Savage Hunger(65)

Hilliard had somehow shifted in record time into a gray wolf, his clothes in shredded fragments on the ground. And he met Warrick head on.

They circled each other, growling, jaws snapping. Sienna had seen Warrick shift this afternoon, but he hadn’t been this savage. This terrifying. Every hair on his body stood up, his blue eyes screaming the need to destroy. His jaws were open wide as he snarled, flashing two long canines that looked all too capable of tearing Hilliard to pieces.

Her heart slammed against her rib cage and a shrill scream ripped from her throat as they suddenly lunged at each other. Fur flew and the snarls escalated. Oh God, they were going to kill each other!

Sienna shoved herself upright and moved toward them. Not stupid enough to get into the fray, but needing to get their attention.

“Stop!” she shrieked. “Warrick, stop it!”

They ignored her or maybe just didn’t hear her. But they continued to slash and bite, rolling around trying to prove dominance.

No, no, no. She had to stop this. Now. A sob escaped her lips as she searched for some kind of weapon. She found a small branch that had fallen from the tree and grabbed it. Hoisting it above her head she turned and moved closer to the wolves.

With a grunt she swung it downward close to them—not hitting them, but near enough to make them jump apart in surprise.

“Enough,” she screamed frantically. “Shift back to human. Talk this shit out.”

Both the wolves stared at her, the wildness still in their eyes. Or no, Hilliard didn’t look nearly as crazed as Warrick. If anything he looked damned amused.

But amazingly enough, Hilliard shifted. And Sienna’s face flamed as she averted her eyes from his naked body. She turned her attention back to Warrick, but found him still in wolf form, still staring at Hilliard as if he were ready to kill him.

“Warrick,” she pleaded.

For a moment there was no response. Then Warrick let out another growl that morphed into a human snarl as he shifted.

Sienna’s knees almost collapsed as relief seared through her. “Thank you—”

“Get the fuck out of here.”

She reared back in shock, until she realized Warrick’s harsh words hadn’t been intended for her. His attention was only on Agent Hilliard.

“Well, don’t mind if I do. I could use a break,” Hilliard drawled and picked up his shredded clothes from the ground. With a wide smile he strode past them and back up the trail.

The silence that swallowed up the space between them made the hairs on the back of her neck lift and her heart quicken to double time.

She cleared her throat in an attempt to calm her nerves. “Thank you—”

The trunk of the tree hitting her back cut off her words and sucked the air from her lungs.

Warrick’s palms slammed down above her head and his face hovered just above hers. Fury darkened his eyes to a stormy grey. “You let him touch you.”

“W-what?”

“His arm was around you,” he accused, his voice holding a tinge of the wildness of the wolf he’d just shifted from. “You kissed him.”

“What?” She shook her head and swallowed hard. “No. It was a kiss on the cheek, I didn’t—”

“You shouldn’t have touched him!” His roar echoed in the woods and sent birds scattering.

Sienna’s heart was going so fast she had no doubt he could hear it. That he could sense her fear and maybe was even feeding on it. Which was wrong. So completely wrong. Her wall of fear and unease began to crack, making enough space to let in a bit of anger and frustration of her own.

“Why not? Why shouldn’t I kiss him, Warrick?” she challenged recklessly. “You’ve flat-out told me we can never be mated. So you have no right—no damn right—to say another man can’t touch me.” Gaining more indignation and confidence, she ignored the warning glint that flared in Warrick’s eyes and slapped her hand against his bare chest. “I can kiss, or even sleep with, anybody I choose. And there’s not a damn thing you can say or do about it. Got it?”

“What I got, baby, is you,” he muttered with savage intensity and caught her wrists, pinning them above her head against the tree. “And you are mine.”

His lips crushed down on hers, splintering her indignation into a thousand little pieces and bombarding her senses with hot need. But she managed to hold on to the tiniest shred of sanity and struggled against his hold—determined to call him on his hypocrisy.

How dare he go all kinds of possessive on her? After telling her they could never be together, suddenly he wanted to stake his claim?

But he didn’t let her go. Warrick’s grip on her wrists tightened and his naked body ground into her, keeping her firmly wedged between his body and the tree. No. No way. Not like this.