Page 20 of Banished Mates
This man was sick, and he’d had his hands on my Willow.
Rage. Unmatched rage bubbled over, and I leaned down as he stared at me with terrorized and pained eyes. Wrapping my hands around his neck, I twisted as I studied his gaze.
Life drained from them and silence fell over the motel room. I remained silent, debating my next move.
I gently lifted her hair band from my pocket and brought it to my nostrils, sucking in her scent, letting it soothe my soul.
I was at a dead end, which meant I needed to find someone to get me information... and I knew who I could contact.
He’d cost a pretty penny, but if it got me my Willow back, I was willing to pay it.
Willow
I eyedthe two wolves that hadn’t budged since I’d run in here. The one in human form stared at me so intently I couldn’t help but feel nervous. The weight of his gaze had caused a constant tension in my gut, and I ached.
A heaviness in my body weighed me down, and restlessness nipped at my haunches, but I stayed in my defensive posture.
Fortunately, he’d only tried to approach me once. If he tried again, I would rake my claws down his face. My heart hadn’t stopped erratically thumping, and I couldn’t miss the way their scent called my wolf forward. Rubbing up on them... a Willow sandwich, if you will, was all that was going through my brain, and it irked the shit out of me.
I wanted them. My mates... but I wouldn’t give into the desire, so I clenched my jaw, holding back my wolfish needs with iron will while battling the spreading heat thickening my blood.
The one in his human form sat on the ground across from me, spine painfully straight as he stared at me impassively. Light spilled into the large empty bedroom from the hall. The chill reached through my coat and curled around my bones. I flexed my claws into the hard floor beneath my paws, keeping my head low to dash off when the opportunity presented itself. But damn, they were relentless.
“Shift, lass,” he ordered for the umpteenth time in that spine-tingling Scottish brogue. And like all the other times, I ignored him.
For good measure, I lifted my muzzle higher, showing off my teeth.
His large hand scrubbed over his face.
In my mad sprinting across the landscape, I’d absorbed the environment. The moss and the feel in the air was different, it wasn’t just visually different. I was used to towering, sky-scraping redwood trees, not the lush moss and rolling hills. It wasn’t much of a deduction that I wasn’t anywhere near home, but the accent drove it in.
A whine brought my attention to the werewolf as he twitched. His body was close to the ground, but he still dwarfed me in our shifted form. I clicked my teeth and he stopped his forward progress. He wasn’t slick, I noticed the inch-by-inch progress he was making to get closer to me.
I fought with the feelings of safety blanketing me. Their scent, their proximity, it all calmed me. The swirling scents of rose and pine coming from the shifted wolf and the orange and bergamot from the one ordering me to shift, complemented each other well. But still, I refused to let my guard down. I didn’t know what they would do to me if they got close.
Some far-off part of me understood that the last thing they would do is hurt me. They were my mates. They weremadefor me. Protecting me was in their DNA, but I couldn’t erase the trauma weighing on me from the last few weeks… Months?
I would have taken off running and damned the consequences, but the shaggy-haired gray wolf watched me from a few feet away. His eyes were eerily trained on me without blinking. Before he’d inched forward, I’d wondered if he was sleeping with them open.
The shaking had finally abated and my heart was calming. I was pretty sure my body was shutting down.
My mate across from me stood and I kept myself at attention as his intimidating height blocked out the light from the hall. He ruffled his short waves to the side and light bounced off the brown of his hair and illuminated his prominent high cheekbones tight with tension. A shiver coursed through my body, my mouth watering. Those observant moss-colored eyes swept over me again.
He was coming near me.My heart rate accelerated and I lowered my head, bunching the muscles in my hind legs to lunge at him.
Within moments, he was in my face. My reaction was sluggish as he wrapped his palm around my muzzle. His other arm went over me and lifted me against his chest with a tight grip on my torso. His heat was encompassing, ordering me to give in. I grunted and thrashed as much as I could. My legs trembled, movements slowing until there was no strength left in my body.
“Enough,” he snapped. “I will nae hurt you.” The command had an odd reaction on my wolf as she tried to force me to roll over. All she fought me for was for me to go supple. Damn her.
We liked that commanding tone of his.
Even though his tone was harsh, his hold was gentle. Warmth radiated from his flesh and seeped into mine. I didn’t realize how frozen I was. It was cold as shit here.
An aggressive growl vibrated through the room, and I tensed.
“Back the fuck up, Rowan. I have tae get her cleaned up after the mess you made of her.”
Rowan bared his teeth as my nameless mate pressed his palm to my back, combing his fingers through the fur.
