There was no way he could survive losing her a second time.
Running on a sprained ankle was pure hell.
With every step, every stride, the shock of pain radiated all the way up to her hip. It was agony, but at least it wasn’t broken. She never would’ve been able to bolt if the bone had splintered.
Adrenaline helped. It cushioned the pain enough that it was bearable; it wasn’t easy to move, but she was so determined to escape, she pushed past it. Gritting her teeth, Evangeline dashed through the woods, putting more weight on her left foot. The right one was weak, her ankle throbbing, and the uneven terrain was terrible to navigate. She fell once, cursed under her breath, then scrambled back to her feet.
He would chase her. She knew that with every fiber of her being. The stranger would chase her as soon as he realized she was gone.
She had to put enough distance between them so that it wouldn’t be that easy for him to track her. If luck was on her side, he wouldn't be a predatory shifter with excellent tracking skills. Of course, then she remembered his gold eyes, the air of danger and dominance that surrounded him, and she realized she was screwed.
But she wouldn’t give up. She had to try. Three years of recovery following a crash that should have killed her… she didn’t go through all of that only to end up a shifter’s plaything.
Branches whipped past her. The trees were so close together, it was a tough fit. At some point she got snagged by one of the rougher branches, tearing right through the flesh of her upper arm. Compared to her aching ankle, the slice was nothing but a sting. No, it was the blood she was freaking out about.
Why not just leave a big, honking arrow that told him she’d run this way?
Pausing only to slap a patch of mud on the dripping gash, Evangeline wiped her hands on her shorts before forcing herself to continue. She purposely avoided thinking about things like dirt and infection. It was all about the escape.
It wasn’t long before she realized she’d run out of time.
The howl split through the air. It was loud, ear-piercing, a baying-at-the-moon type of wail. It sent a chill coursing through her and Evangeline stopped running. She just stopped. The howl was paralyzing, a deep-throated cry that seemed to reach inside of her and press the pause button.
She couldn’t move.
The echoes of the stark animalistic howl reverberated in her skull, pulsing in time to the frantic beat of her heart. Because that howl? She knew without knowing how that it was a cry meant for her. The shifter male had already started the chase, calling for her with the help of his beast.
And he wasn’t all that far from where she stood like a dope, just waiting for him to find her.
Before she could pull herself together and take off, he burst into the trees.
Evangeline almost expected him to be wearing fur. He wasn’t.
Maddox, uh, wasn’t wearing much of anything.
Jeans, yeah, but that was all. He was entirely shirtless and, now that the shifter was out of the bag, he didn’t bother with his shades any longer, either.
Her eyes were immediately drawn to his sculpted chest. She’d have to be blind not to notice how ripped he was. He was strangely hairless, considering he was part animal, and she found herself staring at one pec in particular.
Drawn in a silver-laced ink so that it was permanent, Maddox bore a tattoo right over his left pec. Right over his heart. A string of numbers, Evangeline stared at the tattoo in confusion.
She knew that date.
Why… why did he?
Tearing her gaze away from the marking he shouldn’t have, Evangeline did a double-take. Every time she met with him at Mugs, he wore a turtleneck. Now, though, she finally got a glimpse of what he was hiding apart from his tattoo.
His throat.
Growing up in mainly human neighborhoods, Evangeline didn’t know as much about the paranormal races as those who lived in the more integrated communities. She still recognized the scars and raw skin that left Maddox’s lower neck visibly destroyed.
Those were the marks of a silver collar.
Only shifters who were thrown in the magic-free prison were forced to wear collars like that. From how ruined Maddox’s skin was, he must have been wearing one for a long, long time.
But he wasn’t in the Cage any longer.
He was there. Chasing her. Stalking her.
Watching her.
“No,” she whispered. “Leave me alone.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
Evangeline clasped her trembling hands to her heaving chest. “Of course you can,” she pleaded. It was one thing when he was just another shifter. But a shifter who used to be in the Cage? That was like letting a man on death row loose. No one ever got out of the Cage. “I won’t tell. Just let me go.”
