Free Trent: Her Warlock Protector Book 7 by Hazel Hunter Page B

wolf?”
    He frowned. “Hell no. I’d be dog food if I had, I’m sure. I thought at first with the damage that it might have been a bear or something, maybe a cougar. It was the response team that decided on wolf. They found paw prints and the tooth marks are pretty distinctive, turns out.”
    Frowning, she reached down and touched the wolf’s tooth charm around her throat. It felt heavy. The last thing she wanted to become was a wolf. Never again.
    Did Trent kill Rainstone?  
    It was the only thing that made any sense. She’d been deep asleep after a night of love-making–
    No, not that, fucking . Call it what it was.
    He could have shifted and killed Rainstone. Did he need her to come with him for extended training? Was he trying to isolate her? Goddess, what? Would he have eliminated her father or Carrie next in order to make it easier to leave with him? Who had she slept with? The man she saw behind Trent’s eyes, the one who adored her? Or was it the ruthless soldier, that lieutenant caught in an eternal war?
    She didn’t know and it made her tremble even harder.
    “Seriously, I…if there’s anything you need, I’m right here,” Floyd said, stroking back her braids. “I can go get Cynthia. She can…”
    “There’s nothing she can do and she’s got to deal with the police. I mean, she just lost May. I need some air,” she replied, stumbling out and back to her car.  
    There was only one place she wanted to be.

CHAPTER TEN

    TRENT WAS DISAPPOINTED at the way he woke up. Instead of a beautiful country girl wrapped up in his arms, with her ass snuggled up against his hard cock, all he saw was an empty expanse of mattress and a note. While he understood that she had other duties that didn’t involve him, it still stung a bit that she hadn’t even shaken him awake to say goodbye. They had more training to do, more forms to acclimate her to, and there was still the need to get her to the coven house in Atlanta. There, a variety of Wiccans could train her in her gifts, help her grow from novice to expert. It was beyond his talents, and, besides, it was expected from the Magus Corps.
    Even if he didn’t want to just dump her off there.
    He wanted her for himself. He’d spent the early morning caught up in erotic dreams about how much pure ecstasy it would be to initiate her. Frankly, he wanted that connection with her, of soul touching soul, and magics entwining.
    The cold bed was a reminder that she might not feel the same.
    Besides, he was a warrior. This was about doing the job and getting back in good graces. He was supposed to be taking on Knights. He wasn’t ready to settle down. Not that entering a coven or training was about that. The Wiccans they collected were encouraged to grow in their gifts and join the fights as they could. But joining in that way with Elaine would change who he was and what truly mattered to him. He was still only a first lieutenant and his low rank haunted him. Being captain was something he’d fought towards for a decade. One day he wanted to be treated with the respect of a general or commandant. Someday—maybe hundreds of years from now––he might rise high in the Corps. He’d made one mistake and let a novice slip from a coven, but he could recover.
    Elaine, as gorgeous as she was, as much as her wild side called to his own, she couldn’t be worth derailing his already injured career.
    Could she?
    Confused, he dialed up his contact. He just needed to get clearer perspective from someone with his mind more focused on the mission. General Logan MacCulloch answered on the third ring.
    “Have you given Elaine the real facts of the situation yet, Trent?”
    Cool, efficient. That was everything Trent wanted himself to be. Somehow he felt he could never make up for the hundreds of years head start that many of the Magus Corps had. He’d always be a kid to them. Still, he needed to answer his superior.  
    Taking in a deep breath, he steadied himself, tried to focus