Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 58962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
“Was he in there?” Her voice warbled on the question as she followed.
I shrugged. “I couldn’t be sure, but he might be waiting on the first floor. Follow me.”
I wanted to take her hand, but I knew it wouldn’t be appropriate. Yet. I stayed close to her, though, walking swiftly down the hallway. She panicked when we passed the elevator and kept going straight. “No.” She grabbed my arm, sending a jolt of electricity through me.
If I’d had any doubt she was my mate, that clinched it.
“Not that way,” she whispered.
I glanced down the hall. Okay. So that was the direction she came from. That made sense.
The elevator doors dinged and slid open. I shoved her behind me, but it was empty.
She peered anxiously back and forth. The scent of her fear twisted in my nostrils.
Fuck it. For her, I could do it. I could get in an elevator and not go apeshit. I hoped. Just one floor down, and then we’d get off and take the other stairwell. The car wasn’t a prison cell.
I grabbed her hand, urging her into the elevator and hitting the close button. I hit all the buttons on the elevator, starting with the next floor down.
I held my breath as we glided down, forcing my wolf to stay calm. Not to panic. Not to freak out and think we were in that prison cell again.
Almost there.
Almost there.
Don’t freak.
Fortunately, it was a fast elevator, and in seconds, the door slid open with a ding, and I jumped off, pulling her after me.
“This way.” I led her down the hallway to the opposite stairwell, trying to get my heart rate to slow, where I cracked the door open to sniff and listen first. I didn’t catch any fresh scents.
I gave her a nod.
She sent me a faint, forced smile and slipped her heels off again to take the stairs in her bare feet.
I went first, so I could meet any trouble we ran into. I led us past the first floor to the parking level and cracked the door open to sniff. The smell of exhaust and oil overwhelmed my senses.
Fuck, I hated cities. I missed my cabin in the woods in Montana. Open spaces. Fresh air.
The female–whose name I still didn’t know–slipped her shoes back on. “It’s this way,” she pointed and started forward. A car drove by, its wheels loud as they turned the corner to go down the ramp. We walked past about ten parked cars then came to hers. Two big men in suits came out from behind a concrete pillar.
Fuck, that passing car had kept me from hearing them.
One held a gun, the glint of it catching on the fluorescent lighting. I snatched up my mate, turning to put my back to them, so my body was curled around hers, then started to sprint for the stairwell.
The first shot went wide.
The second one struck home.
3
BROOKE
* * *
I screamed, then screamed again as I was grabbed around the waist and lifted off my feet to be carried back into the stairwell. I was jostled about, but with the man’s thick arms wrapped around me, I felt protected. A strange thing to think of in the midst of chaos.
My ears rang from the sound of the gunshots. The heavy door slammed shut behind us. I was put down, then he spun me around.
The guy leaned down, so we were eye to eye, his hands resting on my shoulders. His hair was dark, pulled back in a stubby ponytail. Some tendrils had come free that hung to his chin. I’d never thought a guy with longer hair was hot or manly, but I’d been wrong. So very, very wrong. This man checked all of my boxes. Gorgeous. Big. Big enough to press me into a mattress and feel safe and feminine. Rough and rugged, completely opposite of the pale, stuffed shirts I worked with in the accounting office.
Daring. Bold. And right now, my protector. His eyes blazed bright green. When I’d checked him out in his hotel room, they’d been a deep brown. Chocolate. Now… so different. My mind was so frazzled I was probably crazy. No, almost dying did that.
Holy shit, someone shot at us! The men were definitely after me if they’d been waiting at my car.
“Are you okay?” His voice was a deep growl. Lower than earlier although maybe he was freaking out, too. His gaze raked over me. He was breathing hard, his lips parted. Full lips I suddenly wanted to kiss. Was it adrenaline? Was it my dry spell with men? Or was it him?
I nodded, my mouth too dry for words to come out. Then I saw it: the way the flannel clung to his right arm. The growing dark stain.
“Oh my God, you were shot!” My panic, already at full throttle, went hotter.