Page 12 of Lone Wolf’s Claim (The Kincaid Werewolves #1)

B rock's gut churned with unease as he led the way in front of Heather. He was almost positive he'd seen blue lights come from her fingertips to zap that thing right before he'd sliced it open with its own claws. But that was impossible. Wasn't it?

Because she was human.

So then, how had she traveled back across the stream so fast she’d been invisible to the naked eye? Just appearing right next to him all of a sudden?

Maybe the fog had played tricks with his eyesight. He glanced back over his shoulder and then quickly forward again, not wanting her to catch him staring. But her head was down, her brow furrowed as she concentrated on watching where she was walking so she wouldn’t trip.

And what was with the fighting skills? He’d seen her kicking and punching like a pro, her usual adorable clumsiness curiously gone.

He glanced back again, studying her a bit longer this time.

He didn't know what he was looking for, just…

something. Something that would give him a clue as to whether he was correct in what he thought he'd seen, or proof that he was indeed losing his mind in this place.

"Go ahead," she said from behind him after he'd turned back around for the second time. "Ask."

He didn't break stride or show any other sign that he was surprised she had caught him ogling her. "Ask what?"

"I can see the smoke coming out of your ears from here. Just ask me. Before you hurt your brain cells."

This time when he looked back he found her eyes on him as they walked, her expression resigned.

He just gave her a small shake of his head, not sure he really wanted to know.

As he was about to face forward again, she tripped on a branch lying across the ground.

Arms flailing, she reached out for him and he caught her by the elbows, lifting her up and over the branch and setting her firmly on her feet.

"Thanks," she murmured, still hanging onto his arms.

He was surprised to see a slight blush blossom across her face. Heather? Embarrassed?

She peeped up at him through her lashes. "Not the most graceful person in the world, am I?"

No, she wasn’t. Unless, of course, she was skipping around from place to place like a ghost or something.

Or launching ninja kicks at an extinct creature that shouldn’t even be around anymore.

He frantically searched for something to say that wouldn't sound like he found her clumsiness anything less than endearing when she suddenly grinned at him, laughing at herself, and butterflies fluttered in his stomach like he was a boy of fourteen again.

It took him a moment before he could find his voice. "The ground here isn't very level, and there's a lot of debris. You need to watch where you're going." He sounded overly stern even to his own ears.

Her grin faded as quickly as it had appeared. "Thanks, Captain Obvious. I'll strive to be more careful."

She let go of his arms, and he looked down at where she’d been touching him, frowning at himself, only to see his skin streaked with blood.

Happy for the distraction from his previous thoughts, he grabbed her wrists and flipped her hands over.

The skin of both of her palms was torn and bloodied, the cuts filled with dirt and little rocks.

How had he not noticed her hands when she’d been tending to him earlier?

He redirected his frown to her and she rolled her eyes, yanking her arms out of his grasp.

"I'm fine. And in my defense, I was running from a raptorsaurus thing that was coming after me with those long claws. A situation in which anyone could have tripped and skinned their hands and knees."

He immediately dropped his eyes to her torn pants and crouched down on his haunches in front of her.

Ignoring her protests, he held her still with one large hand wrapped around the back of her upper thigh and tugged up her wet pant leg with the other.

Sure enough, her knee was in the same shape as her hands.

And by the looks of the holes in her other pant leg, so was her other one.

Releasing her shapely leg with a twinge of remorse, he told her, "We need to get these scrapes washed off, before they get infected."

She glanced over at the icy stream. "I'd rather just keep walking." Her eyes skittered around nervously, even though it was impossible to see anything coming through the fog. "There might be more of those things."

"There's not," he assured her.

"How do you know?"

"Because they stink like they’ve been rotting in the ground for millions of years, which they have. I can smell them a mile away. And I don't smell anything right now except for those two." He pointed with his chin at the two dead ones lying downstream.

"Guess they do have a kind of unique stench," she agreed, but her forehead was still wrinkled up with worry.

Taking pity on her, he acquiesced. "All right. We'll follow the stream until we find somewhere to bunker down for the night, then I'll get a fire going and find some food."

