Past My Defenses (Taming the Pack series) (Entangled Ignite) (15 page)

And Dane had made her put on extra clothing.

And Dane was thinking of sleeping on the couch.

He was definitely
not
a Lycan. Her being fertile might not ever mean anything positive for him in fact—it certainly didn’t now. It was a complication.

Uh-huh, that doused the lust, and all the echoes of those shivers died abruptly. She could swear the handcuffs even felt more snug.

Trapped.

“I should go open the door to the bathroom so we’re not stumbling around in the dark,” he said. He immediately kicked the edge of the bed frame and swore.

“Yeah, you’re a Lycan all right,” she said drily. “Watch out for the edge of your dresser.”

He put a hand out and touched the edge of the dresser, smiling in the dark. “Apparently your night vision is much better than mine. You don’t need a light on.” He opened the door regardless and turned back. The shaft of blue light from the open doorway fell across the bed, bathing it all in a soft twilight color. He stopped and stared.

Hell, he was gorgeous.

Mine.

Maybe.

For now.

He licked his lips as he stared.

The scent of his arousal drifted by her and made her breath catch in her throat.

“If you keep looking at me like that, neither of us is going to last the next two weeks,” she whispered. She’d have to sleep in the shower with the cold water running. No female in heat could be expected to battle this. These urges were natural, and this was an unnatural attempt to stymie them. Not to mention frustrating as hell.

Say screw it, Dane.

Tell me you can’t resist me.

Make me believe we have something between us that you want enough to put up with the rest of this.

I’m yours, dammit.

Give me a reason to stop running.

“Is that how long we have?” He made his way back, without stumbling this time.

“Uhh. Maybe,” she said, licking her lips. “It’s not exact.” It felt like it’d be another two weeks. A long two weeks. A cold two weeks.

He climbed back into the giant bed. She’d previously thought no one needed a bed this size, but now it held all sorts of possibilities. Maybe everyone really needed a bed this size. In two weeks. Now, it just gave him lots of space to keep away from her.

“Covers on or off?”

“Off, I’m always a little warmer right now. Hormones.” Also, it would be one more thing to get out of without waking him. She was doing this for them, not just for her—she had to keep telling herself that. They needed to be able to choose to be together, and to be a couple without all this extra strain. Plus, it wasn’t exactly easy to behave like a normal couple when one of you was being hunted for your organs.

He settled beside her, under the covers. Five minutes later, he lay there…breathing evenly, but clearly still awake. His eyes were even open.

“I thought you were tired,” she whispered.

“I’m exhausted. I’m just waiting for you to fall asleep. I guess I’ve gotten used to your snoring.”

“I don’t snore.” Okay, she might, but why did he have to keep mentioning it? A decent guy would let it go, but no, he kept bringing it up.

He laughed.

Huffing out an irritated breath, she turned away from him, causing the handcuffs to rattle.

“Also, I’m curious how you’re going to get out of those,” he said. “It doesn’t involve breaking my bed, does it? I like this bed. I made it myself. I could replace the wood, but…”

“I’m not going to break your bed.” Of course she wouldn’t. She was already fond of this bed herself. She’d like to have more fond memories in the future, but even the possibilities presented made her a fan of this bed. She turned back toward him to find his eyes focused on the handcuffs, but they dropped to meet hers. “You made this?”

“Yeah, my dad is a carpenter. Well, he is now. He used to be in the military—he’s the one who taught me how to shoot. Anyway, I worked with him while I was going to school to be a ranger. It wasn’t originally going to be this big, but I figured why the hell not. And then I found out how expensive California king mattresses and sheets were…and that’s why the hell not.”

“I like it.”

He grinned. “Me too.”

“You should go to sleep.”

“You first.”

She sighed and closed her eyes. This was so not going according to plan. She should’ve known he’d be stubborn on every point. First, she worked on slowing her breathing, without going to sleep herself. She felt him relax beside her, but he didn’t go to sleep. He really
was
waiting for her to start snoring. Oh for the love of… Okay, fine. She dropped her mouth open and let her breath hiss out, scraping against her throat. It sounded…awful, and she couldn’t imagine actually doing this for hours, without breaking her windpipe or something.

