His mind went to where hers was going as well. “You mean like what do I want from you for helping you?”
Her eyes flicked down between his legs. She didn’t mean for them to, but that was the bit that she was most worried about. Her life was never going to be the same again. Ali knew that, and she was afraid of Trenton coming back for her anywhere and everywhere. Nowhere was safe. She felt safe with the man-beast in front of her, but that didn’t mean that she was going to have shifter pups because of her gratitude.
“I would never take a woman that didn’t truly want me. It’s not how it works. You would have to give yourself willingly to me. That’s the only way.”
“Oh. Well, how did you know that I was thinking that?”
Cal let her revisit her own words, and she gasped. “You can read my thoughts?”
“Yes.”
She closed her mouth and then sighed because he was going to hear what she was thinking anyway.
“I know you have many questions, I can hear them running in your head, but right now I need you to come with me. Just like you are, and I’m going to shift. It’s the way to let them lose your scent in mine. They will know you’re with me, but they won’t attack the camp because they don’t know where it’s at.”
Ali didn’t dare to stay around. She did want to know what ‘camp’ he was talking about and his pack. So many things she wanted to know, but more than that, Ali wanted to get away from the biting people that had caused all the chaos. She’d seen enough of what happened back there to know that she wanted to get away from the bar as quickly as she possibly could.
He shifted back into the bear right in front of her eyes, and she tried to pull herself together. Even knowing what he was and seeing what he became before, it was a lot for her to take and she felt her knees wobbling. Ali was thankful to have something to lean on as she got on top of his back. He told her to hold on tight, but again it wasn’t said with words. It was just like a whisper in her ear that she could hear perfectly.
She leaned in further and felt the hard muscles bunched underneath her as she grabbed for his neck. It was too wide, and he suggested that she hang onto his fur. She worried about hurting him, but Cal assured her that it wasn’t going to happen.
“You can’t hurt me, but it will hurt if you fall off. Make sure you don’t.”
Ali did her best, but nothing prepared her for when he took off. The hold that she thought was good was not, and she clung to him as tightly as she could and still felt like she was going to lose it.
“You have to relax and trust me. I’m not going to drop you if I can help it, Ali.”
It made her feel a little better, the reassurances, but at the same time, he wasn’t promising anything. She wanted guarantees, that’s how Ali was, but it appeared that she was jumping headlong into something that gave her no guarantees at all. She was just going to have to go with it.
