Her Wolf Protector Page 8

  Sounded pretty diplomatic in her opinion. But Solomon’s explanation also made it sound like…

  “...you fought your father?”

  If anything, this was the question she assumed would upset him most, but Solomon’s expression remained impassive.

  “My Uncle, actually. My father was long dead by the time I became Alpha.”

  Georgia’s breath caught at the hollow note in his tone. They were back to avoiding one another’s gaze as she struggled to think of a question that wasn’t too prying - or upsetting. “I’m...sorry. About your father, I mean.”

  “Doesn’t matter. He was a good Alpha when he was alive.”

  Georgia swallowed thickly. “Meaning...he was a good fighter? He had a lot of... kills?”

  “Where the hell do you get these ideas?” Solomon’s sharp retort made her jump. In a trice he was out of his chair, pacing back and forth over the width of the small living room. “Over the past decades, we’ve done everything we can to crop the violence out of the picture. I haven’t heard any news stories about bloodthirsty shifters lately, so what makes you so sure we are?”

  There she went again - unintentionally letting Vincent’s influence over her show. Even though the accusation stung, Georgia didn’t bother to deny it. She was being unfair, despite her best efforts.

  “Solomon, you have to work with me here.” She finally managed; her hands clasped tightly in her lap. “I don’t know anything except what I’ve seen, and I watched you tear some guys throat out.”

  “Because of you!” When he spoke again, the growl underlying his tone made her lurch backward against the couch, her breath in her throat. “You were in danger, so I reacted. Do you think I like killing? Unless it’s food, I don’t run around like a bloodthirsty savage. It’s you...you make me lose my fucking head!”

  For a moment, Georgia forgot how to speak. All she could do was stare into Solomon’s intense, angry green gaze, wondering what the hell he was talking about. She hadn’t meant to come here - hadn’t meant to be chased into the forest and almost dismembered. How could he think that any of this was her fault?

  “If I’m so much trouble, why don’t you just let me leave? “Her voice was so calm Georgia wasn’t even certain that she was the one speaking. How could she be, when she felt like crying and fleeing all at once?

  “We’re at fucking war, woman.” Solomon’s snarl made her eyes widen. “A war between two wolf packs is nowhere for a human to be, unless you want to end up a casualty.”

  War? What the hell did he mean war? Surely if something so serious was going on, they would have heard about it back in Dockery? “You’re fighting the Belleviews?” Her tone was shrill with disbelief. “Why? What the hell have they done to you?”

  “Me?”

  One look at Solomon’s face was enough to tell Georgia that she had pushed him too far.

  “They’ve done absolutely nothing to me!” Solomon wasn’t yelling, but he didn’t have to. The intensity in his tone spoke volumes. “But they’ve killed my pack. Two women and a baby...a dozen wounded. A rogue Belleview murdered his Alpha - his brother - in cold blood because he’s a power-hungry narcissist that believes our kind should be at the top of the food chain. He’s sewn absolute chaos in his own pack, and it’s bleeding into ours...but me? Georgia, he’ll leave me for last, just so I can watch it all burn.”

  Georgia opened her mouth, then shut it. Her heart pounded against her ribcage so hard her chest ached, and her palms were most against the battered leather of the couch. Was he...was he serious? He couldn’t be. The Belleviews and the Doziers were supposed to be at peace - both for their own safety and for that of the townsfolk. A war between shifters meant more danger than they could possibly imagine in Dockery.

  But before things got that far...what the hell would happen to the Belleviews? Sure, Solomon was a big bad Alpha, but she was learning that Shifters were just as human as she was...and he was dealing with this alone. This, and every other warped, wrong assumption that humans had ever insisted about their kind.

  If she’d thought Solomon was terrifying when she first saw him in the woods, that was nothing compared to his face now. His eyes blazed green fire, flashing the golden of his animal in blatant warning. Every muscle in his immense body pulled taught and he looked as if he might lunge for her any moment. If she had any sense of self- preservation at all, she’d hobble out of his cabin as fast as she could.