The bed dipped as he sat, reached into the bedside table, and got out earplugs. Even though it was irrational, it pissed her off, and she stopped snoring.

He froze.

She started again. Seriously, she couldn’t possibly do this all night. Even faking it—hurt.

He was sound asleep within a minute. Unbelievable.

She stopped snoring, and he jerked awake.

Ah hell.

“Vanessa?”

She started the fake snoring again. Well, this screwed up her plan. She might as well start real snoring apparently.

“You don’t snore…my ass,” he muttered under his breath and turned onto his side.

She glared at the back of his head and then it came to her—a brilliant solution he’d provided himself. Nice. The only problem was that she’d have to shift and shift back quickly due to the handcuffs. It was easier at night, but this still might be tricky.

She’d have to do it soon—this fake snoring was killing her. He was asleep immediately again. Jerk. She did not snore like this. She shifted back and forth fast enough that she caught the handcuffs, and there was only the slightest break in the fake snoring. He stirred, but didn’t wake.

Moving slowly and still fake snoring, she leaned across him and grabbed his phone from his charger. A moment later, the recording of her took over the job, and she set it to loop.

Okay, she was absolutely not that loud—that was impossible. No one could be that loud. It would provide a good cover for her little trip out, though, and she’d be back soon, and he’d never know. Hopefully. Hopefully, he’d never know. Because if he did, he might not forgive her. That made her pause on her way out of the bed. She stared over at him in the moonlight. He looked good at night. He looked like forever. Like somewhere she could stay. Someone she wouldn’t always need to run out on to be able to think.

Then again, he’d moved her in because he thought she was fragile—and he made her feel fragile. If he saw her like that, he wasn’t seeing her. If he thought their relationship was all about him taking care of her…well, she’d made it to twenty-five on her own. She wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life needing him there to protect her from the big, bad world—and he’d think that until this was over.

Until he’d gotten here, she felt like a part of that big, bad world—that’s what she liked about running. It was wild and uninhibited. She felt like she was the wind. Still, she hesitated at the door out of the room. That moment, it held her, trapped her. She watched him sleeping—the even cadence of his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest, and his scent in the air.

Mine.

For just a moment, she didn’t feel trapped, she felt free…until she remembered someone out there wanted her dead. And even if Dane wasn’t trying to trap her, she was trapped inside this house. This was a gorgeous cage and really, Dane was trapped with her, but she couldn’t let someone out there dictate her every move.

If she didn’t get back before he woke…

He was exhausted, though. She’d be back. She would.

At the door, she realized she had another problem. She wasn’t going to leave Dane sleeping in an unlocked house, but if she locked the door, she wouldn’t be able to get in, either. The cat door. Crap. She went down to the mudroom, trying not to breathe, and slid the panel up. She’d used this once before…it was no big deal. It felt demeaning now, but maybe that was her conscience eating at her.

She was doing this for both of them, though.

Five seconds later, her clothes dropped to the floor, and she was through that wretched door and out into the night.

It was harder to hold human objectives in a canine brain—the drive to hunt was the same so she focused on that and prayed she wouldn’t run into Jordan out around her house. He’d be as pissed as Dane, maybe more pissed. He might even hold it against Dane.

The altered consciousness pulled her deeper. Hunt. Search for enemies.

Dane. Mate. She turned back and looked at the dim light of his house. Home. Mate. The pull made her hesitate. Mate. Mine.

Hunt. She turned and sprinted toward the light she’d always used to find her way. Her territory. Her place. Her night. When she got closer, she picked up the scents of other Lycans. Travis. Ross. Jordan. Liam. Harris. Pack. They’d come and gone. She paused under a tree and dropped down to watch her porch.

The moon rose and moved, and she sat there still…until a new scent hit the air. Dane. He was out there. Moving. Mate. Instinctually, she bolted toward him. Protect. Mate. He was moving away from her old den and moving fast. She chased him. A new smell had joined his. A Lycan—a Lycan, unfamiliar and familiar—was out here with Dane. It wasn’t until she got closer that she realized Dane’s scent was too cold and not recent. Even before she found the stick with his T-shirt wrapped around one side of it, she knew she’d been lured in and tricked.