She nodded her approval. "Sounds good to me. Let's go." Taking the lead this time, she started following the stream back the way they had come.

Wondering how in the world she'd ever managed to survive this long in life, he called out with a touch of amusement, "Heather."

Glancing back over her shoulder to see him still standing right where she'd left him, she waved him forward impatiently.

"Heather!"

Finally, she stopped. "What?" she snapped.

"You're going the wrong way. We need to go upstream, not down."

Turning on her heel without another word, she stomped back in his direction. As she passed him, she grumbled, "Are you just going to stand here all day? Let's go."

He gave her a lopsided grin. "Yes, ma'am." Females could be so moody.

* * *

He followed behind her in relative silence for a few more hours.

They hadn't run across anything else except for a skoochat that had been startled from his hiding place as they passed.

Brock had managed to catch it in his current human form when it ran into a hole, not wanting to damage his healing shoulder by changing again.

Their dinner now swung lifeless from his hand at his side along with his shirt.

His wound had long since stopped bleeding.

Heather had been unusually pensive since he’d caught it. And by the looks she was giving its limp body, he would bet that she was busy thinking up new excuses not to eat it.

He let her stew about it as they trekked on, caught up in his own thoughts for the most part anyway.

And when he wasn't mulling over this whole situation he'd somehow found himself in, he'd been quite happily distracted by the view of her plump behind twitching from side to side in front of him as she walked.

Her backside was a thing of mouth-watering beauty, the yoga pants she was wearing doing absolutely nothing to hide her lush curves, and it reminded him of the plans he'd had before all of this had happened.

The naked plans.

They could talk about her sprinting and Taser talents later. For now, he pushed those thoughts to the farthest recesses of his mind, not wanting them to ruin his appreciation of the view. His obsession with that luscious backside was also the reason that he noticed when she started limping.

"You okay up there?" he asked her.

Not lifting her eyes from the trail they were following, she mumbled, "Fine."

He narrowed his eyes at the back of her head.

She wasn't fine. The fact that she’d even said it meant that she wasn’t.

Every male worth his salt knew that. Shoving his hair out of his face with one hand, he wished for the twentieth time that he had a hair band to tie the stuff back with.

He watched her closely for a few more seconds.

Yeah, she was definitely limping, though she was trying hard to hide it.

He scoped out the area around them, looking for a good spot to camp for the night so she could rest. He’d just claim he wanted to stop because of his healing shoulder.

But all he saw was the stream they were following to their right and more trees to their left.

It was damn near impossible to see anything beyond that.

Increasing his steps to his normal pace, he caught up with her easily and took her by the hand.

She jumped, startled at the touch, but didn’t pull away.

When she looked up at him, he could see the strain around her eyes.

Could see the pain she was trying to hide.

"Let's wander off the path a bit. Find somewhere with some shelter," he offered.

She nodded agreeably. Too agreeably. She must really be hurting.

He could easily carry her with very little effort on his part, but somehow he knew that wouldn't go over well. So, he slowed his pace again to accommodate her and let her hobble along next to him.

They'd gone about another two hundred feet when he thought he caught a whiff of sulfur. It wasn't strong, but it was there.

"Do you smell that?" he asked.

She took a whiff and wrinkled her nose. "Yeah. It smells like rotten eggs."

He grinned down at her. "It smells like a hot spring. Like nature’s hot tub."

That definitely caught her interest, if the sudden spark of life in her eyes was any indication.

“A hot tub?” she asked, as though she couldn’t quite believe that she had heard him correctly.

Brock laughed. “Come on!”

A few minutes later there was a break in the trees and suddenly there it was, nestled amongst the pines like something from a wet dream.

Brock released Heather's hand and walked up to the edge.

The natural pool was bordered by rock and surrounded by grass and pine trees.

Steam rose from the surface of the clear water to mingle with the ever-present mist. Bright colored stones glittered along the bottom.

It looked deep enough to submerge even a male of his size, and it was wide enough to fit a good dozen people.

And they had it all to themselves.