  But Georgia didn’t make a beeline for the door.

  Instead, she hauled herself up from the couch before carefully picking her way across the room towards the raging titan.

  She could all but feel the turmoil raging inside him - rage, helplessness, fear...even if he wasn’t completely human, his emotions were. How on earth could he be a monster?

  Georgia was pretty sure that her empathy for Solomon would get her killed. He could rip her apart - snap her neck in a single motion. But that didn’t stop her from wrapping her arms around him and pressing her cheek to the solid wall of his chest. And it certainly didn’t keep her feeling that, despite the fact that she was probably in more danger than she’d ever been, at that moment, she was absolutely safe.

  Solomon was her anchor in reality - solid and steadfast despite the chaos around him. Hell, when was the last time she’d had anything like that? Vincent had almost ruined her, and she’d spent every waking moment since him building herself up to ensure that no one would ever get past her defenses again.

  “Georgia.” Solomon’s throaty growl rumbled against her sternum and she caught her breath at the warning. He was just as stiff as he’d been when she first embraced him.

  ...And she was an idiot?

  Who was she, a human in a shifter settlement - a walking liability - trying to comfort someone far more powerful and important than she would ever be?

  “I’m sorry.” The words escaped her in the barest whisper. When she made to withdraw, however, Solomon’s arms closed around her, gathering her right back against his chest. The scent of him - his closeness that that ever-present growl - was enough to make her throat dry and her body hot.

  “Look at me, Georgia.”

  As if she could have refused him.

  When Solomon’s fingers caught her chin with surprising gentility, tipping it up until she was trapped in his gaze, she forgot how to breathe. She had only ever been this close to Vincent, and that hadn’t been pleasant for almost as long as she could remember.

  But this man, with all his savagery - the way he barked commands and issued orders - was nowhere near the monster Vincent was. He cared about people. She didn’t have to know him to see that in his eyes. “You don’t smell scared.”

  His low baritone heated her to the tips of her toes.

  “I’m not.” That much was the truth. Fear was the last thing on her mind.

  Solomon’s thumb slid over her lower lip slowly, the motion drawing a low sound of anticipation from her. “I am.”

  Before Georgia could process his admission, his mouth was on hers - and she forgot everything else.

  She was supposed to be comforting him, but all at once, she was grasping at him. Her hands were sliding through his dark hair as she cleaved her body to his, and her mouth opened the moment his tongue pressed against her lips.

  She was dizzy. So dizzy that if he weren’t holding her, she was sure she’d fall - and that would be a goddamned tragedy because kissing Solomon was quite possibly the most meaningful thing she’d done in her thirty years on earth. He was everything - the taste of him dark, spicy and inviting, his arms her refuge from anything she had ever feared.

  Solomon didn’t just kiss her. He drank her. Every stroke of his mouth over hers ignited a fire in her belly and thirst on her tongue. When his teeth tugged on her lower lip, she inhaled sharply, tugging him even closer, and she whimpered when he lifted her from the floor, crushing her against him to kiss her even deeper.

  She wanted him more desperately than she could ever remember wanting anything. Ge
orgia had never been one to think much of love or sex, but the way Solomon held her made her hungry for more. She wanted to strip away the layers between them so she could feel his bare skin against hers. She wanted him to cover her...to fill her-

  But a loud, pronounced banging somewhere distant jerked her back to the present.

  Georgia jerked backward, breathless, every nerve ending in her body tingling with awareness of the male against her. Solomon, however, merely dropped his head to the place where her neck met her shoulder, pulling a vulnerable spot of skin between his teeth so she bites back a moan as fresh want coursed through her.

  When the knocking came again, he jerked upright, his arms still around her. “What!?”

  He sounded more irate than Georgia had ever heard him - no mean feat when the man’s default mood seemed to be irritable.

