24

Another squeal warned that the horse was frightened by the sudden movement. It kicked back into a stall, bracing its neck as its eyes widened. I rolled Skye away from the danger and yanked her toward the exit, to the doors that weren’t shut.

I held her upper arm tightly. “Strange for a barn to have all the doors

shut.”

“Snow has been extra nervous,” she explained, without even

sounding winded. She ran gracefully beside me. “She just needs extra love and—” She gasped as she skidded to a halt at the sound of wood snapping. She flipped around, racing back to the danger, disproving the documents I had just read about her personality. “Snow!”

What good was saving her if she was just going to throw herself back at what was going to harm her? Perhaps Wendell had grabbed the wrong information. That couldn’t have been her file, could it?

“Skye,” I boomed, “stand down—I said, get back!”

Her feet planted firmly into the ground ten feet from the stall where the horse named Snow was going haywire. Hesitance dripped from her

stance, yet her body twitched simultaneously as though she was fighting two opposing forces internally. Run toward danger or obey an alpha— which was she about to choose?

Snow screeched and whacked the stall door. Splintered wood littered the ground, the commotion disturbing the horse in the stall across the way. While that one was certainly scared, it was muting its reaction, possibly from good training or to keep the other horse from freaking out

even more. Animals weren’t my forte and I wouldn’t dare pretend to know much about their nature.

A studying vet tech like Skye should have been on top of the situation.

So perhaps the file was correct in some ways. It was hard to tell.

Skye cast a questioning glance at me. Every inch of my body protested what I did next, the response I had as a gut reaction to a woman I didn’t know other than what was listed in her light-as-hell file.

I nodded.

She stepped toward Snow with her arms raised up and said,

“Whoa.” This time, her voice was steady. Snow snorted and staggered back, setting her hooves on the ground. She tapped shakily a few times.

“Skye,” I whispered, “are you sure you know what you’re doing?” “Don’t move a muscle.”

Agitation made its way like a cold wave through my body. Nobody gave me orders. Nobody dared slap a command in my direction. Yet Skye had managed not only to do that, but to get me to chill out by her word

alone.

Something was up with this chick. I wanted to know more.

Without so much as twitching, I whispered, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing right now?”

“Don’t you trust me?”

I had said that. Last night at dinner while we had held each other by vision alone, I’d expressed my trust in her—purely because of my trust in Blake.

She was calling me out on my word.

My fingers curled tightly into my palms. “Yes,” I managed, through clenched teeth.

She shuffled forward with her hands up, radiating calm energy like a soothing balm. Snow nickered and retreated back into her stall. She kicked some wooden boards aside and ultimately remained level to the ground. If

she stood on her back legs again, I would have to race over there halfway shifted.

I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to cause the horse more stress than she’d already experienced. While it wasn’t in my nature to defer to

animals who were prey to my wolf, I also wasn’t in the habit of terrifying creatures just because I was capable of doing it. That was the work of evil men.

And despite the fact that I had lost my pack to an army, I wasn’t evil. I was simply lost.

Maybe Skye could help with that.

I scooted forward as unimposingly as possible. Skye managed to smooth her hands over the horse’s snout, inspiring Snow to nod slightly. Once she got Snow under control, Skye led the horse to another stall and locked her inside. She sighed with relief and collapsed against a nearby column.

Now that Snow was safely locked up, I could fast-forward my movements and grab Skye by the hips. Golden brown highlighted her blonde hair that rested wildly around her ears from tousling with a horse. Taupe eyes exploded with dark orange around the irises, reminding me of furious volcanoes erupting magnificent lava and soot. Her round face was more youthful than anticipated, and her thick body curved in all the right places, drawing my hands to wander, prompting me to take liberties with touch that I might not have done with anyone else.

She stared up at me with her mouth hanging open, lips painted

slightly from her licking her lips and drawing me into a trance. She was doing something to me that no one else could have managed. Even the most attractive women weren’t capable of holding my attention. She wasn’t

wearing anything spectacular, just a t-shirt and leggings like she had last night.

Skye wasn’t an impressive woman. So why, with all the capabilities of the gods, were they forcing me to be compelled by her?

“What?” she asked, her voice cracking on the last letter so it hardly existed at all. “Did I do something?”

“You’re a nut.”

Her brows turned toward each other. “You listen here, you sack of proud alpha meat. I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m perfectly

equipped to handle an animal getting out of hand. You don’t have to swoop in like a bodyguard and—”

“Gods, would you just shut up already?”

I stole her mouth then and there. I swallowed the noises of rejection, pressing into her so hard that I had to back her into a wall just to keep her from hitting the ground. Plush and warm, pliable and sweet—she made it

difficult to resist. Her heat wrapped around my thighs intensified what I’d felt earlier.

That I should protect her. That I should keep her.

If not forever, then for a temporary time as I reigned over the rebirth of my pack.

The time didn’t matter as long as I could convince her to stay.