He set his jaw. Eyes like molten gold flashed as his attention was riveted on the rise and fall of her breasts. His voice, when he spoke again, came out hoarse. “You misunderstand. I should’ve said I won’t do that.”
She swallowed her frightened moan. “Why? Why me? What did I ever do to you?”
“Angie—”
“Don’t call me that!”
Maddox held his hands up. “I’m sorry. Evangeline.”
Why didn’t that feel right, either?
“Maybe if I explained before, told you what was going on, you wouldn’t have felt like you had no choice but to run. I should’ve expected that. You’ve got spunk, my m— Evangeline. You always have.”
She sneered in a bid to hide how nervous he made her. “Yeah? How would you know?”
The shifter didn't answer her. He lifted his hand, rubbing his scars with his fingers. She flinched when he drew her attention back to the mark.
“I already told you, I know everything about you. And, when you accept that I had good cause to whisk you away, we’ll laugh about this. You’re safe with me. In the woods, not so much. Come back to the cabin.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“I’ll throw you over my shoulder if I have to. I won’t let you stay out here all night.”
“You can’t stop me,” she dared.
Maddox called her bluff when he stepped toward her.
Evangeline trembled, but she kept her voice strong now that she had found it again. “If you touch me, I’ll never forgive you.”
His expression went pained for a heartbeat before he clenched his jaw. Another step closer. “You will,” he growled. He sounded certain of it, too.
“Never.”
“It’s whatever happened to your memories. Something’s not right, I’ve already figured that out. You don’t remember me. It’s why I had to bring you here, remind you of what we are to each other—”
It was like a sudden buzz in the back of her skull drowning out his words. She didn’t want to hear him, didn’t want to acknowledge that there was a method to his madness. He didn’t take her because he could. He had a purpose for it.
And, if she let him, he’d tell her. Only Evangeline didn’t want to know.
It was so much easier to hate him if she didn’t know.
“Listen to me,” she said, raising her voice so that she could hear herself over his stupid, pointless explanation. Nothing he could say would make this okay. Nothing. “There is no ‘us’. There is no ‘we’. We, me and you… we are nothing to each other because, and I will tell you this again and again if I have to, I don’t know you.”
Her words seemed to slam into him like a mack truck. His body jerked, then bowed at her heated denial. His eyes glowed, glittering viciously.
And he snapped.
“Remember me, damn it!”
Whoa.
In the echoes of his deep-throated roar, Evangeline realized that, for the first time since she woke up less than an hour ago, she was terrified. Before, she’d been angry. Pissed off to high heaven that he managed to snatch her and she’d been so trusting and naive that she had let it happen. Deep down, she hadn’t been afraid b
ecause she never suspected that he would actually hurt her.
She wasn’t so sure now. He insisted he knew her. She had no idea who he was.
The ruined scars surrounding his throat were a tell-tale sign he used to be a prisoner in the Cage.
He had a jailhouse tattoo on his chest commemorating the day of Evangeline’s crash.
That last one scared her more than anything else.
Maybe he did know her. Maybe there was a reason behind why she felt so drawn to him. It didn’t matter. She had received a second lease on life and hell if she wasn’t going to live it the way she wanted to. No growly shifter was going to stand in her way.
She had to get away from him.
With a squeal, Evangeline let her fight or flight instinct take over again. No way she could take on an enraged shifter. Even now she could see the fury and the pain that caused his eerily golden eyes to shine as he locked on her.
This Maddox expected something of her that she simply couldn’t give him. With so many gaps in her memories, how did he expect her to remember a man she’d been sure she had never seen before?
That only left her one choice: flight.
As soon as she stopped running before, the pain in her ankle came alive with a vengeance. She pushed herself too hard, too fast. Now, when she needed it the most, her body betrayed her.