  The door swung inward to reveal Anne’s slender form. It took a fraction of a second for her gaze to find them entwined before the hearth, but when it did, her entire face contorted.

  The lapse in expression was so quick Georgia thought she must have imagined it - but for an instant, there was cold, furious hatred in Anne’s dark gaze.

  And then it was gone.

  “Alpha,” Anne lowered her gaze, suddenly very interested in the woven rug beneath her feet. “Trevor is getting worse. He’s asked for you.”

  Any vestiges of the heat present before Anne barged in fled with that statement. Solomon set her back on the sofa so quickly she might have burned him. Without a word, he crossed the room in two strides, following Anne from the cabin.

  When the door banged shut, Georgia could still taste him on her lips.

  Chapter 9

  Vincent was irritated.

  That was to say, he was more irritated than usual. Generally, he walked around with his fuse half-lit anyway, but he liked to think that when things got really bad, he could always rely on the one thing that brought him joy.

  But now, that thing was missing.

  Leaning against the side of his truck, Vincent gazed at the apartment building before him. Around this time, most folks were at work, and he’d assume the same of Georgia if he didn’t know she’d been gone for three days.

  Three long days.

  When he’d gone twenty-four hours without seeing her, of course he made moves. But he’d be damned if her annoying bitch of a sister hadn’t grown more balls than he thought she was capable of. The tiny little thing had barred him from her apartment, threatening to call the cops if he so much as whispered Georgia’s name.

  It was times like these he found a perverse joy in knowing the little brat didn’t have much time left. While that hadn’t been his intention when he started out, some people got what they deserved.

  Unfortunately for him, Everly was his only solid tie to Georgia. Everyone else in town knew the details of the messy divorce they’d gone through a few years back and, according to the Sheriff, he wasn’t allowed to be within a football field’s length of her or her bitch sister.

  But that didn’t keep Vincent away. How could it?

  He and Georgia were meant for one another. Always had been. He’d known from the moment he laid eyes on her that she was his and only his - and for a while, she had agreed.

  But then, things changed.

  Of course, as husband and wife, they shared everything. More than anything, Vincent had anticipated finally telling her the truth of who and what he was. He could see her joining the crusade he’d fought is entire life - ridding the world of abominations that shouldn’t exist one at a time. He had hoped to implant the spark in her...but things hadn’t gone as smoothly as he hoped.

  Of course, as a true Hunter, he was one of the one percent born with the spark. The innate ability to sense shifters - enhanced reflexes, strength, and agility - it came as easy to him as breathing. But he couldn’t continue his hunt alone. His father had died doing the work they were made for, and his mother was too old to continue hunting.

  It made sense to implant the spark in someone else.

  But Georgia had...second thoughts. A few years into their marriage, she began resisting him - insisting that the Hunter’s doctrine was hateful prejudice and that he had to change his ways.

  It was the first time he ever struck her.

  Of course, he hadn’t done it to hurt her - no, that wasn’t his aim at all. He just wanted her to see reason. If they were meant to be together, she could be nothing else but a Hunter, and Hunters without the spark were as good as dead.

  Of course, she refused him. No matter how much he threatened and cajoled, sweet-talked and pleaded, she had never come around. And when she finally called the sheriff on him after a particularly nasty argument, Vincent knew she deserved a lesson she’d never forgot.

  It would have been wonderful if the spark took to Everly, but he knew from the outset that she was too weak. That, and she fought the process tooth and nail, almost ending her own life. Of course, by then, it was far too late. The spark planted roots in her body without giving her any of a Hunter’s benefits and now, it would eat her alive.

  Georgia hadn’t liked that.

  At first, he promised to do everything he could to fix her sister - not that he actually knew a way to get the Spark out of her once it was implanted, but he was willing to try - for Georgia, no one else. But she grew more stubborn and defiant as time went on - so much so that not even her sister’s sickness scared her more than he did.