In her altered consciousness, there was enough of the human within to think, “Oh hell no,” just before a streak of dark fur leaped from the bushes, its teeth going to her throat. Vanessa had been drawn to the Glacier pack because there was no hierarchy. In her previous pack, she’d had to fight to retain status, to stay above the Omega, and the constant scrapping served her well now. She dropped rather than fight, a move that cost her—the teeth tore at her trapezius muscles, ripping flesh. The other Lycan felt a momentary surge of confidence that this had been much easier than expected, and loosened its jaw to grab a stronger grip, and that’s when Vanessa bolted.

Sometimes, you just had to run.

…

He really shouldn’t have drunk so much with dinner. Dane groaned awake. He was finally getting sleep, and he had to pee. Great. Perfect time to go for healthy hydration. At least Vanessa was still asleep. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and rubbed his forehead tiredly.

Wait. Why was her snoring still from beside him not from behind him? He turned to stare at his phone, where he saw the video file playing.

She didn’t.

He still swung to look at the empty bed. The handcuffs were placed neatly on the other bedside table. He swore and jumped to his feet. He was going to tie her to the bed. Or he’d stick her in the cage downstairs again.

In the distance, a howl chilled his blood, and he ran, slamming into the wall as he slipped in his haste to get downstairs. Something deep within him recognized Vanessa no matter what form she was in. That’d been her, and she was in trouble. He grabbed the shotgun from his gun case, and he loaded it as he was charging back upstairs. His shotgun had a mounted night scope, and he aimed out into the darkness—watching for movement.

Another howl. A sick feeling hit his stomach. Fear built fast and vile in his gut. She was coming and something was chasing her. It was another two minutes—the longest two minutes of his life—before he saw the movement of bodies sprinting toward him, but he didn’t dare fire until he knew which was Vanessa. A blur broke through the forest, heading for the mudroom, followed by another. He started firing on the second wolf. His first shot hit the ground, the second a tree it had ducked behind, and having to pump in between cost him time. Dammit.

Vanessa slammed through the door to the mudroom.

His third shot must have hit the ground again—there wasn’t a cry of pain from the other wolf or the crack of wood. He fired two more shots off because he was so pissed. But the other Lycan was long gone.

Five shots and not a hit on the thing chasing her. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

He stood there scanning the forest with his scope—not just to make sure it was gone, but to temper the rage built of fear inside him. His hearing wasn’t as good as Vanessa’s, but he heard the whimper from the mudroom, and jerked his gun down and slammed back inside.

If she was hurt, he was going to kill her.

…

She left a streak of blood across his floor as she shifted to her skin-wear the moment she cleared the door. Immediately, ignoring the hot pain from her shoulder and the burn of her lungs, she jolted forward and slammed the pet door’s panel down and closed behind her. Outside, she heard gunshots as Dane fired on the other Lycan…and the retreat of padded feet.

Her side was bleeding from where a broken branch had caught her and carved a deep scratch, and her shoulder had a deep bite mark that had torn as she’d escaped, but neither made her pull her knees to her chest and cry.

When she heard his footsteps at the top of the stairs, she almost went to hide. She jerked away from his hand when he knelt beside her.

“Easy…easy…let’s see what happened,” he said. She heard the buried anger, smelled the fear in his scent, but felt the tenderness in his touch and relaxed. “There’s blood all over underneath this mud. How bad is it?”

“Not bad,” she whispered. Clearing her throat, she fought back the shaking. “A bite to my shoulder, and then a tree caught my side.” That was louder, more confident. “The tree gouged me deeper.”

“Figures,” he muttered, brushing away leaves from her side. “You only seem to struggle with the small things…cats…trees.”

She laughed shakily. It was hard to tell if she’d ruined everything with him when he was acting this concerned.

“Let’s go get you in the shower, and we’ll see how bad it is after,” he said, helping her up.