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Fuck. So much for keeping this quiet from the pack until I figure out what to do with her.
Since our current arrangement isn’t going to work out—for her or my dick—I drop her to the ground. She’s so startled, she immediately stops screaming. Gripping her waist, I whirl her around, catching sight of wide, tearful blue eyes that make a pit yawn open inside me. Then I lean over and jam my shoulder into her abdomen, hauling her up onto my shoulder.
Sometimes, you just gotta Neanderthal shit up.
I can move quicker now, ignoring the ever-growing curious stares from my pack as I head straight for my cabin. They aren’t used to me having shit to do with women to begin with, and now they probably think I’m some kind of closet serial killer.
The girl’s shock at being slung over my shoulder gives me a blessed moment of silence and stillness before she starts bucking like a fucking bronco and screaming like I’m ripping her skin off one strip at a time.
Shit. Putting her next to my head probably wasn’t a great idea.
I lock my arm firmly around her thighs so that all she can move are her arms. It works—barely. I’ll have some bruises and scratches on my back later, but if that’s all I walk away from this alley cat with, I’ll count myself fucking lucky.
Yanking open the screen door, I cross the threshold into my cabin and then slam the front door behind me. I stop myself short of turning the lock.
Yeah, I don’t want this mess of a woman launching headlong into the woods where another pack—or hell, one of those fucking witches—might not show her mercy. But I don’t want her to think she’s a prisoner either. I feel like I’m walking a tightrope, bringing a wild animal into my house and having to figure out the best way to navigate the situation.
Good thing I have experience with wild animals.
Sunlight spills through the large front window onto the smooth hardwood in my living room. I bend down, letting the woman flop out of my arms and onto the well-worn brown corduroy couch that’s probably older than she is.
She’s no longer screaming, not since we passed through the door into the house, but she’s breathing like she just finished the Boston Marathon. Her fair skin looks even paler than it did in the dark of my bedroom last night, and with every breath she sucks in, she appears to have a harder time breathing.
Fuck. It hits me in a rush as I gaze at her. She’s having a panic attack. I’m such an asshole.
I kneel on the ground before her and reach for her hands, being as gentle as possible. The girl’s a deer, wide-eyed and terrified, and I’m the big bad wolf. I just have to convince her I’m not going to eat her.
She jolts away from me, but I manage to clasp her small hands. Her skin is soft and smooth.
“Hey. Hey, you’re safe,” I say, pitching my voice in the most soothing tone I can muster. Considering I have a deep baritone that sounds like I’m talking through gravel, it’s a far reach for “soothing.” I’ve got the kind of voice that leads a pack of feral wolves, not a namby-pamby motherly tone.
She sucks in breath after breath, but her fingers cling to mine. That’s progress, right?
“I’m Ridge,” I say when she doesn’t reply. “You’re in my cabin in the mountains. I found you last night. You were hurt, and I brought you home to take care of you. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“H-how d-do I kn-know?” Every word comes out breathy, and on the heels of her statement, a crystalline tear crests over her lower eyelid and spills down her cheek.
My heart twinges in my chest. She’s fucking terrified, so full of abject fear that she’s desperate to escape. I can see in her gorgeous blue eyes that she fully expects I’m going to hurt her.
Just like the monster who marred her beautiful body.
“I can’t prove it,” I tell her truthfully, rubbing my thumbs over her fingers in what I hope is a calming gesture. “But I promise, I won’t hurt you. I only want to help you.”
We stare at one another for several moments. I keep rubbing the bend of her fingers and maintain a polite distance from her body so that I don’t overstep and make her even more frightened than she already is. She’s fucking beautiful, even with fear in her eyes and the pain etched on her face.
I want to destroy the person who turned her into this pitiful creature.
Finally, her shoulders slump forward, the tension in her body lessening by a fraction. She takes a deep, shaky breath and lets it out slowly.
I did it—I got through the panic.
“I’m sorry you woke up in a strange place. That was probably scary as fuck,” I say, trying to get on her level, to show with my apology that I get it. “Especially after whatever happened to you last night. How’d you end up in Devil’s Ditch? In the ravine?”
She blinks at me as if she’s trying to relearn English. As if my words don’t quite make sense, and she has to take an extra few seconds to sort through them as her brain comes back from whatever place it went to during her panic attack.
I don’t move. Don’t even blink. I just keep holding her hands, giving her the time and space she needs to answer.
Finally, her tongue darts out to lick her lips. She swallows once, then opens her mouth to speak.
