Despite the horns that grew out of his forehead near the hairline.
After a long, breathless moment, while he studied her as keenly as she did him, he abruptly flexed the bat-like wings he’d had folded close to his back, dropped from the branch where he had been crouched studying her, and landed barely a yard from where she was standing--frozen immobile.
Belle sucked in a startled breath, but she felt like she’d been literally rooted to the ground, unable to command her body to take flight. To move. To draw breath.
Even to think of it when he straightened slowly and she realized he must be every bit of six feet tall--maybe as much as six and a half. And, despite the lean look of him, he was a very long way from thin. He was just plainbig.
“Ryne,” he said, lifting a hand to touch his chest. “I am called Ryne. My padur, just there in the trees, is Torr. You are a pretty little thing. What name are you called?”
Chapter Three
Belle sensed a presence behind her maybe two seconds before a hand curled around her arm. More than half expecting that another one like the first had slipped up behind her, she jolted all over and whipped a quick look upward.
Connor didn’t look at her. He didn’t take his eyes off of the alien man. Instead, he exerted pressure on her arm until she yielded to it and allowed him to drag-push her behind him.
He had a weapon in his free hand, Belle discovered when she dragged her gaze from the alien and glanced at him. Her lips felt dry and uncooperative. “He didn’t hurt me,” she said a little hoarsely.
“Yet,” Connor said grimly. “I’m just guessing here. But from the looks of him, I think he’s capable of doing a good bit of damage … if he was so inclined.”
She hadn’t felt threatened, though. “I think … he’s just curious.”
She could see a muscle working in Connor’s jaw. “I think he is,” he agreed tightly.
There was just something about the way he said it that seemed to be a suggestion that the alien man was looking at her with sexual interest.
Which she was certain was absurd.
Until she looked at him and discovered that he was examining Connor through narrowed, assessing eyes.
“I think she is not your woman, star man,” Ryne said after a long moment, flicking a gaze over her before he met the man’s gaze with a steely one of his own.
Connor studied him for a long moment and finally, slowly, returned his weapon to the holster secured at his thigh.
He didn’t actually release his hold on the butt of the pistol, however. “Back away, Belle … slowly.”
Belle stared up at him and then glanced at the alien man. Unnerved by the possibility of finding herself in the middle of a battle, she stepped back, paused for a moment and then took another step back when Connor backed toward her without turning. When they’d put a couple of yards between them, Connor half turned so that he could keep an eye on the alien man and see behind them.
The alien man hadn’t moved from the spot where he’d been standing. He watched them until they had moved through the brush and he lost sight of the woman, however, before he took flight and joined hispadur, Torr.
“What do you think?”
Torr met his gaze. “I would like to have that pretty thing.”
Ryne released a pent up breath. “Yes. I also. She is even prettier up close and she smells …. Her scent. I had to fight the urge to snatch her up and make off with her.” He paused. “I cannot tell you how comforting it is to know you had no more of your wits about you than I did.”
Torr’s expression tightened. “I was watching your back.”
“How many of their people were watching me?” Ryne asked dryly.
“Six. The others took off back inside the wall when they spotted you.”
Ryne digested that. “The assholesabandonedher? What the fuck?”
Torr shrugged. “None were armed except the asshole that challenged you for the woman. He sent them back.”
Ryne’s lips tightened. “There was no challenge. He claimed her. She was surprised, though. Beyond that, I saw nothing in their behavior toward one another to support his claim. I do not think she is truly his. I do think, though, that he considers her his and he will fight to keep her.”
Torr thought that over, struggling with resentment. “Mayhap it is only that he is their chief and that is what that was about? Protection because she is one of their people?”
