But when the hell was that going to be?
I gritted my teeth, fists clenching. I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t just stand here pacing back and forth. Without giving myself any time to think more about it, I grabbed my jacket and keys and marched toward the door.
I was halfway down the hall when the doorknob rattled. I heard a key scrape the inside of the lock, and the door pushed open.
Sam limped in. He was covered in dirt and scrapes. A long scratch ran along one cheek, and his arm was wrapped in heavy bandages, as was his arm. Injured, clearly battered, but alive.
“Oh my God.” Without realizing what I was doing, I cleared the gap between us at breakneck speed and collided with him as I wrapped my arms around him.
“Oof. Ow.”
“Oh, God, sorry.” I stepped back, my heart still hammering as adrenaline pumped itself out of my system, replaced by relief at seeing him okay. I took a deep breath, finally realizing that my hands were shaking and my knees had started wobbling with relief.
His face creased into a frown. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“What the hell happened?” I asked, ignoring the question. “I sensed something through the mating bond, but I couldn’t figure out what it was, and you weren’t answering your phone. I was about to—what?” I cut myself off as I caught sight of the amused grin dancing on his face.
“Were you worried about me?” he teased. “Because it sounds like you were worried.”
I shot him a glare. “You could have called,” I retorted.
He tilted his head, that obnoxiously attractive grin spreading further over his face. “You would only want me to call if you were worried about me.”
Glowering, I folded my arms. He was going to make me admit it whether I wanted to or not.
“Fine. I was worried,” I snapped. “Now tell me what the hell happened.”
The smirk flickered out of existence. “We were tracking the demons, and they led us into an ambush,” he explained. “We managed to get out of there all right, but not without a few new scars.”
I stared, then closed the distance between us. I reached out, as if to pull him toward me.
I slapped his arm. Hard.
“Ow!” he said. “You know, bandages typically mean injuries.”
“You idiot,” I snarled. “What the hell were you thinking, wandering into danger like that?”
“I can’t help it,” he fired back. “It’s my job.”
“You need to be more careful.”
“I don’t have a say in what sort of danger I get into,” he countered. “I’m the pack beta. I have to take those risks. I’m not going to let the other guards put themselves at risk, and not willing to do the same. And in case it wasn’t clear, I didn’t know we were running into an ambush. You can’t blame me for that.”
“You had to know it was a chance,” I said.
“Of course I did,” he said. “But I have a job to do, and that comes with risk. I’m protecting the pack.”
But I wasn’t done. All my emotions welled up to the surface and burst out as if a dam had burst. “You know I feel everything that happens to you. How do you think I would feel if something worse than this happened to you? I nearly went out of my mind with worry, and I could still tell you were alive. I don’t want to have to feel you die. At the very least, you could have called.”
He went still as he studied me, and I realized exactly what I had just said. Heat flooded my body, and I couldn’t tell if it was out of embarrassment at what I had admitted or some other, more visceral reason, like the intensity of his stare as it locked on me.
“I didn’t realize you felt that strongly about it,” he said. “Based on past conversations, I didn’t think you would care one way or the other.”
“Of course I care,” I snapped, anger still searing through my veins. “God, how are you so fucking dense?”
“I’mthe dense one?” He marched forward until he was standing in front of me. “You’re the one who doesn’t realize what sort of effect you have on guys. Me in particular.”
“Don’t change the subject,” I said, but the anger in my words quavered, replaced with something else entirely as his words sank in. He stared down at me with an intensity that made my body burn bright hot, settling between my legs. “You’re the one who scared me half to death, and I’m not going to let this go until you say you’re sorry.”
