This Dark Wolf (Soul Bitten Shifter #1) - Everly Frost Page 0,78

stares at the security card before she snatches it from him. “Fine.” Her gaze darts to me. “Please, make sure Tessa’s okay.”

Tristan ignores her plea, scooping me up blanket and all, one arm under my legs, the other supporting my back, keeping me as curled up as possible as he pulls me against his chest and strides from the room with me.

Giving in to my increasing pain, I allow my head to rest against his chest as he carries me to the elevator, but I tug at the blanket, making sure it covers me and forms a barrier between us.

It’s infuriating that he suddenly seems to have spare security cards everywhere, pulling another one from his jeans pocket to trigger the elevator to take us up to the twelfth floor.

When the blanket slips a little as he bends to scan his card, I grab at the material to pull it tight again.

“Stop that.” He growls at me as he straightens and adjusts his hold on me. “You’re not helping yourself.”

I can’t even scowl at him. Right now, I’m simply desperate not to throw up all over him.

I’m both suffocating and tearing apart. The blanket is my final defense, keeping all of my pieces together.

The elevator doors open into his penthouse and he launches into action. I freeze in shock when he rolls me onto the couch and rips the blanket away from me.

I’ve barely registered that the blanket’s gone when he hauls me up by the front of my shirt so fast that he rips the buttons off it, tearing my shirt open, exposing my bra. His arms whip around my waist, sliding against my naked ribs as he yanks me up against him.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I scream at him, my fists flying out, punching into his shoulders milliseconds before my chest can collide with his.

My defensive maneuver barely has an impact on him.

“You need skin on skin,” he snarls, his voice throaty, his big hands unrelenting where he grips my waist.

I’m still processing the ease with which he nearly undressed me, still coming to terms with his strength. I thought fighting Cody Griffin was terrifying. I thought the white wolf was intimidating.

But if Tristan hadn’t chosen to stop right now, I wouldn’t have a chance.

Fuck.

My forearms press against his chest, my arms bent at the elbows, the only barrier between us. I seek my wolf’s strength, but she’s writhing inside me. She’s hurting. And the worst part is that where my arms press against Tristan’s chest… I’m receiving the smallest relief from the pain.

His wolf’s power—his power—promises to be the drug that will ease my pain. But if it means embracing him—worse, stripping off—I’ll have to make myself completely vulnerable to him to get it.

“I won’t hurt you,” he says, his voice thick. “But you need to give in to this.”

I tip my head back, my hair falling heavily to my waist. I search for any hint in his eyes that he sees me as anything other than a means to an end.

I don’t find it.

“No!” I thump him and he releases me, his arms dropping to his sides.

I crumple to the floor, unable to stay upright without his support, one arm outstretched to ward him off as I gasp my speech. “Stay… the fuck… away from me…”

“Tessa, you need my help. You need my body. Nobody else can help you right now.”

I find strength enough to reply with a sharp tongue. “Oh, because you’re so strong? I need big, strong Tristan to help me, is that it?”

“You need an alpha! And right now I’m the only one you’ve got.”

I back into the coffee table, bumping my calves against it before I veer to the side. “I don’t need anything from you, Tristan Masters. Least of all a bodice-ripping.”

He shakes his head at me, dangerously slow as he follows me at a prowl. “You have no idea what you did this morning. You asserted dominance over the strongest women in my pack. Do you understand what that means?”

“No, because I don’t understand your rules or your laws or your fucking aggressive pack behavior.”

“Aggressive?” His head jerks back as he stops short. “You haven’t seen the beginning of my aggression, Tessa.”

I shiver, because I think I have seen the edges of his aggression, not least in the way he ripped off my buttons just now, but especially in the terrifyingly efficient way in which he did it. Helen warned me that I should take every story I’ve