Chapter 49

Again, Amanda breathed in through her nose and she was hit with the scent of him, it matched the lingering scent on the woman, masculine and woodsy with a hint of smoke and it was strong, but it irritated her nose and repelled her. She took a step back, grimacing. Her head turned to the two men on Cole’s other side.

She sniffed each of them in turn; each had their own particular scent, always masculine and always woodsy but each of them held a different tang. Where one smelled almost sweet, the other smelled somewhat like moss. While neither of them smelled particularly bad, their scents offended Amanda’s nose and she stepped back again, nose scrunched in distaste.

The woman behind Cole spoke up. “I try to tell them that Marcus here is the only one of them who smells good and none of them believe me.” She flashed Amanda an all too knowing smile.

Cole stepped forward, hands lifted in a placating manner as if he were approaching a frightened animal, which he may as well have been. Amanda was surrounded and she didn’t know what the hell was going on with her body or her senses. “What the hell did you do to me? Did you infect me? Am I going to sprout fur and start running around pissing on trees and eating people when the moon rises?”

Sara gasped behind her and she turned to stare at the other woman. For about half a second, Amanda felt bad for putting that horrified look on the other woman’s face until she reminded herself of how Sara and Daniel had betrayed her. She scowled and her head snapped around again to focus her death glare on Cole once more, daring him to take another step with her eyes.

Something changed in Cole’s eyes at that challenge and he stepped forward again.

A little too late, Amanda realized her mistake. She’d challenged a werewolf and he’d accepted. She gulped hard and shifted her body into a fighting stance. She wasn’t about to give in, now that she’d signed her own death warrant. He would probably shift and eat her insides, but she would go down fighting at the very least and maybe she’d do a little bit of damage on the way down.

“No,” Cole growled. “It doesn’t work that way.” He smirked as he began to slowly circle around her.

Amanda could feel the others step back, forming a wide circle around them. She could hear their hearts beating, smell their heightened emotions. They were as surprised by all of this as she was, but they were also curious to see what happened.

Cole moved so quickly that Amanda could barely see it. One second he was at her side, still circling around and then the next he was behind her, with his hand around her throat, pinning her against him. He ran his cheek along her own and then dragged his nose down her neck to the bite mark he’d left there less than two days ago. He growled softly and she felt him actually lick the wound before he growled in her ear. “I didn’t infect you, I claimed you.”

He let go of her throat and then slammed his hips against her ass, knocking her off balance and giving her a feel of just how much he was enjoying the fight with her. He was actually aroused! Amanda landed on her hands and knees and to her horror, she heard Cole growl lustily behind her. “I like you like that.”

Amanda rolled and pushed off of the ground with her hands, hopping into a crouched position and then rising to her feet. “What the hell do you think this is? The fucking dark ages where you can just grab any woman you like, drag her home and declare her your personal property? You’re a goddamned caveman!” She howled, her entire body shaking with the force of her anger. “I will claw your fucking eyes out if you try to touch me again.”