Page 32 of Sold Wolf Slave

Ignoring him, I bent to look at the sound. Without waiting to ask, my hands reached out, fingers brushing against hard muscle. I muttered under my breath. Will sucked in a breath, his stomach contorting and shifting beneath my touch. A warm glow blossomed from my hands. A moment later, the glow subsided, and all that was left of the cuts was drying blood.

“Better?” I asked, glancing up.

“Yeah,” he said. “Thank you.”

My stomach jolted as I felt pinned beneath that piercing gaze of his, and I was suddenly aware of the way my hands had lingered on him, unwilling to stop touching him. I coughed and moved away.

“Why the hell did you do that?” I demanded. “Why did you agree to fight him?” Will could have just thrown me to Pierce and walked away. He wouldn’t have had to keep his promise tohelp Morgan. He could have handed me over and gone back to focusing on his mission.

When Pierce had first shown up, I had expected Will to do just that. It wasn’t the first time I’d been shuffled around like that. But he hadn’t. He’d fought for me. I couldn’t understand why.

He blinked, staring at me as if I had two heads. Like the answer to my question was so obvious, it was ridiculous I was even asking.

“I didn’t like how he saw you as a tradeable item,” he said. “I wasn’t going to let him take you and turn you into property again.”

My mouth parted, but words refused to come out. Over the last few years, I’d been a commodity. As much as I pretended otherwise, or as much as I tried to hide my own thoughts, I had started seeing myself as such. I had half-expected Will to hand me over, if only because starting a fight for a slave he didn’t even want would complicate his mission. When Pierce had shown up at the door, I’d more or less resigned myself to going with him. I hadn’t expected Will to bother. Except he had, because he saw me as a person.

An irresistible urge to kiss him washed over me. I took a step forward, my wolf wanting to do just that. Then common sense prevailed. I coughed again, looking for something, anything, that would distract me from the emotions running through me. My eyes snagged on the cut along Will’s arm, far shallower and in no danger of needing any medical attention, but it was something to do that didn’t involve imagining how his lips would feel on mine. I reached out and healed it.

“How’s that?” I finally managed to say, removing my hands as soon as the spell was over, so I didn’t have to think about how I wanted to run my hands all over his body.

He shrugged, rotating his shoulder. “Stings a bit, but I’ve had worse.”

“I’m sure you have,” a voice boomed from one of the entrances to the stadium.

My skin prickled as alarm bells screamed in my head. My heart pounded as rage and anger began bubbling and rising through me. I knew that voice.

We all turned toward the opening as clapping sounded from the tunnel. Rage washed over me as I saw a familiar figure strolling toward us. Tawny hair, that long, weaselly face with a smug smirk spread across it, a crackling of magic in the air surrounding him. The man who had handed me over to Will just a couple of days ago, and the man who had helped separate me from my sister.

“You certainly seem like a tough customer,” Lucas said, strutting forward. He barely gave me a glance as he sized Will up. “I knew it the first time I saw you fight, but this was something special.”

Lucas continued strolling toward us with that broad, smarmy grin. I let out a low growl, memories of my sister being dragged out of the room replaying over and over in my head. I barely breathed as I stared at him with undisguised, unadulterated loathing.

“You’re the one who won our dear Kendra, are you?” he said as he came to stand in front of Will, looking him up and down with interest.

“Apparently,” Will said. “Is that a problem?”

“No, no, not at all.” Lucas gave a friendly smile. “I just always have to admire a guy who defends what’s his. You didn’t seem the type to roll over and let someone walk over you. Glad to know I wasn’t wrong on that point.” He tutted as he looked at Pierce’s body, blood seeping into the dirt. “I was watching the fight. Pity I didn’t know about it sooner. I’d have charged for it. It was a good one.” He took a deep, disappointed breath.

“He came up to my house earlier today and demanded a rematch,” Will explained, sounding bored but mostly inconvenienced. “No time to send out flyers.”

Lucas sighed. “Ah, well. That’s Pierce for you. Too impulsive.” Finally, he turned his attention to me, and he grinned, showing too-sharp teeth. “How are you liking our dear Kendra?”

If he called me that one more time… I would do absolutely nothing. I couldn’t do anything because of this damn bracelet.

“She’s spirited,” Will said.

Lucas chortled. “She is a wildcat, isn’t she?”

Will tilted his head. “You sound like you know her,” he remarked.

“Of course,” Lucas leered at me as he looked me up and down, not bothering to hide the lust burning there. “Kendra and I go way back, don’t we, Kendra?”

I didn’t answer, paralyzed between rage and fear. He laughed.

“She can be a bit shy, but she’s sure as hell got some spirit,” Lucas remarked. He raised an eyebrow. “Although I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of that by this point, am I right?”

“She’s certainly got a wild side,” Will retorted. “But I manage.”

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