Chapter Fifteen #2
He snarls at me. “I didn’t need saving.”
“Really?” I ask, my tone thick with disbelief. “You’re such a stud that you could handle getting jumped by half a dozen murderous werewolves?”
He opens his mouth as if he’s about to say yes, but then closes it quick as the color of his aura mellows out. “I would have told you to get out of there if things got bad.”
“Got bad?” Now it’s my turn to yell, because what in the ever-loving fuck is he talking about. “They were bad! And anyway, I would have just rubber-banded back to you, did you think of that?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, his voice flat and firm as if he’s delivering a fiat that I’m actually going to agree with. “I’m the alpha, and I don’t accept anyone else’s help because I’m there to help.”
Of all the stupid things to say, Darius had to go there.
I help, I don’t need help. Really? REALLY?
?? It’s all the more frustrating because he has enough brainpower to outmaneuver Nikos, trap me with some kind of proximity charm I still haven’t been able to find, and run the Aetos pack.
He’s a smart man and he should know better.
However, here we are.
“Yes, you do need help from others. There are people out there, like your aunt Artemis, who want to help you if you’d just let them,” I say, trying—and failing—to keep my voice calm and not shaking with frustration.
“And Nikos can’t represent your whole pack.
He’s one asshole; don’t let him dictate what happens next. ”
He snaps a limb the size of a baseball bat off a tree and starts to break pieces off like he’s shredding a paper coaster at a bar. “No one tells me what to do.”
And there it is, folks. The real reason why we’re out here in the woods wandering aimlessly when the clock is ticking down on us.
I swear, if I didn’t think Darius was actually a good person underneath all those layers of grumptitude and pain-in-the-assness, I’d—well, I don’t know what I’d do, because it’s not like I can leave him until this whole proximity charm gets found and destroyed, but I’d figure out something.
As it is, though, all I can do is talk. So I do.
“No one, especially not your wolf, can tell you anything, right? Everyone knows that’s how werewolves work.
Your wolf is inside you and you share space.
Together forever. Never alone,” I say, not just poking the werewolf but hitting him upside the head with a pool noodle made out of cement.
“But you’ve got him completely shut down, even though you need him to get back to Arcadia.
Did you ever think that the whole point of this gauntlet is to realize it is a part of you, and you need him? ”
“I don’t,” he says, but it sounds like a lie because it is, he just doesn’t want to admit it.
“Bullshit.” I throw up my hands in frustration and let out a little aaaarrrrrggggghhhh before resting against a pine tree. I don’t actually whack the back of my head against the trunk in frustration, but I am tempted.
Very tempted.
Instead, I continue, determined to get him to admit what I know he already knows. “You said it yourself. You need skill and instinct to make it back to Arcadia in time, and you’ve tied an arm and a leg behind your back and are trying to hop on one foot the whole way home.”
He walks over, deceptively smoothly, considering the way the vein in his temple is doing the cha-cha, and leans in close, invading my space and pressing his palms to the tree at my back.
My heartbeat kicks into another gear when his gaze falls to my mouth.
He lifts a hand from the tree trunk and takes one of my waves between his fingers, pulling it straight before letting go and watching it recoil back into shape.
He watches, fascinated, as he wraps the strand around his pointer finger and runs his thumb over it before releasing it to recurl.
“So soft and yet so stubborn,” Darius says, tracing a fingertip down the side of my neck. “How appropriate.”
He reaches the base of my throat and follows the line of my clavicle, his touch setting off an electrical shock of almost unbearable desire.
His possessive growl sends a shiver of want straight to my core.
My breathing is quick, my legs unsteady, and I bite down on my bottom lip to keep from letting a needy moan escape—not that it matters, because he knows already.
“You want to find out what happens when I give in to my wolf and let it out, witch?” he asks with a sexy, knowing grin. “Are you sure you can handle that?”
I know what he’s doing. He’s distracting me on purpose.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s not working.
Get it together, Effie Sherwood. This is getting embarrassing.
Fighting past the lust about to drown me, I manage to get out, “Sounds easy to me.”
He lowers his face to mine, bringing his lips within millimeters of my mouth. I’m already closing my eyes, raising myself onto my tiptoes, and parting my lips when his chuckle registers.
“Are you lying to me or yourself, Effie Sherwood?” He intertwines his fingers with mine and pulls me away from the tree. “Come on, the cave’s shown up.”
I stumble over my feet, and he steadies me before we continue toward a river that wasn’t there a few minutes ago.
And shock of all not shocks, there’s a waterfall at one end.
Great. We’re going back into and through the water, meaning we’ll both have to strip off our wet clothes again, and I am not looking forward to that.
I’m not.
I’m not!
I’m a fucking liar.
Shit.
I have no idea how this could get any worse. And then I realize as we step off the riverbank and into the current that I’m still holding Darius’s hand with no intention of letting go.