Free Savage Silence: A Dire Wolves Mission (The Devil's Dires Book 4) by Ellis Leigh Page A

lip, watching him. Weighing her options. He’d been kind enough to give her space, to keep from pushing her to do anything she didn’t want to. She couldn’t now force herself on him just because she wanted to help him. What precedent would that set? How disrespectful to his kindness would that be?
    When Thaus raised an eyebrow as if he felt her emotional turmoil, she sighed. “I’m not going to push you, but how am I supposed to trust you if you won’t give me the same consideration?”
    Thaus froze, staring at her with a blank expression that told her nothing of where his thoughts had gone. She refused to break that look, though. Refused to back down from him for a second. Alpha males tended to try to overpower those around them, and she wouldn’t allow that. Not this time. Medical care was her life’s work; it was something that had carried her through year after year of heartache. She could touch others to heal them so long as they kept their hands to themselves, and she wanted to help heal him. It was really the least she could do.
    “Okay,” Thaus said after a long pause. Without waiting for another response, he pulled his shirt over his head and turned, placing both hands flat on the countertop and showing her his back. His very broad, very muscular, very mating-haze-inducing bare back.
    And his scars.
    “What is that?” she asked, lifting up onto the balls of her feet to get a better look.
    “Medical intervention.” He turned, giving her the front view of the bullet hole that had probably shattered his entire shoulder joint. “My Dire brother, Levi, was sent on a mission to determine if humans were getting too close to a pack. He met his mate there, and all hell broke loose.”
    “How’s that?” She wanted to touch the little rosebud scar, wanted to feel how rough it was under her fingers. Wanted to…but held herself back. That touch wouldn’t be purely medical in nature.
    “The guy behind the mess convinced humans to get involved, and they brought guns.”
    “Guns don’t do that to us.” Ariel took a step back, then another, and another. Escaping to the other side of the counter once more. Tucking her need away for another time.
    If Thaus was upset at her retreat, he didn’t show it. He simply turned back to the pots and pans on the stove to continue cooking, albeit without a shirt on. “The humans in question? A shifter had told them about the pack in the mountains. The men were hunting the shifters, thinking those wolves were demons or something. The one who’d told them, though, was the mastermind. He’d wanted the pack Omega, my Dire brother’s new mate, and he’d set up one hell of a scheme to get her. Taste.”
    “What?”
    “Taste this.” He held up a spoon, twisting so she could reach it. “Please. I want to make sure you like it.”
    Her instincts to escape flared, but only for a moment. Instead of a raging inferno of panic and fear, that heat was nothing more than the lighting of a match. A brief shot of adrenaline that burned off faster than she’d thought possible.
    As if he knew, as if he felt her reservations, Thaus retreated slightly. He brought the spoon to his own mouth, tasting the sauce first. Giving something to Ariel she hadn’t known she’d needed.
    Reassurance that she was safe.
    On his second offer, Ariel let Thaus feed her a small spoonful, keeping her eyes on his. Refusing to allow her body to tremble. The sauce was delicious, something that almost surprised her. The man could cook.
    “It’s good. Hot.”
    “Good will work.” He pulled the spoon back and licked the red sauce from the edge, that long, pink tongue throwing static into her brain. The bastard knew what he was doing, too. He practically smirked as he dropped the spoon into the sink, grabbed a new one from the drawer, and returned to his stirring. And storytelling. “So creeper-shifter had figured out some chemical that would make shifters sort of…pass out. Knock them