Blind Wolf (A Werewolf BBW Shifter Romance #1)(22)

"It's not imposs—"

"You have someone else already! What did you tell her about me? What lie did you tell her about coming out with me today? So that you could fool around with me and then run back home to your real girlfriend?"

"You don't understand." Damien's voice grew low. He tried to stand up, but his leg buckled under him and Julia saw his wound start to bleed freshly. "You don't know—"

"I don't know anything about you!" Julia cried, wanting more than anything to turn and run. "And I don't want to know!" Looking at Damien's leg, she realized she couldn't abandon him here. He realized her thoughts a second later.

"It's fine," Damien said. "I can get home from here."

"How can you get home when you're..." Julia's words faded in the hot air.

"Scent, usually," Damien said, pulling out a cell phone from his pocket. "But I need to call one of my friends. He's a doctor."

"Your leg," Julia said.

"Not for me," Damien said. "For him."

Julia looked where Damien nodded and saw the injured wolf lying on his side.

"You'll have to stay here, too." Damien said.

"I'm not going to stay with you," Julia said, her arms crossed defiantly.

"Unless you want to risk running into another one of those wolves, you'd better stay," Damien said. Julia's breath left her body in a whoosh as she thought about encountering another wolf on the trail. It was miles back to the trailhead, and she had nothing for protection. Except Damien. Except...

"Don't worry," Damien said. He smiled sadly at Julia, and she saw his golden eyes flicker underneath his dark brows. "They'll be here soon. And I promise not to bite."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Damien

Damien smelled the three wolves in his pack before they emerged from the forest. Sitting on a log by the lakeshore, Julia kept a safe distance between the two of them. Damien could feel the soft ripples of feelings coming off of her body. Sometimes an intense wave of emotion would sweep across him, and he could almost get a hint of the thoughts she was thinking: "don't believe it, can't believe it...never have someone like him...liar...liar"

He was crushed. Though his senses might be misleading him, his heart pointed solely in one direction, the direction of his Calling. There was no helping it. Julia was his mate, his true partner. For her to reject him now made perfect sense, but he was crushed nonetheless.

"They're coming," he said to Julia.

"What?" Julia asked. She turned around, saw the wolves emerging from the forest, and shrieked.

"Damien! Wolves!" she cried.

All of a sudden she was next to him, her arms clutching his body. Before when she touched him, it felt like heaven, but now her fear spiked intensely through his own nerves. His heart pounded, and he had to convince himself that he was alright.

"It's okay," he said, trying to calm them both down.

"Oh god," she said, her fingers digging into his skin. "There's three of them. You can't—"

"Julia," Damien said, turning to her and caressing her cheek with his hand. "It's okay. It's my pack."

He felt her emotions twist from fear to confusion to relief in an instant. Then she dropped her hands from him and took a step backwards, and the deep connection was lost. Only a ripple of anger came from her, and after that, embarrassment. She was embarrassed to seek his protection. He wanted to tell her that it didn't matter, that he would always protect her, but she clearly didn't want his help or his assurances.

Jordan shifted first, dropping his bag on the ground before he changed, and Damien heard Julia's gasp of fright as the wolf turned into a human.

"I thought you said she knew about us," Jordan said. He pulled open his bag and took out a change of clothes to cover his nak*d body, and the rest of the wolves followed suit. Damien could tell that Julia was watching Katherine shift when a blast of embarrassment hit his mind. Embarrassment, jealousy, guilt. He wanted to kiss Julia right then, to promise her that she didn't need to be jealous of anything, but he couldn't.

"I brought some painkillers," Jordan said, kneeling down next to the injured wolf. "Looks like he's already unconscious, though. We'd better get him back to someplace I can stitch up these wounds."

"You really did a number on him," Kyle said. As he spoke, Damien sensed Julia's anger near him.

"I was defending myself," Damien said, a sliver of guilt inching its way outward of his skin. "Will he be okay?"

"He'll be fine," Jordan said. "Just need to stop the bleeding. We parked the car as close as we could. It's a straight shot through the woods here."

"I can carry him," Kyle said.

"This is your pack?" Julia asked softly. Damien knew that all of the other shifters could hear her speak; in human form their hearing was duller than it was in wolf form, but still acutely sensitive.

"Yes," he said. He felt her anger turn towards him, and he didn't understand why until Katherine spoke.

"So this is the girl whose house we were looking at," she said, striding toward Julia, though her words were aimed at Damien. "Guess you haven't convinced her yet to sell."