My stomach flipped at this voice. Why wasn’t my wolf here to tell me why this man could leave me feeling confused and questioning everything inside myself. This was just one more moment in my life I was wishing my wolf were here. Not that she could talk sense into me, I still wanted her instincts. Or at least help me make sense of what was happening.
I tried to fade into the bed. All I needed was to heal and leave. I didn’t need more confusion.
Males never lead anywhere but to pain and suffering.
I sniffed the air again, and I caught the same soothing scent again. No. I didn’t want to feel comfort or safety.
“I need to go,” I snapped.
I tried to sit up and could feel every muscle in my body protest. Gravity tried to win, but I made it out of the bed if falling was success. Except, I never hit the ground, and my body was appreciative that someone had caught me. I hadn’t even been able to get out of bed and I thought I could run and save myself? I was delusional.
Warmth radiated into my cold, broken body. No, it wasn’t just someone who had caught me. It was the same someone I’d fallen into back at that building and I knew it because the strange tingles where his hands connected with me triggered the same safe feeling. I didn’t want this.
“Calm yourself, female. You aren’t a captive here, but you aren’t going anywhere. You’ve been poisoned,” he said.
Not a captive? But not leaving?
It took a few seconds to get my thoughts away from his touch and back to the issues at hand.
“That sounds a lot like being a captive. It’s a little rude to poison someone just to get me to stay.”
A loud growl had me looking up to meet his eyes. He shifted his stance and placed me back into my bed.
“This is a real bed?” I blurted out.
Wait, that wasn’t what I’d meant to say.
“Of course, have you not had a real bed before?” he asked.
The stupid shock of the soft comfort should have lasted longer, but my entire body was misfiring between healing and whatever this male was doing to me.
I met his gaze and quickly turned my eyes down. He radiated power. I didn’t want his attention, except I craved his touch.
The stiff set of his shoulders made him seem taller than any male I’d ever known. The set of his arms as he crossed them over his chest aided in making him threatening. It was still hard to focus on anything, but his eyes. They shifted from human to wolf and this time I couldn’t turn my own away. He held me captive in the way he looked at me.
He stood at the side of my bed. Someone dimmed the lights and my eyes adjusted making the light hurt less. I could finally see and my head got a rest from the piercing headache. The blinding white seemed to normalize a little. I blinked and realized the only source of light was streaming in through a small window.
“I didn’t do anything.” He cleared his throat. “My pack didn’t poison you. You were already poisoned when you threw yourself into my arms.”
He glared at me and I glared right back.
“Threw myself? Threw myself? More like fell and you caught my ass. Which I appreciate. But that being said. I need to go. I can’t stay here.”
I didn’t have to wonder who growled. I couldn’t miss the twitch of the muscle in his cheek and the way the whole room went silent, or maybe I couldn’t hear anything except for the growl echoing around the sterile room. He was practically screaming at me. A door clicked shut somewhere behind the male. His mere presence seemed to take up the entire room.
Shit. I was alone with him. I didn’t like being left alone. That was when people decided to show their true colors. And most men? Most shifters had tempers.
“Where’d the other guy go?” I asked as I tried to look around him.
He leaned over the bed and forced me to lay back. Not only was I getting an up close and personal view of him, but I could pick up nearly every detail of his scent without my wolf and this close I could sense something different about him.
“What does it matter where he went? He is of no concern of yours.”
I pushed myself up an inch. It took everything in me. But I would pretend like I was fine. Fake it until you make it and I wasn’t going to show this guy any weakness. I wasn’t backing down. I was tired of backing down. I was supposed to be free and something about this male, this shifter, made the courage and anger in me come alive.
“I can care about where someone went. You said I wasn’t a prisoner, so I can care. Besides, he just left me alone with a stranger. A very large male who thinks he’s the scariest thing on the planet.”
He smirked. “Thinks he’s scary?”