She couldn’t blame him for being pissed at her. She had shot him, and—worse, probably, from his standpoint as a man—she’d racked his balls good for him. She’d be irritated, to say the least, if the situation were reversed—about the shooting part, anyway, because, of course, she had no balls to rack—but after he’d captured her, once he’d realized she was a woman, he’d been almost . . . gentle.

She had the distinct impression if she’d been a man, she most likely would not have come out so unscathed. No lycan who had ever had the misfortune of getting his hands on her had ever been gentle, or lived, for that matter, and she had the scars to prove it.

“My name is Knox Slade.”

She let a smile play at the corner of her mouth, an appropriate name for a dominant predator. Did he really think she was going to cozy up and play nicey nice with him just because he’d shown her some manners?

“Do you not have a name?” He chuckled.

“Of course I do. I’m just not sure I see the point in sharing it with you.”

She hated to admit it, but the man was easy on the eyes, and that was stating it mildly. He had medium-

length hair, with a bit of wave that looked as if it had been spun from gold. His body was heavily muscled, and he was huge, which was not uncommon for most of the lycans she’d encountered, but somehow he was more so. The normally roomy cab of the truck felt unusually cramped with him sitting beside her.

His cheeks slanted down to sharp, chiseled jaws, full lips, and a straight but not overly big nose. And his eyes—she’d never seen eyes quite that midnight shade of blue. The scars on the right side of his face had definitely been the result of some wicked claws. The angry, puckered white edges looked similar to some of the scars she wore.

He didn’t wince or try to hide from her scrutiny, and she quickly became aware that this was a man whose vanity did not stretch far enough to make him insecure with such scars. In fact, he wore the damn things like a badge. She hated to admit it, but it would take more than a few scars to detract from his hotness. In fact, it added a mysterious air of danger to his already dominant masculinity.

His body was something no woman would ignore, a body that was drool-worthy. Her mouth went dry when she thought about the way he’d pinned her to the ground. He’d done it with such ease, but hadn’t left a mark on her. He could have killed, raped, or done anything he’d wanted to her. Why hadn’t he? And why was she ogling and eye praising the thing she despised most in the world? She hadn’t met a man who had piqued her interest in a long time, and now she was mooning over a damned lycan.

“Where do you live?” he asked as he maneuvered the truck over the snowy roads with expert ease.

She didn’t answer him, and he let out an exasperated breath. Good. Let him get pissed at her. She neither wanted to get to know him nor participate in idle chitchat with him. The only interest she had was to get the hell away from him, maybe even kill him before she escaped. That would teach him to mess with her. She knew right then and there she was not going to keep her word. The first chance she got, she’d run.

“You don’t need to make this more difficult than it already is.” His voice was laced with a mix of sarcasm and irritation.

“You’re the one who’s making this hard. There is no reason I need to be here. Let me go, and we can both forget this whole mess.”

He pulled over to the side, and for a split second she thought he was actually going to let her go, but her hope died a quick death with his next words.

“This whole mess is deeper than you know. If I let you go, you’ll be right back out in those woods continuing your reckless ways. Not to mention I’m fairly certain you’ll be hunting my ass again the first chance you get, and now that you’ve seen what that will get you, I’ll save myself the damned trouble. You don’t understand the situation. I have a job to do in the area, and I can’t be worried about protecting you. I can’t afford the distraction.”

“You don’t know me. There is no reason for you to be worried about protecting me. Besides, in case you haven’t noticed,” she said through clenched teeth, “I can take care of myself.”

“In case you haven’t noticed”—he pushed his face toward her until their breaths intermingled—“you failed taking care of yourself when I caught you. You are lucky I’m not a rogue, or your bloody hide would no doubt be lying back in those woods right now. Is that what you want?”

“No! I won’t get caught again. I’m good at what I do.” Under normal circumstances her arrow would have met its mark, and she wouldn’t have had to make a run for it in waist-deep snow. She was getting angry. Just because she was a woman didn’t mean she didn’t have mad skills, or needed a man to watch her back.

“I’m better, and so are numerous others. You’ve been lucky up to this point. Don’t be stupid. I can keep you safe.” His dark eyes glowed.

She caught her breath. It was never a good sign when a lycan’s eyes glowed, usually meant one of two things—lust or anger, neither of which she wanted directed at her.

“Um, your eyes are glowing.”

“Your point?” He raised one brow, which only accentuated the eerie brightness burning in the midnight blue.

“I don’t like it.”

He took a deep breath, leaned back against the seat, and clutched the steering wheel in his big hands. His eyes closed for a few moments, and when he opened them, the glow was gone. She let the air whoosh from her lungs and watched him warily. He surprised her at every turn. He didn’t act like a normal lycan. She nearly snorted. What exactly was normal about any lycan?

He seemed to be going to great lengths to keep from scaring her. In fact, if she were naive, she’d go so far as to say that he was attempting to earn her trust. But why? Was it because she had the scent, which she knew he had to have smelled through the deer urine by now? Her stomach clenched.

“You aren’t taking me to a bunch of your friends to pass around for a good time, are you?” She clenched her teeth and fought the nausea that started churning in her stomach as a result of that thought.

He shot her a disgusted look that pretty much screamed he couldn’t believe she’d accuse him of such a thing. He shook his head, put the truck back into gear, and pulled onto the road once again. After all of these years, all of the kills she’d made, had she found a lycan with morals?

