecting her.
The light turned green.
The second traffic began moving, it happened.
The dark SUV in the turn lane at her left didn’t turn, the lighter-colored pickup to her right dropped back and from the side street a heavy panel van raced into the intersection, slamming into the side of Chelsea’s truck as the SUV to the left swung around to hem her in, almost cutting Cullen off from her.
The carefully calculated strike moved like slow motion through Cullen’s senses as adrenaline spiked through his brain and the animal, normally unresponsive and uncaring, surged awake and took control with a ferocity he couldn’t have expected.
Man and tiger merged so seamlessly, it was as though they had never been separate. And hovering just beyond was a madness he didn’t stop to consider. Not yet.
Cullen jerked the military-grade automatic weapon he kept secured behind the passenger seat free as the Dragoon rocked to a stop. He was out of the vehicle before the men in the SUV next to her could react.
They hadn’t expected resistance, depending on shock and awe to delay Chelsea’s security as well as her response to the attack.
A roar tore past his throat.
Lifting the rifle to his shoulder, he fired quickly, laying a spray of bullets along the passenger-side door of the car and taking out two of the would-be attackers. Sprinting for the truck, he aimed and fired on the van, forcing the attackers to take cover as he jerked open the door of the truck and hauled Chelsea from the seat.
The occupants of the lighter-colored SUV rushed from the vehicle when Cullen turned his weapon on them, attempting to help Chelsea from her truck at the same time.
Not that she needed much help, damn her. The second the door came open she all but tumbled out, a snub-nosed automatic personal defense weapon in her hands, her gaze filled with cold, hard determination.
Her hair was mussed, her face pale, a smear of blood on her reddened forehead attesting to a bruise that would be forming quickly, but she was lucid and moving quickly to cover him.
“Stay down,” he yelled as horns erupted, the clash of several vehicles colliding behind them a distant sound in his brain as Draeger and Tobias raced to their side.