Moonshadow (Moonshadow #1)(83)

Nikolas introduced them quickly, and one by one, they stepped forward to shake her hand. She received an impression of each one along with a flurry of names. Braden, Cael, Gareth, Rhys, Thorne, and Rowan.

All of them were taller than she was. Since their Power was muted with the null spell, she couldn’t get a sense of them magically, at least not yet, but every single one moved with the easy, predatory athleticism of an experienced warrior.

The last one, Rowan, was sex personified. His long dark hair fell in a wet tangle around a cynical, handsome face. He had a runner’s build, a sensual mouth, intelligent, brooding eyes, and a rock star’s innate charisma that she felt even through her exhaustion and the damp discomfort of her clothes.

His expression heated with interest as he lingered over shaking her hand.

“Thank you,” he said. “Seriously, for everything.”

“You’re welcome,” she told him. Color her crazy, and she could end up being wrong, but somehow she just knew this scamp wasn’t going to put his hands around her throat and try to choke her to death.

With a neat, decisive move, Nikolas cut between them. He slapped Rowan’s shoulder with a flattened hand, knocking the other man back a step. His hard voice carrying a warning, Nikolas said, “No.”

One corner of Rowan’s sexy mouth lifted in a grin as he looked at her around Nikolas. I could make you feel so damn good, his bedroom eyes said, while aloud, he drawled, “What do you mean, no? All I was doing was thanking her.”

This time using both hands, Nikolas knocked him back another step. “I said no.”

“All right, all right!” Laughing, Rowan held up his hands.

Was this merely discipline, or was Nikolas… actually jealous? Sophie couldn’t tell. All she knew was that she felt like smiling for the first time in hours. Hell, it felt like it had been days. She grinned at Rowan, who gave her a wink as Nikolas turned away from him.

When Nikolas glared at her, she tried to wipe the grin off her face, but she wasn’t fast enough.

What the righteous fuck, Sophie—no! he snapped telepathically. He looked genuinely infuriated as he growled aloud, “I’m putting my old-timey foot down.”

“Old-timey foot…?” one of the other men said blankly. Sophie hadn’t gotten all the names and faces sorted out, but she thought it might be Braden.

It really, truly could be jealousy. She probably shouldn’t feel so delighted since first of all that was insane. She and Rowan had barely exchanged five words together. And secondly, it was insulting.

What did Nikolas think, that she was going to instantly leap at one of his men for sex without even talking first, when they had just made love—had sex—themselves twice in the last twenty-four hours?

Rolling her eyes, she muttered under her breath at him, “You’re crazy,” and punctuated it with an emphatic nod.

For a moment Nikolas himself looked like he might be the one to choke her. Half amused, half angry, and totally exasperated, she stepped into his personal space and stood toe-to-toe with him, daring him silently with her eyebrows up to make good on the fierce warning stamped on his taut features. What are you going to do, Nik? Just, what?

Much to her shock, he snaked an arm around her, blanket and all, which trapped her hands and arms against his chest. Angling his head, he gave her a short, fierce, scorching-hot kiss that flatlined her thinking and wiped away both the anger and the amusement.

When he lifted his head again, his eyes were glittering. What a load of primitive crap. He had not just staked a claim on her, had he?

By God, he had.

She ogled Nikolas before she remembered to shut her mouth with a snap. A quick, sneaky glance around told her what she already knew—the other men were staring at them with varying degrees of surprise.

Rowan looked decidedly disappointed. She shrugged. Ah well, if the other man had persisted, she would have just had to turn him down anyway.

He shook his head at her. I would have made it so good for you, the sultry look in his eyes said.

I know, she blinked at him in resigned reply. It is all so very sad.

One of the other men—she thought it was Cael—had turned away from the exchange to look out into the night. “We might have gotten rid of the lorry, but the lawn is so soaked it still left some pretty definitive tracks.”

They all gathered at the door to look. Nikolas hadn’t removed his hold on Sophie. Instead, he just shifted his arm to circle her shoulders. While she wasn’t sure what his actions implied other than he was behaving like a dog with a bone, she wasn’t annoyed enough to shrug him away.

The weight of the lorry had torn through the turf, and it had left deep tracks with high ridges. “How much of a problem is that?” she asked. “All that the tracks reveal is that a truck has been here tonight. No one will be able to say why, only that some kind of activity took place here while the ground was wet.”

While her tired mind tried to tease out if there were any further potential problems, Nikolas’s arm dropped from her shoulders. He said, “It creates a question and leaves it unanswered, which points to more reason to scrutinize you. We want them to leave you alone if we can possibly manage it. Everyone else has a null spell painted on their hand, so I’ll take care of it.”

He strode out into the storm, a lean, pantherish, imperious man who carried as much Power as the lightning. Something about seeing him out in the elements brought a lump to her throat.