Lachlan was damaged. Irreparably so. There would be no mating with him, no future. Everything I wanted was dangled in front of me, forever to be tugged just out of reach.
Still, I stayed. I told myself that Calder needed me to help with the pack as they recovered from their battle with the Faction. That he needed me to track down the remaining members and eradicate them.
Finally, I had to admit to myself that I stayed because I wanted to be close to Lachlan and help him heal. Even if I would never have him, I couldn’t live with the idea of his death. I nursed, bullied, pushed, persuaded, and coaxed him into eating, bathing, even sleeping. There were days that I felt like only my will alone kept him breathing. As much as the thought hurt like hell, I would have done everything within my power to bring Belinda back to him just to see his heartbreak eased. He deserved happiness, even if it wasn’t with me.
Once again, the wind shifted, bringing with it the scent of Lachlan and interrupting my thoughts. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. Then I heard the brush of denim on the tall grass and knew I wasn’t alone. Nor was that scent a figment of my imagination.
I rolled to my feet in a flash and gaped as Lachlan walked through the grass toward me. My stomach twisted at the sight of him. In the last three weeks, he had gained weight, his frame no longer frighteningly gaunt. Though he still hadn’t achieved the bulk he’d had when I first met him, he looked healthy and strong.
The biggest surprise was his hair. When I left, it had been long, just brushing the collar of his shirt and falling into his eyes. Now it was shorn close to his scalp, no more than a half inch long. The thick beard that had once adorned his jaw was also gone, his skin shaven smooth.
Without the hair to hide his features, the angles of his face stood out in bold relief. The sharp slant of his jaw and the high formation of his cheekbones and brow ridge were naked. And his eyes. They were so bright and brilliantly blue that it made my chest ache to look into them. He looked dangerous and beautiful, every inch the alpha wolf.
I tamped down hard on my body’s response. I was downwind of him so he wouldn’t be able to smell any changes in me, but I was also naked as a jaybird.
Then it hit me that he shouldn’t even know where I was. I hadn’t told anyone and I’d taken the battery out of my phone and hidden it in the cabin I’d left behind. Any arousal I’d been feeling moments ago was immediately quashed.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him, striding forward.
“Looking for you,” he replied, his eyes locked on my face.
His jaw was hard and his body tight. I understood then that he was angry. No, furious.
“Why?” I questioned, lifting my chin. “I left the MacIntire pack and what I do now isn’t any of your concern.”
He growled low in his throat and reminded me once again of the fact that he was an alpha wolf, not to be challenged.
Unfortunately, he seemed to have forgotten that I had dominant instincts of my own and my hackles rose. I growled back, prowling toward him.
“Don’t threaten me,” I stated. I pitched my voice low and it vibrated with tension. “We aren’t on your turf any longer, Ian.”
He blinked at me in surprise. “What did you just call me?”
“Ian,” I repeated, meeting his eyes levelly.
“How did you…” Confusion momentarily replaced his fury before his eyes flashed once again. If anything, my use of his first name only intensified his anger. “Don’t call me that. No one calls me that but—”
He didn’t finish his sentence. I knew what had been on the tip of his tongue however. No one but his mate would ever have the guts to call him Ian. In fact, I didn’t think I’d ever heard Belinda call him by his given name either.
He hated it and went to great lengths to make that clear. Half the MacIntire pack had probably forgotten that Lachlan wasn’t even his first name because it had been so long since anyone dared use it.
I kept walking, brushing by him on my way back to the cramped hunting cabin that I was staying in. “You need to leave.”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on,” he retorted.
Though he moved silently, I knew he was following me.
“I told Calder. Ask him.”
His hand hooked around my elbow, spinning me toward him. I reacted without thinking, my body moving on autopilot as I twisted his wrist and swept his legs from beneath him. To my shock, he used his downward momentum against me, dragging my body with him as he hit the ground. Then he rolled us so that he was straddling my waist.
Lachlan leaned forward until those burning blue eyes filled my vision. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”
I bucked, throwing him off and reversing our positions. This time it was me straddling his hips with my face lowered toward his. “Then I don’t know what you mean,” I snarled. “I’m here to investigate my parents’ death, nothing more.”
“Then why did Brian and Brayden Kirkpatrick seem so interested in your whereabouts when they requested a meet with Calder last week.”
Surprised, I straightened and stared down at him. “What?”
