War of Hearts(36)

Leaving the hotel room, Thea fell naturally into stride beside him and he ignored the urge to look at her. When they stopped at the elevator, she reached to press the down button and when she lowered her arm, the back of her hand brushed against his. His skin tingled at the touch and he frowned at her.

“Sorry,” she muttered, avoiding his gaze.

Consternated by his hyperawareness of her, Conall faced forward and scowled.

Thankfully, the doors opened with a musical bing and an older couple started to smile at them until they took in Conall’s size. They shrank back against the elevator. Conall was immune to this kind of reaction and gestured for Thea to enter first, crowding in behind her.

As the doors closed, he glanced at her. Her eyes were downcast beneath her thick, sooty lashes. “So, no plans to kill me today?”

The couple sharing their elevator exchanged a wide-eyed look and Conall realized they spoke English. Oh well.

Thea looked up at him and her lush lips parted into a slow smile. “Not today.” The elevator jolted to a stop, and she moved past him with a nonchalant shrug. “But there’s always tomorrow.”





There was nothing but the sound of the road whooshing beneath their tires and the whir of cars passing by. The wolf apparently didn’t like to listen to the radio. A little over an hour outside Prague, they’d driven directly through a border point to Germany without being stopped and were now taking the freeway just outside Dresden. Conall had barely said a word to Thea from the moment they’d stepped out of the elevator at the hotel. In fact, he’d been gruff throughout breakfast.

Thea wasn’t oblivious. A big part of surviving the life she’d been living since she was nineteen years old was being able to read people. She’d studied body language and the way it betrayed even the most stoic. Of course, her spooky supernatural heightened instincts helped a lot.

The alpha, however, wasn’t that easy to read. Yet she’d learned some stuff in one morning. Thea had learned his entire demeanor changed when he was talking on the phone to his sister. His harsh expression softened, and his voice heated from a cold gravel to a warm rumble. Thinking of the photograph she’d seen in his wallet, Thea wondered where his parents were in all of this. Were they dead? Was his sister the last of his family?

Thea also learned that Conall did not like Ashforth. She wasn’t even sure the Scot was aware of his dislike for the American, but he wore this sneer on his face when he was talking to the bastard who had fucked up her life.

Finally, Thea observed something else about Conall over breakfast at the hotel. When she spoke, he watched her mouth. When she wasn’t looking, she could feel his eyes on her face. When she first got into the car and leaned into the back to put her rucksack on the passenger bench, she caught his gaze moving swiftly away from her breasts. There was a barely perceptible flex of the muscle in his jaw as he stared mutely ahead.

If she wasn’t mistaken, the wolf was attracted to her.

And he really, really didn’t want to be.

The suspicion caused a strange fluttering in Thea’s belly anytime she looked at him. She hadn’t encountered anyone like Conall and wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about his possible attraction to her.

She could try to use it as a weapon. Seduce and manipulate him. Thea flicked a look at him, her eyes traveling up his strong arms to his broad shoulders to his face. There wasn’t an inch of softness to him. Not an ounce of fat anywhere. His jawline was strong and angular. He had high, severe cheekbones and a proud Roman nose. His scar was on the cheek facing away from her, but she could visualize it and the way it only added to the aura of mean fierceness that surrounded Conall.

His gray wolf eyes were shockingly pale compared to his unruly dark hair, and he was sporting stubble on his cheeks after days on the hunt across Europe.

The massive height and broad shoulders, not to mention the dark clothing and biker boots, screamed danger, and Thea had noted the way most people at the hotel had taken a wide berth around the alpha.

She got it.

He was scary on first impression.

However, during breakfast his scar seemed to lose its harshness, becoming a part of the interesting features that made up his masculine face, and Thea enjoyed studying him, trying to figure him out.

Her eyes moved to his mouth where his lips pressed together in concentration. Or was that annoyance? Because she knew he could feel her study. She wondered what he’d do if she suddenly kissed him. Thea felt a flutter much lower than her belly and yanked her eyes away in consternation.

What was that? she grumbled to herself.

There was no way she was attracted to this belligerent werewolf who was determined to hand her over to her number one enemy without a goddamn care what it meant for her.

She curled her lip in disgust at the thought.

Jesus, she had more self-respect than that.

Well, that was that. She would not seduce the wolf onto her side. She couldn’t, anyway. He’d see right through the manipulation, the paranoid asshole that he was.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t be manipulated.

Thea had to admit she was curious about Conall and his sister and the pack he led. She knew only what she’d read in books about werewolves but knew little about the realities of pack life. She’d never been to Scotland, yet she’d met a lot of Scottish tourists and most of them could wax lyrical about Scotland for hours.