Evangeline turned to dart away. Her ankle buckled, her knee gave out, and she took one quick step before she started to drop.
“Ang, no!”
“Stay away,” she gasped out. She landed on her knee, another jolt of pain coursing through her. The impact was rough. She hit, then fell back onto her ass. As soon as she was down, she threw her hand up. “Don’t come any closer.”
He listened.
And he frowned.
“Oh, Angie, I'm so sorry. I didn’t know.”
The sorrow in his tone hit her right in her gut. She’d rather take the anger, the certainty that he had a right to do this to her. To feel sorry that she was in pain made her insides twist. If he came any closer to her, she thought she might spit in his handsome face.
“Stay away from me,” she warned.
“Let me help you—”
“No.”
She leaned forward, pushed up off of her hands, and landed on her knees again. Evangeline could almost sense the desperate need he had to lunge forward and help her up. She wouldn’t give in to him. Shaky and more scared than she’d been, she climbed up on one foot, then the next.
Easy does it. Now that she was prepared for the ache, she babied her swollen ankle. Running was out. She kind of figured that. But hell if she didn’t want to be able to walk away from him.
She took a step.
Her ankle held her weight for all of three seconds before pain shot up her shin and her leg gave out from underneath her. Evangeline had just enough time to realize that this was going to hurt when she hit the ground before she was tumbling down again.
But the impact never came this time.
With her nose inches from the dirt, the shifter screamed toward her, wrapping her up in his arms and holding her close as he dropped to a predator’s crouch.
Damn, he was fast. No wonder he was able to track her down like that.
He might not have expected her to bolt before, or maybe he hadn’t chased her again right away because he knew she couldn’t get far. There was no way he could have known that her ankle was already tweaked from when she jumped from the window. And yet, after she twisted it again and tried to rise, he was there in an instant to hold her against his chest.
His very naked chest.
This was the closest they’d been. Even through her t-shirt, she could feel the blazing heat coming off of his bare skin. She shivered and the bastard tightened his hold on her. Maybe he was offering her warmth, maybe it was comfort, but Evangeline wouldn’t let herself buy into it. He’d kidnapped her, damn it.
She refused to become another victim of the Stockholm Syndrome.
“Let me go,” she told him, shoving against him. It was like trying to bend steel. His arms weren’t going anywhere.
Instead, he slipped his hand between their pressed bodies, taking her defiant chin gently between his claw-tipped fingers. He tilted her head back, careful not to scratch her.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
Stubborn to a fault, Evangeline closed her eyes. “No.”
He exhaled. Warm breath fanned her cheek, a delicious musk surrounding her. Her body wanted to fall into his embrace. Evangeline refused to let it.
“You’re tired,” he rumbled. “You’re hurt. You’re scared. Look at me, Evangeline. Recognize who I am. I’ll never hurt you.”
She quirked one eye open. He seemed so earnest, so sincere.
He was absolutely full of it.
“Why should I believe you?”
Maddox ignored her question, though she did notice that it was his turn to tremble. But, when he spoke again, his voice was firm and commanding. “Look at me.”
She refused. “I told you no. You stole me, you monster. You took me from my family, my friends. My home. I won’t do a damn thing you tell me to. I’d rather die first.”
“I’d die myself before I let that happen again.”
Evangeline found her eyes darting back to the tattoo on his chest. This close, she couldn’t deny it. She couldn’t pretend. Those numbers… that date—it was the day of the accident. Her accident.
She almost died once before herself. And the way he said ‘again’, almost like he knew...
How did he know?
Maddox took a deep breath. She felt his chest move. In, then out. In. Out. His skin brushed against hers and, as if she expected what was coming, she braced herself.
“Look at me, Angie.” His voice resonated with a power she couldn’t describe. Or understand.
That name again. She hated that it felt so right for him to call her that. She hated that he thought he had the right to call her that.
Against her better judgment, she looked over at him.
