Tara's Fate

Chapter 2

Martin stared at the woman and suppressed the growl that threatened to escape his throat. So soon after a shift, his wolf was so close to the surface he could almost feel the fur tickling his skin and threatening to sprout from every pore at the drop of a hat. His instincts were more tuned in to the beast than his human side.

He still didn’t understand what had happened. He had been doing his usual run around the boundary of the pack territory when his wolf caught something in the air and decided to stop listening to reason and go its own damn way. It had taken everything in him to force a change before he appeared in front of the woman.

The beast had led him all the way to the human and had been ready to show itself without preamble. His wolf had never before reacted like that. Not that Martin would go as far as to say his wolf had the greatest level of self-control or anything like that.

His wolf shifter side was simply put, wild and strong. Both physically and mentally. And had a permanent close to the surface presence in his life. So the wolf forcing its impulses was no new experience. No, what made this act strange was the animal’s impulse to do the unthinkable. The beast’s intentions were only too clear. It wanted to claim the woman, and that was the only thing it cared about.

The impulse to jump on her and rub himself all over her body, scent-marking her as his was almost fogging his mind. And he wouldn’t end there. He wanted to do so much more.

Thankfully, his human side had more brain cells to put together and reason a few facts. Facts like, for starters, the woman was human. She was beautiful, with her long black hair tied back in a loose ponytail that allowed a few strands to be pasted to her sweaty skin. She was not a voluptuous woman, but he could tell she had a decent B cup on her chest. But above all that, she was very human. And that alone was a big problem.

Secondly, she was alone in the forest, so close to the pack’s territory, and that was suspicious. It raised questions and sprouted several ugly possibilities.

Martin’s frown deepened, and he took another step forward, very impatient to get an answer, and fighting like hell to hold on to his anger and not get distracted by her scent. “I asked you what you were doing here?” He totally refused to be mesmerized by the woman’s appearance and focused on getting answers.

Tara blinked. The hostility in the man’s voice was hard to miss, and she did not feel she deserved it. She certainly didn’t see what she could have done to provoke such a reaction from the man. If anything, she thought, he should have been a little bit more self-conscious of the fact that he was naked as a newborn and interrogating a woman in the middle of nowhere.

She gave this middle of nowhere another quick look. Yep, she was definitely lost, surrounded by trees that all looked the same with a hunk of a man who was radiating aggression and displaying himself for all to see. On the bright side, she was no longer alone and about to spend the night with insects and God only knew what else.

She faced him again. Her panic and fear had gone down a few notches, but a good dose of anger and irritation was fast taking its place. She had already had a hell of a day, for goodness’ sake. Her tolerance levels were dangerously low.

Tara glared at the man. It was not an easy task, considering how intimidating he was even in his state of undress. But she lifted her chin and held his gaze. “Are you this rude with everyone you come across, or did you just forget to pick up your manners as well as your clothes when you left the house?” she asked with a raised brow.

Somewhere at the back of her mind, she wondered where his house actually might be. All she could see with what little daylight they had left was trees and more trees. She couldn’t imagine the man had walked from town naked into the woods. It was possible he was camping; she thought and followed that thought up with a rational reason for his lack of clothes; skinny-dipping. But he didn’t appear to be wet and fresh out of the water. And she doubted that was the reason he was in the woods. Another option was that she had just managed to stumble across the path of a psychopath. Her brows creased. That wouldn’t be good, she mused.

Martin temporarily lost his ability to speak. To say that he was shocked by her response would have been an understatement. He was the ruling Alpha of his pack. Which meant he was big, strong and his face did not exactly invite nonsense. Dominance and authority came off him like a natural scent. Even a human could sense it as soon as they came near him. He had never before been addressed with such defiance.

Not even before he had taken over as ruling alpha of Forest Shadow. Just his presence had always been enough to ensure respect and submission, in other cases fear. This woman should have been afraid, or at the very least, cautious.

He took a sniff of the air. He had to double-check. For the second time, he confirmed she was just human, not even a witch. Magic abilities would have at least explained her somewhat impressive backbone. But no, she was just human.

Martin knew of a saying, if a blind man challenges you, they are probably standing on a stone. He tilted his head to the side and regarded her for a moment, puzzled. What stone was the little human standing on to feel brave enough to face him? Even a rock the size of his head wouldn’t be enough to save her if he attacked. He almost laughed. How could a human, a woman for that matter, show so little fear and dare to address him in such a manner?

At that moment, his wolf’s desire took a back seat and his mind focused on the suspicious circumstances that had brought the woman so close to his pack lands.

