She Proved Herself in the Rain, Now He Cannot Stay Away novel · Chapter 1 of 3
Chapter 1: The Alpha Drops to His Knees
Passion kills the rogue wolf alone and faces Marcus in the rain, where he kneels in the mud to bind her wound with his own shirt, then carries her to the edge of the shelter and asks if she will let him help her now.
The rogue's blood was already cooling in the rain, and she still had not lowered her head.
The clearing smelled of wet earth and torn fur, and beneath it, the iron of the wound in her side.
She had felt the gash the moment the brute's claws dragged through her flank, a hot, bright line of pain that had almost made her stumble.
She had not stumbled.
She had used the pain, let it sharpen her, and when the rogue lunged again she had already found his rhythm.
A pivot, a feint, and then her jaws had closed around his throat.
Now he lay still in the mud, and she stood over him, her chest heaving, her black fur matted with blood that was only partly his.
The rain came down harder, needling through her coat and into the wound, and she did not shift back.
Not yet.
Not until she heard them coming.
The scent reached her first: pine and woodsmoke, and under it, the particular cold authority that had never once been warm to her.
Marcus.
He burst through the treeline in his wolf form, enormous and silver-grey, the tracking party crashing behind him in a ragged line.
They all stopped.
The silence that fell was louder than the storm.
She watched them take in the scene: the dead rogue, the blood, and her, standing over it all.
The smallest tracker in the unit.
The one they had all written off as a quota to be filled.
She let them look.
Marcus shifted first, the crackle of energy resolving into the man she knew too well: six foot three of soaked dark hair and a jaw that never softened.
His white shirt was already plastered to his chest, and his dark eyes found hers across the clearing.
'Passion,' he said.
Not a question.
She shifted back before she could decide not to, the golden light surging through her and leaving her human again, kneeling in the mud with her torn clothes and her bleeding side.
The pain hit her all at once, now that the wolf was gone.
She did not let it show.
'Passion,' she said, and her voice came out hoarse but steady. 'My name is Passion. You've only been signing my paychecks for six years.'
His jaw tightened.
'You're bleeding,' he said.
'Astute observation, Alpha.'
He moved then, and she did not understand what he was doing until he was already in front of her, dropping to his knees in the mud.
The sight of it did something strange to her chest.
Marcus Thorne did not kneel.
He tore a strip from his own shirt with one hard pull, the sound of it loud in the rain, and then his hands were on her.
She flinched.
She could not help it.
His fingers stilled against her ribs, and for a long moment he did not look at her face.
'Don't,' she said.
'Don't what?'
'Don't look so surprised. I told you I could handle myself.'
He pressed the cloth against her wound, and the pressure made her gasp.
He did not apologize.
He did not say she was right.
He just held the fabric there, his palm flat against her side, his other hand bracing her back, and the heat of him cut through the cold rain like a brand.
She had imagined his hands on her before.
She had imagined it in the dark of her own room, in the quiet after Jay was asleep, when she was too tired to guard her own thoughts.
She had never imagined this.
The rough tenderness of it.
The way his thumb moved in a small, unconscious circle against her skin.
The tracking party was still watching. She could feel their eyes, the weight of their silence, and she knew what they were seeing.
Their Alpha, on his knees in the mud, holding her together.
'You killed it alone,' Marcus said, and his voice was low, almost too low to hear over the rain.
'I told you I would.'
'I know.'
He said it like it cost him something.
She looked at him then, really looked, and what she saw in his face made her stomach drop.
It was not surprise.
It was something worse.
It was the look of a man who had just realized he had been wrong about something, and did not know what to do with the knowledge.
'We need to get you to the healer,' he said.
'I can walk.'
'You can barely stand.'
She opened her mouth to argue, and the world tilted.
He caught her before she fell, and then she was in his arms, cradled against his chest like she weighed nothing at all.
The pack closed around them as he carried her through the forest, a silent protective circle, and she was too tired to fight it.
She was too tired to fight him.
His heartbeat was steady under her ear, and his scent was everywhere, pine and woodsmoke and the wet wool of his ruined shirt.
She hated how safe it felt.
'This doesn't change anything,' she said, and her voice was muffled against his chest.
'I know,' he said again.
He carried her past the packhouse, past the path that led to the healer's cottage, and she frowned.
'Where are you taking me?'
'Somewhere dry.'
'That's not an answer.'
'It's the one you're getting.'
The shelter came into view through the trees, a small stone structure the trackers used during long hunts, and she felt a fresh wave of exhaustion roll through her.
He carried her to the edge of the shelter and set her down beside the basin.
The stone was cold under her boots, and his hands stayed braced around her waist, steadying her.
She looked up at him, and he was close, too close, the rain still running down his face and dripping from his jaw.
'Will you let me help you now?' he asked.
She did not know how to answer.
She did not know if she wanted to.
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