He didn’t wince or try to hide from her scrutiny, and she quickly became aware that this was a man whose vanity did not stretch far enough to make him insecure with such scars. In fact, he wore the damn things like a badge. She hated to admit it, but it would take more than a few scars to detract from his hotness. In fact, it added a mysterious air of danger to his already dominant masculinity.
His body was something no woman would ignore, a body that was drool-worthy. Her mouth went dry when she thought about the way he’d pinned her to the ground. He’d done it with such ease, but hadn’t left a mark on her. He could have killed, raped, or done anything he’d wanted to her. Why hadn’t he? And why was she ogling and eye praising the thing she despised most in the world? She hadn’t met a man who had piqued her interest in a long time, and now she was mooning over a damned lycan.
“Where do you live?” he asked as he maneuvered the truck over the snowy roads with expert ease.
She didn’t answer him, and he let out an exasperated breath. Good. Let him get pissed at her. She neither wanted to get to know him nor participate in idle chitchat with him. The only interest she had was to get the hell away from him, maybe even kill him before she escaped. That would teach him to mess with her. She knew right then and there she was not going to keep her word. The first chance she got, she’d run.
“You don’t need to make this more difficult than it already is.” His voice was laced with a mix of sarcasm and irritation.
“You’re the one who’s making this hard. There is no reason I need to be here. Let me go, and we can both forget this whole mess.”
He pulled over to the side, and for a split second she thought he was actually going to let her go, but her hope died a quick death with his next words.
“This whole mess is deeper than you know. If I let you go, you’ll be right back out in those woods continuing your reckless ways. Not to mention I’m fairly certain you’ll be hunting my ass again the first chance you get, and now that you’ve seen what that will get you, I’ll save myself the damned trouble. You don’t understand the situation. I have a job to do in the area, and I can’t be worried about protecting you. I can’t afford the distraction.”
“You don’t know me. There is no reason for you to be worried about protecting me. Besides, in case you haven’t noticed,” she said through clenched teeth, “I can take care of myself.”
“In case you haven’t noticed”—he pushed his face toward her until their breaths intermingled—“you failed taking care of yourself when I caught you. You are lucky I’m not a rogue, or your bloody hide would no doubt be lying back in those woods right now. Is that what you want?”
“No! I won’t get caught again. I’m good at what I do.” Under normal circumstances her arrow would have met its mark, and she wouldn’t have had to make a run for it in waist-deep snow. She was getting angry. Just because she was a woman didn’t mean she didn’t have mad skills, or needed a man to watch her back.
“I’m better, and so are numerous others. You’ve been lucky up to this point. Don’t be stupid. I can keep you safe.” His dark eyes glowed.
She caught her breath. It was never a good sign when a lycan’s eyes glowed, usually meant one of two things—lust or anger, neither of which she wanted directed at her.
“Um, your eyes are glowing.”
“Your point?” He raised one brow, which only accentuated the eerie brightness burning in the midnight blue.
“I don’t like it.”
He took a deep breath, leaned back against the seat, and clutched the steering wheel in his big hands. His eyes closed for a few moments, and when he opened them, the glow was gone. She let the air whoosh from her lungs and watched him warily. He surprised her at every turn. He didn’t act like a normal lycan. She nearly snorted. What exactly was normal about any lycan?
He seemed to be going to great lengths to keep from scaring her. In fact, if she were naive, she’d go so far as to say that he was attempting to earn her trust. But why? Was it because she had the scent, which she knew he had to have smelled through the deer urine by now? Her stomach clenched.
“You aren’t taking me to a bunch of your friends to pass around for a good time, are you?” She clenched her teeth and fought the nausea that started churning in her stomach as a result of that thought.
He shot her a disgusted look that pretty much screamed he couldn’t believe she’d accuse him of such a thing. He shook his head, put the truck back into gear, and pulled onto the road once again. After all of these years, all of the kills she’d made, had she found a lycan with morals?
“I would never pass you around to anyone.”
“Seems to be the way of your kind.”
“You’ve met the wrong ones of my kind.”
“Obviously, since all the lycans I’ve met thus far have wanted nothing more than to get their hands on me for their own personal pleasure.”
“The ones you speak of are rogues. I’m not one of them. My job is to protect you.”
“Why? Because I have the scent?”
“Something like that.” His nostrils flared, and his eyes widened and briefly glowed. He must have been surprised that she’d known about the scent.
What wasn’t he telling her? Was he lying to her, and in fact now driving her toward a bunch of his buddies? She prayed to God not, as she didn’t see any way for escape at this particular time. If she jumped from the truck, she’d likely break a leg, or more, at the speed he was driving. She didn’t have a choice at the moment but to hope that he was telling the truth.
She looked around nervously, wondering how she’d gotten herself into this mess. She didn’t fraternize with the enemy. She needed to get away from him. Just breathe, Rose. Calm down and use your damned brain. She hadn’t felt trapped like this since the day Russell and his boys had killed Tammy.
No matter how hard she fought, her breaths became shorter and faster, and her stomach churned as bile burned the back of her throat at the memories she’d tried so hard to forget.
The truck slowed again, and her flight instinct overrode her fight instinct. She yanked the handle on the door and jumped. First she heard a growl from Knox, then a loud curse. Next, her body slammed into the hard pavement. Her head bounced off the road with a sickening thud, she cried out, and everything went black.
Knox watched in horror as Rose jumped from the moving truck. The woman was insane. The growl of frustration and fear soon turned to a curse as he slammed on the brakes. If she wasn’t dead, he was going to wring her beautiful neck. He stepped out, and his knees nearly buckled at the thought of finding her lifeless, broken body lying on the pavement. She couldn’t die. Not when he’d just found her. What had he done to make her so afraid of him? He’d been gentle, careful not to be intimidating. He’d given her his word he wouldn’t hurt her. He couldn’t figure out what horrible thing he’d done to make her jump from a moving vehicle.
On the other side of the truck, near the ditch, he found her lying facedown on the black pavement. The breath he’d been holding rushed out in relief when he put two fingers under her jaw and felt the strong beating of her pulse. He gently rolled her over and gasped at the goose egg forming on her right temple. She was going to have one hell of a headache for a while. He ran his hands along each arm and down each leg to check for broken bones. When he found none, he sighed.
He hadn’t been driving very fast, slowing to make a turn when she jumped, and after checking her over was sure her injuries were minimal. He patted her cheek softly.