AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I never thought I’d say those words to anyone, let alone a woman who I actually wanted to do it. She has every reason not to at this point, as I’ve failed time and again to tell her what she needed to know and vacillated constantly between hot and cold with her.
But I need her to stay calm and do it now.
I’m only a few centimeters away from my fingertips brushing his silvery fur when he stiffens and snaps back at me, his base instincts overtaking the years of work I’ve done with him to make him tame enough to be near without him tearing me apart.
I don’t react to his aggression turned toward me. If I feel even a second of weakness, he’ll smell it on me.
“Gray, back away.”
The truly wild animal eyes me and snarls again, and I move closer to the wolf, who is as much at home on Barker Mountain as I am.
He’ll protect his land. Defend what’s his, including anything he might perceive as a threat to me, which apparently Callista very much is at the moment.
My hand shaking, I settle it into his fur, rubbing his neck and down his back in what, under normal circumstances, would be his favorite petting motion.
“Calm, relax, boy.”
He starts to snarl again, but I grab his scruff and jerk on it the way a mother would to an aggressive, overly playful puppy. Gray yelps slightly and backs a step away from her, his canines disappearing back into his mouth as his lips drop over them and he dips his head toward the ground.
Good.
He knows he’s done something he shouldn’t. The reproach was enough to break him from his focus on Callista, but it doesn’t mean she’s completely safe from him yet.
Tears stream down her face, and I lower my head to his and murmur into his ear. “Leave her alone and go. Go home…”
To his den deeper in the woods.
He glances at me as if he’s assessing his options for a moment before he finally pulls out of my hold and slinks away into the trees, disappearing into the darkness.
“Oh, my God…” Callista collapses onto the beaten path, her hands covering her face as she sobs. “What the fuck, Weston? That thing almost killed me.”
I rush over to her and pull her from the dirt, tugging her into my arms. “He wouldn’t have hurt you.”
“Bullshit! That was a wild animal. He-he—”
She struggles to form words, the hysteria making her breath come in short, hard pants that don’t seem to really be bringing any oxygen into her lungs. Tremors rock her so hard that she can barely stay on her feet despite my arms holding her steady.
Shit…
I scoop her up before she fully melts down out here, and she buries her face against my neck, sobbing as I take us back toward the house. The feel of her in my arms again, her weight pressed to me, has been all I’ve thought about since our illicit night together.
But I never wanted it like this.
Not with her terrified.
I may not be the source this time, as I was that first night I held her like this, but it doesn’t make me feel any less guilty over her anguish.
Once again, I haven’t protected Callista, and now, she’s paying the price for my failure.
Chapter Thirteen
WESTON
Callista trembles in my arms as I race back to the house through the black of the forest now that night has fully fallen. If I didn’t know every inch of this property so well, finding my way by sight would be impossible. She never could have done it on her own, even if she had managed to get away from Gray.
Her sobs continue, her skin pressed to my chest and neck clammy and cold instead of putting off the usual heat I crave against my own.
Shit.
