“Sheriff Arcan will take care of you. Just tell him exactly what you told me,” he encourages, and Noah nods once and threads her fingers together before setting her hands over her right leg.
She looks so small, so fragile. I battle the urge to scoop her up and pull her into my lap so that I can soothe the line of worry currently marring her brow. Every wolf-driven instinct riding me morphs from vicious outrage to careful protector in zero point two seconds. I want to wrap my arms around her, nuzzle her neck, and assure her that everything will be okay.
Instead, I pull in a deep inhale of her scent and use it to ground myself. I need to make sure that I don’t do anything right now that could traumatize her further. And I don’t want her to shut down. I need answers and she needs to know that she’s safe, that her mates will never let anything bad happen to her again.
I force my feet to move, striding around the desk and taking my seat. I’ve never had to fight this hard to maintain calm composure in my life.
Fife walks out the door and shuts it behind him, but not before he shoots me a worried glance, one that lets me know he’ll be nearby if I need him.
I fucking might. Depending on the words that come out of Noah’s mouth, I might.
“Are you okay?” I ask Noah as I settle in my seat and scan her for any injuries. Thank god I don’t see anything, or my simmering protective anger might make me shift into my wolf despite myself.
I breathe deeply again and feel immediately calmer when I catch little hints of Ruger and Gannon’s scents, with an undertone of Perth, mixing with hers. I don’t smell any blood or other wolves, which baffles me even more.
If she smells like my denmates, who could have hurt her?
“Yes? No? I don’t even know,” she answers, sighing before she slightly slumps in her chair like the weight of what’s on her mind is too much to bear.
“Can I get you anything?” I ask, the need to fix whatever has gone wrong pressing hard against my sternum. “There’s an award-winning breakfast casserole in the break room, or maybe a cup of coffee? Full disclosure. Bucky made the coffee, and it sucks,” I add, trying to lighten the tension radiating off of her.
Noah worries her bottom lip, her eyes nervously darting from me to her hands. “I stole a car,” she blurts in answer, a flash of shock flickering through her gaze before her eyes jump back to mine nervously. “I didn’t do it on purpose, I mean, I did take it, but it’s not because I’m a criminal. I had no choice. I had to escape,” she rushes to add.
A flush rises in her cheeks as confusion settles over me.
Escape?
“I stopped in town last night for dinner…and some coffee,” Noah goes on, and I find myself leaning toward her without making the conscious decision to do so. “The next thing I know, I was attacked in the parking lot outside of the diner and woke up in the forest wearing a red cloak and nothing else. Or at least, I think that’s what happened. It’s possible I’ve been drugged and the whole thing was some vivid hallucination.”
Noah reaches down and rubs absently at her calf through a pair of sweatpants. My gaze follows the movement as I study the frustration and puzzlement in her eyes.
Her tone ranges from indignant to outlandish and her blue-green eyes snap to mine as though she’s gauging my reaction to what she clearly thinks is an outrageous statement. “I woke up this morning in this fancy-ass house. And these two huge guys tried to convince me that I’m a wolf.”
Oh fuck. Oh, fucking fuck. My eyes widen as her statement wallops me.
“That’s when I stole the car and drove straight here. I’ll give it back, I promise, just as soon as I can get into mine and get the hell out of here.” Her voice wavers, like she might be on the verge of tears.
My heart feels as heavy as a compacted lump of metal. All the hope and excitement I had this morning turns from gold into lead.
I grip the arms of my office chair, trying not to rip them off as the reality of this situation becomes crystal clear. I don’t know which part of her statement shocks me more.
Attacked?
Drugged?
Hallucinated?
She thinks she hallucinated the Hunt.
No, even worse…she didn’t call it the Hunt. She called it a wolf attack.
She sits across from me, unaware that every word from her lush mouth is now a piercing arrow. My pulse hammers loudly in my ears, and an invisible, gaping hole opens in my chest.
How is this possible?
She has no idea that she’s an eerie, a shifter, someone with enough magic in her blood to become a wolf.
Which means…she doesn’t know what my den has done to her, what we’ve roused in her blood, or that she’s supposed to be mine…ours. Perth’s, Ruger’s, and Gannon’s faces flash through my mind, and panic churns my stomach.
Fuck.
We finally found our mate, and…she could reject us.
7
NOAH
I try not to stare too hard at the gorgeous man sitting across from me. But try is a mile away from don’t.
A large desk and the last dregs of my dignity are the only things separating me from the sheriff, though I sort of wish they weren’t.
Heat crawls up my throat and settles into my cheeks as I spill everything that’s happened in the past twelve-ish hours. He doesn’t cringe at my confessions or accusations, as wild and unhinged as they sound.
Does that mean he believes me or that he’s got a lot of practice dealing with crazy people?
I don’t ask because I’m not certain I want an answer.
Instead, I let my eyes glide down from his handsome face until they get stuck, for the third time, on the veins near his wrists. For a second, I catch a flash of black, but then I blink, and it’s gone.
Great. Now I’m seeing tattoos that aren’t there? And what in this office smells so damn good?
I would question what’s wrong with me, but at this point it might be easier to tabulate what’s not wrong with me.
“The two crazy guys this morning didn’t hurt me or anything, but still…” I trail off, annoyed that I feel compelled to add that detail.
A pained look crosses the sheriff’s face at my last words. It’s there and gone so quickly that I don’t have time to analyze it or suss out a cause. He frowns as he runs his strong fingers through his dirty blond hair, and I watch the strands fall back into a perfect wave.
He could easily be a hair model. Then again with his full lips, bright blue eyes, high cheekbones, and the sexy scruff dusting his chiseled jaw, the term model in general is no stretch of the imagination. I could totally picture him laid out on a billboard in nothing but boxer briefs and a devastatingly gorgeous smile.
The sheriff clears his throat, and I blink away my ridiculous thoughts.
What is wrong with me? I’m here for help, not to perv out all over the hot cop. Was there Ecstasy mixed in with my hallucinogen?