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.Until he killed her.He stalled for time, because maybe, even in his berserker form, he wasn’t completely lost to all decency.When he killed her, she’d shift back to her human form.He didn’t want to see her lying there, broken and bloody.Wrong.Evil.Danger.Mine.She came at him again, driven by instincts she didn’t understand or ask for.In slow motion, he watched his paw-hand swipe at her, knocking her back down again.He’d pulled his punch.She slammed into the sawdust, but bounced back up.The crowd roared in disappointment.“Tyra.” Her name came out guttural, more raw sound than actual word because of his shift.There would be no reasoning with her now, but he thought she was in there.He saw the flicker of something in her eyes.She was fighting, trying to make sense of what was happening to her.Fighting the instincts that told her to kill him.Part of him wanted to let her do it.He danced around her, playing with her because he was too much of a coward to kill her.The crowd loved it.Fucking bunch of sadists, they thought he was playing with her.Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, when he was weighing a mad dash for the gates with her, the sun came up.Fuck.Leave it to the guards to come up with a new twist.Like someone had flipped a light switch, Tyra shifted, bones cracking and reforming as her fur retreated.He roared with outrage, but she lay there naked and panting on the bloody sawdust.The whole damn arena stared at her and he wanted to scoop her up, to stand between her and the world, but he was a bear and a berserker.Hardly a man worthy of being a fucking hero.She rolled over, pushing up onto her hands and knees.He couldn’t stop himself from staring at the smooth expanse of skin that was her back.Faint white marks from a bikini top crisscrossed her shoulders and ribs.And lower, Odin help him, the sweet pale curve of her ass drew his gaze.She hadn’t been a prisoner—or a werewolf—long enough for the tan lines to fade from her skin.“Got to stop meeting like this,” she muttered to the sawdust and looked up.And up.He knew the minute she recognized him.He was hard to miss, seeing as how he topped out at ten feet, but it was more than that.He’d never shifted.Never gone berserk in his cell.And yet she knew him.“Wow.Talk about a cluster fuck.” She got to her feet and he did nothing.He couldn’t go to her.She wouldn’t want him to and it would tip the guards off as to his vulnerability.Her assessment was dead on, however.They were both really and truly fucked.“Tyra.” He forced her name out and she sighed, a small huff of air that only he could hear.“You bet,” she said.She didn’t beg or plead.Just stood there waiting for him to make a decision that was shockingly easy.Slowly, he forced the rage down.He let go of the desire to fight and shifted back into his human form, dropping onto the sand at her feet.He couldn’t kill her.He wouldn’t.And yet he’d still failed to protect her.~~~Calder woke up, teeth bared, heart pumping.Fuck.He hated the dreams.Loathing, however, hadn’t stopped them from screwing with his head on an all too regular basis and tonight had been no exception.He looked down.Tyra lay curled up against him like a small heat-seeking missile, one hand twisted in the front of his shirt.It must have been barely dawn because she was human.She didn’t have any problems sleeping but, then again, she hadn’t been the one who’d thought about killing him.The wolf’s instincts didn’t count.He stared up at the tent, willing the memories away, but sleep wasn’t happening for him.Carefully, he untangled her fingers from his shirt and slipped out of their sleeping bag.When she’d argued for separate tents, he’d overruled her.His job.His rules.When they reached her Pack, he’d take input from her.She’d gotten all pissy at that declaration and he might have kissed her, just because he loved doing that and she was hot as hell when she was mad at him.The smile slipped away.She’d never mentioned that last night in the pit.He didn’t think she was really part of the forgive and forget crowd, but he had no idea why she hadn’t brought it up.Rubbed his face in his weakness or used it for leverage.Hel.If he’d been her, he’d have gone for the balls and not in a good way.Of course, she wasn’t him.Not only did she lack the equipment and the gene pool, but she was way better.A better person [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]