Red and Her Wolf (Kingdom, #3)

Chapter 6

She straddled his hips; knife gripped so tight in her hand, her knuckles ached. “Who are you?”

Last thing she remembered was tearing the wolf to bits, slicing through his gut, and then stumbling home, blood leaving a scarlet trail for any predator to follow. In her lust to kill the beast, she’d not known how injured she truly was. Aunt Miriam had dragged her to the bathroom, trying to staunch the constant flow streaming from her belly where the wolf had sliced her repeatedly.

Then Aunt Mir had promised she’d be okay, grabbed her face, and told her to breathe. The rest was blank. Until now. Until him.

His hands shifted and she shoved the knife in deeper, lips curling when she heard his hiss.

“Easy, lass. Easy. I’ll not harm ye.” He held up his hands in entreaty.

Those words spoken in his deep Scottish brogue made her lashes quiver and her thighs tremble. There was no denying the man was beautiful. And the first male she’d touched, ever.

Something about his voice, the way it moved against her body like a soft caress… she’d heard that voice before. Distantly. But how could she have? She’d never have forgotten the face.

It was hard, chiseled, as if by a sculptor. His jaw sharp and well defined, his nose equally severe, and with the slightest crook at the bridge. Dark shaggy brows framed a pair of liquid gold eyes filled with flecks of amber. The epitome of male beauty, save for the scar that curved from his eye to mid-point on his cheek.

Her spine tingled with a rush of appreciation even as anger heated her blood. “I’ll not ask again,” she said, cursing the natural sweetness of her voice, wishing for once she could growl and threaten like the wolf she’d killed earlier. “Who are you?”

He was nude, his muscles lax, his body still, trying to not appear threatening. But she knew it for the sham it was. Felt the hardness of his thighs beneath hers, the flex of muscle as he shifted, slowly lifting his hands. His bronzed skin gleamed with pearls of sweat, adding a luminescent sheen from the sky’s eerie lavender glow.

“Yer mate,” he said, so slowly she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.

The ropes of his stomach flexed as he tried to sit up, she dug her knife in, briefly casting her eyes down as a thin crimson ribbon appeared where smooth skin had once been.

“Red.” His voice rang in warning, she narrowed her eyes. “Put the knife down.”

It wasn’t a request.

She leaned in, hating that his scent of sweat and musk attracted her so, filled her head with dizzy longing for something she didn’t understand. “My name is not, Red, and I am not your mate.”

Looking up, she studied her alien surroundings. The sky glowed orange with streaks of pink; the land a monotonous shade of beige with a smattering of green palm fronds swaying in a gentle breeze. Magnificent twin orbs, took up a huge section of sky. Large, gray rings surrounded them.

“Where am I? Where have you brought me? Where’s my Aunt?” Panic rushed through her veins, her mouth tasted of cotton and her throat felt raw and parched.

He closed his hypnotic eyes and she could breathe again; when those eyes were on her face, looking at her with heat, it was hard to remember who she was. The strangeness of those foreign emotions made her angry.

Quicker than she could blink, his hands gripped her wrists, and then his hard length was on top of hers, pinning her beneath him. Bucking and screaming, she fought to free herself.

“Stop yelling, lass.” He shoved his face so close to hers, the heat of his body became second skin.

“Get off me,” she wheezed, trying to pound her fists on his hard as steel chest, but she couldn’t move her hands even an inch. Furious, terrified, she did the only thing her wild mind could think of. She bit his forearm.

He hissed as her teeth sank in so deep, the skin broke.

“Lass,” he growled, and she envied the fire in his voice, the deep timbre that flooded her brain with desire and rage, “doona make me hurt ye. Release me.”

Shaking her head, she bit harder, blood pooled on her tongue and the taste of him saturated her senses. It reeked of death, earth, dark power, and wicked nights. A wolf! He was a wolf. Fear slammed her like a wave, and with it came the hate, that sharp flinty passion that consumed her mind like poison and engulfed her body with adrenaline. Wild, crazy to get out from under him, she yanked with the preternatural strength she’d used to massacre the last wolf she’d fought.

He grunted, but his hands released her. She curled her fingers, dragging her nails down his cheeks, leaving welts behind.

Then he had control of her again. “Damn ye, lassie. I dinna wish to do this yet.”