“I’m here.” His voice rang out with unmistakable authority. Tall and thin, he appeared to be the total opposite of Bill McGoven. “And you must be Loren Connors.”
She didn’t know what to do. Bow? Instead, she nodded, clearing her throat. “Are you Lukka?”
“This is a long way from McGoven’s territory,” he replied, his voice dangerously soft.
Loren licked her lips. “He brought me in a truck. When he wasn’t looking. I… I just needed to get away,” she said weakly. “I just ran.”
“Where?” Something flickered across those blue eyes Loren couldn’t name. Fear? Either way, he inclined his head toward the woods, and two of his men stood at attention. “Which direction?”
Loren could only shrug. “I’m not sure.”
“Well, you’re safe now,” the blond man said, sounding as noble as if he were her twisted knight in designer armor.
“But where is he?” Another figure stepped from the woods, his sharp brown eyes unsettlingly familiar. Kyle. “Where is William McGoven?”
Somewhere close by. Loren could feel him, railing against the thought of her being even near this man.
The trap had been baited.
Now it needed to be sprung.
33
Ah, happy endings,Kyle thought sarcastically.
Weren’t they just the best?
He, for one, sure as hell felt all warm and fuzzy inside as he watched Lukka assure the Connors girl that everything would be“A-OK.”She was safe now, and the big bad monsters were at bay.
Such the hero, that one.
It didn’t matter that the girl looked traumatized and filthy. Or that she had come out of fucking nowhere—without her supposed captor in tow. Kyle figured he was the only one to second-guess this thrilling rescue.
Good ol’ Lukka only cared that his entourage was there to witness every single action he made. With every halfhearted insistence of safety, the Alpha was all but screaming,“Look at me!” “I’m being an Alpha!” “I totally care.”
Though Kyle figured that, for once, he and McGoven were of the same frame of mind—the rogue had been right to be skeptical. Any concern Lukka showed the Connors girl was purely for show. The comforting words sounded hollow. His “reassuring” touch was more restraining than anything else.
“Where is the rogue?” he asked again.
Loren Connors blinked, turning toward a section of the woods.
Lukka stiffened, his nostrils flaring. “Fan out,” he told his men—those who had been patrolling this boundary of the territory. “He’s close. I can smell the bastard.”
Showtime,Kyle thought coldly. After all, this was the main event he had been itching to see.
Not the rescue of some damsel in distress, butthis—the big bad Bill McGoven about to be verbally spanked—all before being put down for the crime of being an “incorrigible rogue.” He had some damn nerve venturing this close to their doorstep. At least there was no need to travel to that shithole human town. Kyle just wished they had brought cake and ice cream to celebrate this occasion.
At the girl’s indication, Lukka started forward. “Stay back,” he told them—not that Kyle listened.
Eyes narrowed, he brushed past Loren Connors and headed along a break in the tree cover. Sure enough, none other than McGoven himself was in the process of boldly advancing. Even now, he sported that infamous, stony expression, as cocky as ever.
Lukka seethed. “You have some damn nerve showing up here.” He raised his voice so that it would carry to the crowd that had more than likely gathered, watching the chaos from the shadows. “You’ve broken a lot of rules, William McGoven. You took a mate without consent and trespassed on another Alpha’s territory. You’ve committed murder—”
Kyle really had to hold in a snicker at this point—as if that pansy-assed bastard would evermurdersomeone without the instinctive urge of the mating bond. Only a real man, and a true lycan at that, could do what was needed to be done for the greater good and all that shit.
Kyle was pretty insistent that McGoven’s eventual death would be for the good ofeveryone.He couldn’t even bring himself to shed a tear at the fact that—technically speaking—the rogue had done nothing wrong.
It was all in the details anyway, like that random bastard he’d killed on Eislander territory.