“What are you doing here?” he asked again.

Tara was tempted to tell the man he sounded like a broken record, repeating the same phrase over and over again. But he already looked too pissed for comfort, and it was getting really dark. Her survival instincts and self-preservation told her it would be a very bad idea to further upset the handsome naked man in the woods, especially when she obviously needed his help to find her way out of there.

He was still waiting for a response, though, so Tara gave him one and hoped she sounded sincere and cooperative. “I was just exploring, and I lost my way.” Judging by the almost animalistic growl she heard as soon as she finished talking, she had failed miserably. He knew she was lying. She didn’t know how, but he knew.

Martin could smell the hint of deception on her like smoke to fire. She was not telling him the entire truth. She was definitely lost. That much was obvious. But how she had come to be lost was obviously the lie.

Before it had gotten darker, he had taken a good look at what she had worn and carried. He didn’t understand the human madness to hike in the forest, but he knew they never wore stylish flat shoes when they did so.

He could practically smell the ache and fatigue in her muscles, and the blisters on her feet. He totally ignored how the smell of her natural scent fired up some of his nerve endings. His brow furrowed in concentration. This was not a woman who spent her time exploring forests. Her breathing and heart rate were indicative of a person who was beyond exhausted. It was probably only her pride and mere willpower that kept her on her feet.

“You are lying,” he informed her with more anger than was necessary.

“Excuse me?”

Martin took another step towards her. The gap that he had purposely left before was fast diminishing. “I said… you are lying. I will ask you one more time what you are doing here and I want the truth, woman.”

Tara blinked and took a step back. She attempted to take another step, but felt a rough tree trunk hit her back. She froze and stared directly at the man. “I don’t know who you think you are… but I don’t owe you any explanation.”

The woods were almost completely dark, and a cricket chirped in the distance. Tara was already jumpy and nervous with the angry man standing so close in front of her. It took very little to make her startle and clutch her chest. Her heart was beating so fast it was almost making her dizzy again.

She swallowed and tried to change her approach to the matter. Hostility versus stubbornness wasn’t going to get her out of there faster. “Look, if you can just show me which direction leads out of this place… I will be eternally grateful.” And she meant it too. She would be more than grateful. Hell, she would even send him a thank you fruit basket once she was back in civilization. Her corrupted mind wandered off for a second, wondering how else she could say thank you. She shut those thoughts down instantly with a mental slap.

Martin stared at her. His eyes had adjusted to the dark and his wolf had taken over, so he was able to see her pretty clearly. She was nervous and fidgety. Her eyes darted around in the dark every time a creature made a sound, widening and blinking, hoping to see what the source was, even as her body language said, she had no desire to find out what was creeping in the dark around her.

A soft, barely audible snort escaped him. She was lucky she could only hear the harmless creatures around them; he thought. His senses had already picked at least two creatures he was certain the woman wouldn’t want to know were around them.

Fortunately for her, he had no intention of leaving her there, but he knew if he did, she would lose her sanity, and probably her life too, long before the sun touched the horizon tomorrow morning.

Taking advantage of the dark, he stepped forward quietly with stealth only known to shifters and grabbed her hips. Before the scream could even leave her lips, he lifted her and threw her over his shoulder unceremoniously.

The move was so sudden; it punched the air out of her lungs and made her temporarily breathless, speechless, and disoriented. When she finally pulled herself together, her first instinct was to struggle.

She kicked her legs and scratched at his back with her short nails. Her assault on his back was so brutal, she was sure she was drawing blood. But the man seemed to be unaffected by it all. He neither grunted nor made any gesture to indicate he felt any of it.

“Put me down! How dare you?” she finally screamed when it was obvious her strength alone wouldn’t help her.

Martin heard her and felt her nails dig into his skin again, coupled with blows from her clenched small hands. He kept quiet and continued walking. He saw no point in holding a conversation at that point in time. He was not going to put her down, and she was not going to agree or listen to anything he had to say.

The best option was to tighten his hold on her and keep walking. Her struggles were strong for someone clearly exhausted, but they were nothing compared to his strength. So he had no worries about her getting away or doing any real damage to him.

He stopped paying attention to her screams and nails and focused his mind on more important matters, such as his wolf’s reaction to the woman. He most definitely wasn’t going to allow her to walk out of the forest, even if she had told him the truth. The beast wouldn’t have allowed it, and neither would his human side if he was honest with himself.

His second problem was the fact that she was human, and humans were not allowed where he was taking her. But that problem was easily fixed. He was the Alpha; he made the rules, and he was taking her into the pack lands.