Hungry Like a Wolf (Claws Clause 1)

Then, before she could say anything else that might provoke him, he stormed from the room.

19

Okay. So maybe she might have pushed him too hard. But, well, hadn’t he deserved it?

Evangeline blamed it on the pain. The adrenaline that pushed her to do something so stupid as to try and escape from a room on the second floor had worn off while Maddox carried her injured ass back to the cabin. Her ankle was throbbing when he brought her to her prison cell and it made her feel worse when he came back with the aspirin and the ice. Sure, she wouldn’t have been hurt if she hadn’t been trying to flee from him, but did he have to be so nice about it? It would make it so much easier to hate him if he didn’t seem to want to take care of her.

Of course, that was because he thought she was his mate

. She couldn’t forget that. While he was wrong about any bond they might have, she had to admit that she was going to take advantage of that belief for as long as she could. If he planned on treating her like a shifter’s mate, then that meant she had nothing to fear from him except, well, being forced into a loveless mating with a man who had drugged her in a coffee shop.

The second Maddox left the room, she jumped up from the bed. She was willing to bet he knew, but she didn’t care. Hobbling and trying her best to ignore the way her poor ankle screamed in pain, she put her ear to the door.

Maddox must have stopped right outside of her room to have his conversation because she could hear his growl through the closed door. Part of her was happy to hear that she wasn’t the only one he growled at; at least the animalistic sound made a lot more sense now that she knew he was a shifter. The other part of her—the twisted part that responded to her kidnapper way more than she should—was inexplicably jealous. She purposely quashed that part as quickly as she could, straining to make out what he was saying now.

“Hey, it’s me. Yeah. Sorry about that. She’s… she’s adjusting.” Maddox paused. “How’s it going? Colt, let’s just say it could have gone better.”

Colt again. Colt sounded like a man’s name, something that Evangeline tried to pretend didn’t matter to her at all. Besides, Maddox had mentioned the name before, when she hurt her ankle, and now he was calling him for help which meant that this mysterious Colt obviously knew all about her kidnapping. Evangeline made a mental note to hate him on principle, too.

Now, if only she could convince herself that she did hate Maddox. She definitely wanted to, and she had when she first discovered she was trapped, but he was luring her in with his golden eyes. They were just so familiar; it only made it worse that he seemed to think they’d met before, when Evangeline couldn’t shake the same impression. And then he went and sprung this mate baloney on her as if that excused his law-breaking.

A wolf. The bastard was a wolf.

It was bad enough he was a shifter who was using their supposed status as mates as an excuse to keep her locked in a cage. But why did he have to be such a… such a predator? She might’ve been able to handle a rabbit shifter, or a harmless little hedgehog, or even something sweet like a puppy dog if the circumstances had been different. But a wolf? Territorial, possessive, and with a skill at tracking he’d already proven.

She was so screwed.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. But I called for a reason, not because I wanted another lecture, alright?”

A pause.

“Good. Listen, turns out that the cabin’s a wash. She doesn’t remember it and she’s already made a break for it once. It’s too dangerous. It’s making my wolf restless, too. It knows what was supposed to happen here and it just doesn’t understand why we both have to wait.”

Evangeline cringed, then pressed her ear closer to the door. It was smashed up against her skull and still she pushed, eager to hear what he was saying.

Now that she knew he thought she was his mate, she could guess what his wolf was waiting for.

Hell freaking no.

Maddox sighed loudly. “Sure. Okay. But, listen… remember when I had you get that stuff from Wolf’s Creek? Uh-huh. You got it? Thank fucking Alpha. It’s a back-up plan, but the only one I’ve got, so this is what I want you to do—”

The heavy cadence of his steps echoed and faded as he started down the hall again. His voice became nothing but a buzz of murmurs and muttered orders before Evangeline couldn’t hear anything from him at all. A few seconds later, she heard the door slam. He’d gone into his bedroom.

That was one good thing.

Evangeline stepped back from the door, a strange feeling—an empty feeling—washing over her.

A good thing… right?

She shook her head, hobbling back toward the bed. She was stuck, just like she figured, all alone in an empty cabin out in the middle of the woods. It was like the set-up to a bad horror movie. No one would be able to hear her scream. But if she managed to get her hands on his cell phone…

Evangeline’s pulse settled. She felt a lot better knowing that at least one of them had a phone. The second he let down his guard, she’d snatch it from him, then she’d get the hell out of there.

Because now that she knew why he wanted her so badly? She had to escape before she started to buy into his obvious delusions.

Colt hung up his phone and slipped it into his pants pocket with one hand. He pinched the bridge of his nose with the other.

One day. His brother had followed their plan for one day. Not even a day. Now he wanted to give up on the cabin, trading it for the only home that anyone could trace to him? He had to be kidding.