Page 7 of Caught By the Wolf

Mate. Protect. Mate.

CHAPTER THREE

Ella

Ella looked around Roman’s broad shoulders and went very still. In the doorway were not one, but two men approximately the same size as Roman. She instinctively knew the poachers had not found her. She didn’t get any weird icky vibes as she had earlier in the forest. No, they were wolves. Big, intimidating wolves—if she were a woman easily intimidated.

And they were uncannily the same as her self-appointed protector.

Or captor, as he’d just pointed out, which had done nothing for the state of her mind. Now, instead of her body running on fear and adrenaline, it was running on hormones. That was a sentence she never expected to think about herself in a stranger’s kitchen with blood on her shirt, and yet here she was, thinking it anyway. Of course, her traitorous body would pick now to remember it had needs. Thoroughly ignored-for-years needs.

One was as wide as a load-bearing wall and the other had the kind of smile no smart woman—or man—would fall for. He was all charm on the outside, but underneath, the darkness practically swirled around him, and she was not into the whole aura thing.

Both of them were scanning the room like they expected to find bodies.

Everybody froze.

“Huh,” said the wide one. She couldn’t really call him the wide one. They were all freaking wide. And tall. And handsome.

Excessively handsome. The kind of handsome that belonged to women who didn’t come with soft stomachs and wide hips and the quiet knowledge that men who looked like this usually looked right past women who looked like her.

The charming one looked from Roman, to Ella, to the first aid kit on the table, to the bandage on Roman’s shoulder, and his knife-grin spread slow and delighted, like Christmas had come early and brought ammunition. “Well,” he said. “This explains everything.”

Roman made a sound Ella had never heard before. Not today in the clearing when he’d faced off armed men, not from any of the shifters she’d treated at the hospital. It was low and continuous. She felt it—in parts of her body she absolutely shouldn’t have.

Down, girl, she told her traitorous nervous system. The man is growling at the strange men who just burst into his home, not at you. Stop getting wet over a growl. You are a professional. You are a grown woman who has accepted that men do not lose their minds over curvy packages. You are not going to start panting now just because this particular giant happens to smell like pine and danger and something that makes your knees stupid.

The other two men just stood there, unmoving.

Because he had not immediately charged. Ella put a hand on Roman’s back—between the shoulder blades, flat, the way she steadied patients who were about to do something ill-advised—and felt every muscle in him go rigid at once.

“Roman.” She kept her voice the same way she kept it during procedures. Steady. Unhurried. A voice that expected to be obeyed. “Who are they.”

A pause.

“My brothers,” he said. It came out low and rough and not entirely like language.

“I’m Declan,” the large one said. No preamble. Just the fact, offered and done.

“Cage,” said the other one. “The charming one.”

“He decided that himself,” Declan said.

“Nobody disputed it.”

Ella was a practical woman who dealt in information. She put together what she had. The sound, the position, the way his brothers had come in low and ready and were now standing absolutely still. Not because they were afraid. Because they were being careful. The way you were careful around something that might go one of two ways and you didn’t want to influence it toward the bad one.

She looked at the one named Cage. He was watching Roman with the expression of a man running scenarios through his mind.

She looked at the other one. He hadn’t taken his eyes off his brother.

“Okay,” she said. “Will someone tell me what’s happening.”

“Roman’s spooked,” Cage said casually. “It happens. He’s fine.”

“He’s making a noise,” she couldn’t help but point out.

Cage shook his head. “Actually, that’s his wolf making the noise. The animal is warning us away.”