  And so, he endured the divorce. Signed his name on worthless pieces of paper that said she wasn’t his. Georgia hadn’t tried to take anything from him, even though his family had always been wealthy. She prized her freedom above all else.

  Which was why he so delighted in taking it from her.

  Certainly, he wasn’t brazened enough to let himself get arrested, but he couldn’t help reminding her that she was his every once in awhile - notes on her car, a voicemail, showing up at the hospital.

  If he had his way, she’d be back in his arms in no time.

  But the trick was a little harder when he’d lost track of her.

  Where the hell had she gone? She couldn’t have vanished off the face of the earth. Vincent’s surveillance showed that she hadn’t turned up for a shift at the hospital in the past few days, and Everly certainly wasn’t talking to him.

  He looked for her around town, but she wasn’t in any of her usual haunts, and he wasn’t stupid enough to ask anyone who knew his face where she was.

  Which left him resorting to tried and true tactics.

  Sliding into the driver’s seat of the truck, Vincent slammed the door behind him as he plucked his phone from the cup-holder. He remembered the number to Georgia’s voicemail by heart, and though she had changed her password, he knew her well enough that he guessed it on the third try.

  Her first few messages were nothing out of the ordinary. A credit card reminder. Her landlord telling her he’d received her rent payment. There was one from Everly talking about a dinner a few days ago and then - he found it.

  “Georgia it’s Bev. I appreciate that you took some time off, but the mountains? Don’t you have to fill out a crap ton of paperwork for that? And wouldn’t you rather go somewhere warm and sunny? Anyway, I just wanted to know if you’d be back in time to cover the night shift next week-”

  Vincent crushed the phone in his bare hand. He didn’t even feel the way the metal pinched his skin, cutting deep until rivulets of blood dripped from his fist.

  The mountains? Why the hell would she go there? No one in their right mind went into those mountains unless they were rabid shifter fans or had lost their minds. Those fucking animals had killed his father - he’d be damned if he let them take Georgia too.

  Starting his truck, he checked the rear-view mirror briefly. His own hard gray eyes stared back at him. They didn’t match the manic grin on his face.

  **

  He wouldn’t look at her. He couldn’t.

  Hell, he was in enough trouble as things were.


  After four days of relative peace, there had been another Dozier attack. However, this time, instead of going for wolves themselves, their enemy had savaged their woods. Solomon was out all morning with two of his strongest rounding up the animals they’d killed senselessly. Of course, they could butcher some for meat, but there had to be at least a hundred deer carcasses spread over a two-mile radius. It was enough to impact the forest and upset the food chain - maybe even enough for the humans at the foot of the mountains to notice.

  The problem only seemed to escalate.

  Trevor, one of the wolves injured in the attack at the beginning of the week, had succumbed to his injuries. His body fought hard to heal faster than his strength ebbed, but in the end, he just couldn’t keep up. The only thing he’d asked of his Alpha was that he protect his family.

  Trevor’s mate was pregnant.

  The shock of his death made her sick - so sick that she’d been in Anne’s direct care ever since. Solomon’s entire world was going to hell.

  And, somehow, all he could think of was Georgia.

  Currently, he was helping some of the older males to erect a rough fence around the perimeter of the settlement. The exterior was lined with sharpened wooden stakes along its entire twenty-foot height. If it didn’t keep the Doziers at bay, it would at least be enough to dissuade them.

  The physical labor was mindless for Solomon - he lifted huge logs effortlessly to hand them off to the wolves above him - and his mind wandered back to where it shouldn’t be.

  He’d kissed her. Fucking kissed her!

  What the hell was he supposed to do when she came so willingly into his arms? When she first arrived, the woman could barely look him in the eye. Then she came to him?

  Mind you, the entire affair was his own fucking fault. What the hell had he been thinking of bringing her to his cabin? Ever since Hunter had spouted the idea, Solomon couldn’t get it out of his head. She was in Anne’s cabin, fifty yards away - and he could still catch the faintest whiffs of the shampoo she uses - the sweet musk of her skin.