His golden eyes. The same glowing golden gaze that haunted her dreams and gave fuel to her every fantasy. Familiar and alien at the same time, Evangeline was drawn to him like a moth to a flame. She knew it was foolish. She knew it was dangerous. She couldn’t seem to stop herself anyway.
Could it be just a dream? Those eyes were so familiar. And, though she was too shaken to admit, so was he.
Her fingers ghosted over the numbers etched into his skin. The date of her accident. When she’d died—and been given a second chance at life. He rumbled again, but it wasn’t from anger or exertion this time. It was pure pleasure that she touched him.
She took her hand back. His eyes flashed, an amber sheen turning the gold a darker shade.
Evangeline didn’t know this man. She didn’t. But she was almost sure she knew what he was.
The strength, the speed, the power. The howl. The ability to track her through the woods. The inhuman hearing. The amber eyes.
She knew he was a shifter. That was undeniable. Some part of her had been hoping he was something safe and sweet, like a pussy cat or a bunny rabbit.
Of course not.
“You’re a— you’re a…”
Maddox grinned ruefully, the full length of his canine fangs extending past his bottom lip.
“I’m yours, that’s what I am. And the sooner you remember that, the better off we’ll both be.”
18
He was fast.
Evangeline already knew that. Even with her aching ankle, she’d had enough of a head start that she should’ve been able to put some kind of distance between the two of them. How long had she been running for? Five minutes? Maybe ten?
He must have booked it through the woods to catch her before she found her way to freedom. Then, as soon as she wobbled and fell, he proved that he was even faster than she thought. A blur of black jeans, tan skin, golden eyes… he was in front of her, then he wasn’t.
Before she even
hit the dirt, he scooped her up, cradling her against his brawny chest.
The shock and awe didn’t last. As soon as he started to rise to his full height, Evangeline shifted her weight, shoving against any part of his body she could reach.
“Let me go!”
“First Colt, now you,” Maddox said, as if he hadn’t heard her. He certainly didn’t loosen his hold at all, carrying her as easily as if she was weightless. “Seems busted ankles are catching.”
Evangeline didn’t know what he was talking about. She didn’t care. Still pushing, she snapped up at him, “If you hadn’t been chasing me, I wouldn’t have run on it and my ankle would be fine.”
“If you hadn’t escaped, I wouldn’t have been chasing you.”
She wanted to scream. It would only be a waste of energy; her brief escape proved that he hadn’t been kidding when he said there was no one else around for miles.
She had to do something, though. She had to make her kidnapper realize that what he was doing was wrong.
“You can’t keep me locked in there,” she told him, gentling her voice. She’d resorted to slapping at him before giving up. It was like slapping at an unmovable brick wall anyway. “Come on. Just… just let me go. And I don’t mean right now. Let me go home. This isn’t right and you know it.”
“I can’t do that.” His voice was an apologetic rumble. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t believe me, but I can’t.”
Remembering what he said, she repeated, “Won’t.”
Her body lifted slightly. Fell. He had shrugged. “It’s the same. You know what I am. You know what it means when I tell you that you’re my mate.”
Evangeline went cold.
This was it. Her nightmare come true, her deepest fear brought to life. No control. A shifter could tell their mate from first sniff. Was that what happened? That first day at Mugs—had he gotten a whiff of her and planned this very abduction to force her to mate with him? Forget her parents, forget her boyfriend… Evangeline would have to give up everything that she’d worked so hard to reclaim because some… some animal liked the smell of her?
Not in this lifetime.
“This is crazy!” She jerked in his hold, suddenly furious again. “You’re crazy! You can’t do this. You’re not allowed. I know the laws, I know my rights. You can’t just… just take me from my life and think I’m gonna be a part of yours.” Evangeline threw all of her strength behind the punch she managed to land on his upper arms. She wanted him to hurt, and if he dropped her? At least he wouldn’t be touching her. “Get your damn paws off of me!”
Hungry Like a Wolf Page 17