“You touched her,” Zakari said in this distorted voice. “You touched what was mine.” In the next second Zakari slammed his fist into the drunk’s face, causing him to stumble back at the same time his head cocked back from the force. Zakari reached out and wrapped his hand around the other man’s throat.
The gurgling sound that came from the drunk was loud and I felt my anxiety rise.
God, Zakari made the other man look so small and weak … so human.
“Zakari,” the drunk choked out.
“You look at her again, talk to her, touch her, fucking think of her, I’ll tear the limbs from your body and feed them to the wolves.”
No one moved, no one stopped Zakari. It was like they knew that getting involved would make this worse.
Zakari leaned in so they were nose-to-nose. “Do you understand me?” His voice was low and harsh, deadly and promising.
I found myself backing away, not sure why I retreated, but knowing that I was the center of this. I watched as the drunk tried to pry Zakari’s hand away from his throat but failed.
And then he tossed the drunk aside as if he weighed nothing at all, as if he were a bother, a gnat flying around his face. The bar seemed to stand still, the music still loud, yet all the patrons staring right at them. One of the other shifters who had been seated at the table walked up to the man who’d intervened on my behalf. He said something too low for me to hear. Yet my shifter protector kept his focus trained right on me the whole time. I felt like he could see into my very soul.
My heart was beating fast as I stared at him, felt this pull, this connection. It was strange, unusual, but all powerful. I couldn’t have ignored it even if I wanted to. It was as if I had known him my whole life, as if we weren’t meeting for the first time. There was something in his eyes, something frighteningly possessive and animalistic, that told me one thing.
I was his.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe as I watched the shifter take a step toward me, and then another. He was so much bigger than me, towering over my five-foot-five frame by at least a foot. I felt my hands shake, my nerves right at the surface.
He was just a few inches from me now and I watched as he inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring slightly. God, could he smell that I was aroused right now? The low growl that came from him told me that he could. It was like a dream, one that I didn’t want to wake up from. But I was humiliated that the shifter knew I was wet, knew I wanted him.
“Female,” he said on this low, rough sound, his voice distorted, his eyes flashing yellow briefly. On instinct, I took a step back. I wasn’t afraid of him, felt nothing but intense, burning desire for this man I’d just met. But it was as if my body knew this male was dangerous, that he could crush my bones with little effort.
I glanced to my right and saw the other five men that had been sitting at the table with him. They all stood off to the side, watching us, this knowing expression on their faces. I had no idea what was going on. But I had to get out of here, had to get away from the man in front of me, the one who made me feel like I was walking on a tightrope ready to plummet to the ground below.
Licking my lips, I slowly breathed out.
“I should get back to work,” I whispered and took a step to the side. But he followed my moves, taking the same steps, still in front of me.
“My female,” he said in that distorted, animalistic voice of his, one that was very much possessive.
A shiver raced up my spine and I curled my hands against my sides. He inhaled deeply again, and this low rumble left him, seeming to fill the entire bar, drowning out the heavy bump of music surrounding us. He took another step toward me and I moved one back. We did this dance of retreating and following until I felt the wall stop my retreat.
I placed my hands flat behind me, the brick of the wall rough and cold against my palms. I tilted my head and looked into his handsomely rugged face. He had a day’s worth of scruff covering his jaw, and now that I was really focusing on him I could see lines and shapes of tattoos creeping up from underneath the white undershirt he wore.
Glancing down at his hands, which were curled into tight fists at his side, I could see ink on those as well. His red flannel covered his arms, having me curious to know if those were covered in tattoos as well.
I should’ve moved away from him, gone to the back room, collected myself. I couldn’t very well bail on Maggie, not when the bar was still packed to the brim, not when I’d promised John and Rhea that I’d handle things.
Yet here I was, sandwiched between a rock and a hard place … literally.
And yeah, the man before me was very hard.
I couldn’t help but lower my gaze to his crotch, his worn denims molding to his massive thighs, ones that seemed as big as tree trunks. And the bulge he sported, the clear definition of a very long, very thick and hard erection, had my throat tightening and my mouth drying.
I snapped my gaze up to his face to see he was watching me, the corner of his mouth tilted up in this satisfied smirk. He’d seen me looking at what he had below the belt, and I felt my face heat. I knew it was red. He took another step toward me and my entire body froze, my breath stalling in my lungs, my eyes feeling wide as saucers.
My head was still craned back so I could look at his face. He was now right in front of me, his chest at my face level. God, he was big. All I could feel was this mesmerizing pull. I wanted to throw myself in his arms, press my body against his, see if he was as hard as he looked.
He placed one hand on the brick wall beside my head and leaned down close, our faces only inches apart, his mouth so close to mine that if I leaned forward I could kiss him. God, I was burning alive. I had no idea what was wrong with me, no clue why I was having this reaction to a stranger.
“You’re not very good with personal space, are you?” I had no idea where the words came from, why they decided to come out in that moment, but they hung between us for a suspended moment before he grinned, flashing straight white teeth. If possible, the air seemed to grow thicker around us, the heat causing beads of sweat to form between my breasts.
“When it comes to my mate, I’m not close enough.” He growled those words and I felt them in my very core, so deep within my body I couldn’t even think straight.