Читать книгу Claimed by the Wolf - Saranna DeWylde - Страница 9

Chapter Three

Beth was alive.

Stefan didn’t understand. She’d been infected—turned. She didn’t look sick, and she still had her human consciousness when she changed. All of the beasts at the facility did. He’d never seen that behavior before. That didn’t negate the fact they were brutal dogs, but it did change how he’d deal with them in the future.

Studying her, she still looked human. She looked like the same beautiful woman she’d been the last time he’d seen her, the last time he’d touched her. Except for her eyes—they were electric-blue shining out into the darkness—strangely hypnotic.

I love you, she’d said.

He could admit now he’d mourned her death. But here she was in the warm, living, breathing flesh claiming she couldn’t leave him—even after all he’d done. The guilt from earlier blossomed into something else, something he couldn’t name and didn’t want to give voice to.

As the prince of his people, he had special magic he knew he could use to save himself. He didn’t know if he was strong enough to shield all of his men from the bomb, but he could save himself.

He could save her. She didn’t have to die, not for him.

Logic argued he would only make things harder. It would save him the trouble of putting her down if he let the bomb have her. He killed werewolves. Beth was a werewolf. He couldn’t reasonably let her continue to draw breath.

He couldn’t let her die either. The thought of watching her incinerate while he protected himself with his magic was a poison dagger that twisted in his gut and ripped something vital from him.

Decision made, the Mark of Zoranna on his neck burned as he summoned his power. It crackled in violent spears of lightning that struck the earth, and he dragged her against him just as the bomb hit.

Heat blasted through his shields, but it was nothing compared to the fire that the feel of her nakedness pressed against his body ignited in him. His flesh remembered what it was like to touch her, taste her and have her wrapped around him while she cried out in ecstasy. His cock didn’t care what was beneath her skin. Only that she felt like heaven.

Even with his silver, his weapons and his lies, she came into his arms so easily. The world was on fire and burned to ash around them, but the only thing that mattered in this moment out of time was touching her.

“Beth,” he said, his voice thick.

“Don’t,” she pleaded. “Aren’t I broken enough?”

“I’ll put you back together,” he swore. “This was always good between us, and I swear to the Goddess it was real.”

“You don’t have to keep lying.”

He gripped her tighter against him so she could feel his arousal. “Does this feel like a lie?”