She shook her head abruptly. “I wasn’t.”
He knew that was true. He would have smelled her blood if she’d been cut. Yet her ruined shirt indicated otherwise. It had been ripped by jagged branches, a few stray pine needles still embedded in the flannel.
She started to turn away from him.
“Leni.” He reached for her arm and pivoted her back around to face him. “Let me see.”
“No.” She pulled out of his loose grasp and her arms went in front of her like a shield. “I told you I was fine.”
His vision flashed amber at her lie. “I know what you told me. I want to know what you’re hiding now.”
“Nothing.”
He took her in both hands now, forcing her to face him. Then he lifted the torn hem of the shirt and his burning gaze settled on the creamy planes of her belly. Desire flared in him as he ran his fingers over her stomach, searching for the answer to a question he was reluctant to ask.
Then he found it.
A small red mark, the only flaw on her otherwise pristine skin.
Not an injury. That much had been true.
Nothing close to an imperfection, either.
His fangs erupted from his gums as he stared at the diminutive teardrop-and-crescent-moon symbol.
“Holy hell.” He glowered up at her. “You’re a Breedmate.”
CHAPTER 7
Leni couldn’t move, not even when it seemed like the smartest thing for her to do.
“A fucking Breedmate.” Knox growled the words as he stared at her, his expression shocked, confused. Furious as hell.
His eyes gripped her in their molten glow. She’d never seen amber fire burning up someone’s irises before. She’d never seen a pair of pupils transform from humanlike circles to otherworldly, vertical slits. Behind Knox’s parted lips, the sharp tips of his fangs glinted bright white, as sharp as daggers.
No article or image she’d ever seen could have prepared her for the reality of facing a livid Breed male in the flesh. But it was the anger in the man who scared her more than the outward evidence of what he truly was.
“Jesus Christ, Leni. Were you going to say anything to me about this at all?”
“No.”
At her denial, he cursed again, more vividly this time. He still hadn’t let go of her. With one hand grasped around her arm and the other now fisted in the shredded hem of her loose flannel shirt, Knox drew in a breath through flared nostrils.
Everywhere he’d touched her Leni’s skin felt seared, stretched too tight. Part of her bristled at his arrogance as he had run his fingers over her bared stomach, searching for the mark she’d been foolish to try to conceal from him.
He’d had no right. Not to touch her, nor to glower at her in accusation.
He’d had no right to lay his palm so tenderly against her face in the moments before, either, but the heat that touch had stoked inside her had less to do with outrage than she cared to admit.
She hadn’t missed the crackle of hot sparks in his eyes when he’d caressed her cheek. Had he wanted to kiss her? She felt certain he had. Despite his outrage, every instinct in her body clenched with the anticipation that he might want to kiss her now, too.
Kiss her or kill her, she couldn’t be sure.
Either option should have given her plenty of reason to be afraid.
Knox released her on a snarl. Under his lowered brows, his fiery eyes were narrowed and scorching. “This is why you don’t have a scratch on you. Your Breedmate gift. It’s self-healing, isn’t it?”
“Not healing. It’s different from that.”