“I would never pass you around to anyone.”

“Seems to be the way of your kind.”

“You’ve met the wrong ones of my kind.”

“Obviously, since all the lycans I’ve met thus far have wanted nothing more than to get their hands on me for their own personal pleasure.”

“The ones you speak of are rogues. I’m not one of them. My job is to protect you.”

“Why? Because I have the scent?”

“Something like that.” His nostrils flared, and his eyes widened and briefly glowed. He must have been surprised that she’d known about the scent.

What wasn’t he telling her? Was he lying to her, and in fact now driving her toward a bunch of his buddies? She prayed to God not, as she didn’t see any way for escape at this particular time. If she jumped from the truck, she’d likely break a leg, or more, at the speed he was driving. She didn’t have a choice at the moment but to hope that he was telling the truth.

She looked around nervously, wondering how she’d gotten herself into this mess. She didn’t fraternize with the enemy. She needed to get away from him. Just breathe, Rose. Calm down and use your damned brain. She hadn’t felt trapped like this since the day Russell and his boys had killed Tammy.

No matter how hard she fought, her breaths became shorter and faster, and her stomach churned as bile burned the back of her throat at the memories she’d tried so hard to forget.

The truck slowed again, and her flight instinct overrode her fight instinct. She yanked the handle on the door and jumped. First she heard a growl from Knox, then a loud curse. Next, her body slammed into the hard pavement. Her head bounced off the road with a sickening thud, she cried out, and everything went black.

* * *

Knox watched in horror as Rose jumped from the moving truck. The woman was insane. The growl of frustration and fear soon turned to a curse as he slammed on the brakes. If she wasn’t dead, he was going to wring her beautiful neck. He stepped out, and his knees nearly buckled at the thought of finding her lifeless, broken body lying on the pavement. She couldn’t die. Not when he’d just found her. What had he done to make her so afraid of him? He’d been gentle, careful not to be intimidating. He’d given her his word he wouldn’t hurt her. He couldn’t figure out what horrible thing he’d done to make her jump from a moving vehicle.

On the other side of the truck, near the ditch, he found her lying facedown on the black pavement. The breath he’d been holding rushed out in relief when he put two fingers under her jaw and felt the strong beating of her pulse. He gently rolled her over and gasped at the goose egg forming on her right temple. She was going to have one hell of a headache for a while. He ran his hands along each arm and down each leg to check for broken bones. When he found none, he sighed.

He hadn’t been driving very fast, slowing to make a turn when she jumped, and after checking her over was sure her injuries were minimal. He patted her cheek softly.

“Hey. Wake up, honey. Open your eyes and direct all that anger at me again.”

She didn’t stir, and he patted her cheek again.

This time, her eyes fluttered and then opened. There was confusion in them at first, but once the obvious recognition of him flooded the pale blue, she came at him swinging. He grinned and subdued her before she could manage any more damage to herself. He scooped her up and carried her back to the truck while she struggled to get free of his hold. If she had any inkling how much it excited him each time she wiggled those luscious curves against him, he was sure she’d smack him a good one, be horrified, or both.

“You’re going to have to trust me just a little bit, darling. I swear on my life I won’t let any harm come to you.” He nuzzled her soft hair and inhaled.

Her scent was sweet and called to him even through the cloying deer urine stench.

“Can’t trust you.” Her whispered words cut through his heart like a knife.

“At least tell me your name. If you don’t, I’m going to start calling you Ethel or Matilda or Hildegard or something.”

“Rose. Rose Canton,” she whispered against his shoulder, where her cheek rested now that she’d finally stopped struggling.

“That’s a fitting name. A beautiful rose with thorns.” He rubbed at his chest where his shirt was still sticky with drying blood from the arrow and the knife wounds.

Luckily the arrow had missed everything major and left a clean hole that hadn’t gone all the way through to his back. He’d bled like a stuck hog for a few moments, but the wound was now more bothersome than painful.

He set her in the passenger side and buckled her seat belt before leaning close and whispering in her ear, “I lied about not hurting you. When you are feeling better from this little stunt, I’m going to tan your ass.”

He smirked when she shot him a murderous glare and then cringed when her head no doubt protested. He was so more than pissed at the moment, but he wouldn’t lose control with her. She was already leery enough around him. She had scared the living shit out of him, and he was sure that he’d have several gray hairs to show for it soon. It was rare for lycans to get gray hair, but he knew if anything could cause them, this was one of those things.

He walked back to the driver’s side and slid in behind the wheel. He glanced at Rose after putting the truck in drive and turning down the road that led to his place. Rose. His mate. How had he been lucky enough to find her after all of these years? She’d be hard to win over. She was angry, stubborn, and . . . lovely, but win her over he would no matter how long it took. He’d never let her go again, and she’d simply have to get used to the idea that not all lycans were monsters.

He turned down the long drive flanked by thick evergreen trees that cocooned his house away from the rest of the world. He’d been lucky enough to rent it from an older man who had once used it as a hunting getaway. The poor gentleman had been sick, was not going to use the cedar-sided cabin this year, and had been more than happy to accept Knox’s generous offer for rent. Knox had promised to take care of the place and leave it in the same condition he’d found it, which was surprisingly clean, comfortable, and quaint, although he planned on doing some repairs if he had time.