CHAPTER 2
1071 Words
BLAINE
Pain. That was the only thing in the world, until her hand touched my throat.
The moment her fingers brushed my skin, something inside me went quiet. My wolf, Ronan, had been snarling and clawing at my insides for the last hour, trying to force the shift so we could heal faster, but the second this woman touched me, he stopped fighting. He just... settled. Like a dog finding the one safe spot in a thunderstorm.
I didn't understand it. I didn't have time to understand it.
"Don't call anyone," I growled, gripping her wrist hard enough that she gasped.
Her eyes went wide. Even in the dark, even soaked from the rain, I could see they were a deep brown, almost black, and right now they were full of fear. Not fear of me. Fear for me.
"You're hurt," she said. "Badly. I need to call for help."
"No hospitals. No police. No pack." Each word cost me. My ribs were broken, at least three of them, and my back felt like it had been opened up with a rake. Because it had been. Silver claws did that.
"Okay," she said slowly, like she was talking to a wild animal. Which, to be fair, wasn't far off. "Okay, no hospital. But you can't stay here. Another car could come around that curve any second."
She was right. We were on a back road outside the city, the kind of road rich people used to avoid traffic, which meant it was also the kind of road where a body could lie for hours before anyone found it. My brother had chosen it for exactly that reason.
I tried to sit up and a sound tore out of me that I wasn't proud of.
"Easy," she said, sliding an arm under my shoulders. Her hands were small but strong, and when they pressed against my bare skin, heat shot through me, sharp and strange, nothing like the pain. "I've got you. Just lean on me."
I should have told her to leave. I should have dragged myself off the road and disappeared into the trees like Ronan wanted, healed in private, found my own way back to the city. That was the smart thing. The safe thing, for both of us.
Instead, I let her pull me up.
She was tiny compared to me, maybe five foot four against my six foot three, but she didn't even stumble under my weight. Her wolf was strong. I could feel it now that I was closer, a low hum of power under her skin that didn't match the soaked, smudged, crying woman in front of me.
"You're a wolf," I said. It came out rougher than I meant.
"So are you," she said. "Bleeding all over my dress."
I almost laughed. It hurt too much to actually do it.
She got me to her car, an expensive little thing, dented now on the front bumper where she'd hit me. She opened the back door and helped me half fall, half climb inside, and I caught her scent properly for the first time. Rain. Something floral underneath, like jasmine. And under that, something else. Something that made Ronan lift his head again, ears pricked, every instinct in him suddenly, painfully alert.
I shoved that thought down hard. Now was not the time.
"What's your name?" I asked, lying back against the seat. My shirt was gone, torn away by claws hours ago, and I was very aware of how much skin was on display, and how her eyes kept dropping to it and then snapping away.
"Nyla," she said, climbing into the driver's seat. Her hands were shaking on the wheel. "Nyla Thornton."
Thornton. I filed that away. It wasn't a name I recognized, which meant she wasn't pack royalty, at least not from any of the packs my family did business with. Good. That made this simpler.
"And you?" she asked, glancing at me in the mirror.
I hesitated. Telling her my real name was a risk. If my brother's men were still looking for me, and they were, a single slip could get us both killed.
"Cole," I said. It wasn't a complete lie. It was my middle name.
"Okay, Cole." She pulled the car back onto the road, hands white on the wheel. "Where am I taking you?"
That was the question, wasn't it. My penthouse was out, that was the first place anyone would check. My company's headquarters, definitely out. Any hotel under my name, out.
"There's a motel about ten miles from here," I said. "The Wayfarer. Cash only."
She didn't ask why a man who clearly owned the watch still strapped to my wrist, worth more than her car, would know the name of a cash only motel. I appreciated that more than she could know.
"Okay," she said again, and I noticed her voice was trembling now, not from fear of me, but like something had cracked open in her and she was barely holding it together. "Okay."
"Are you alright?" I asked. The words felt strange in my mouth. I didn't usually ask people if they were alright. I usually didn't care.
She let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob. "My husband is sleeping with my sister. I just found out I'm pregnant and I'm pretty sure he doesn't want it. And I just hit a half naked man with my car in the middle of a storm. So no. I'm not alright. But thanks for asking."
Pregnant.
That word hit something in me, something I couldn't name, and Ronan let out a low whine that had nothing to do with my broken ribs.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but headlights flooded the back window, bright and sudden, two sets of them, coming up fast from behind us.
"Don't slow down," I said, my whole body going rigid. I knew those headlights. I knew the exact spacing of those two black SUVs, because I'd seen them parked outside my own company's garage a hundred times.
"What's wrong?" Nyla asked, glancing in the mirror. "Cole, what's wrong?"
"Those are my brother's men," I said, my voice low and flat. "And if they catch us, they're not going to ask politely for me to come home."
The first SUV swerved into our lane, headlights blinding, closing the gap between us in seconds.
- Writer
