She offered him a friendly smile that made his groin jerk. "Astrid. And yours?"
"Zarek."
Her smile widened. "You are Greek. I thought so by your accent."
Her wolf circled around her feet and sat down next to her to eyeball him. It flashed its teeth threateningly.
He was really beginning to hate that animal.
"Can I get you anything, Zarek?"
Yes, crawl naked into that bed and let me ravish you until dawn.
He swallowed at the thought and his groin tightened even more at the sound of his name on her lips.
He couldn't have been any harder if she had been stroking him with her hand.
Her mouth...
What was wrong with him? He was on the run for his life and all he could think of was sex?
He was being a total idiot.
"No, thank you," he said. "I'm all right."
His stomach rumbled, betraying him.
"You sound hungry to me."
Starving, to be honest, but right then he was craving a taste of her a lot more than he was craving food. "Yeah. I guess I am."
"Here," she said, reaching out for him. "I might be blind, but I can cook. I promise that unless Sasha has moved things around in the kitchen, I haven't poisoned my stew."
Zarek didn't take her hand.
She swallowed as if nervous or awkward, then dropped her hand and headed out of the room.
Sasha growled at him again.
Zarek growled back and stamped his foot at the annoying pooch, who looked like it wanted nothing more than to tear his leg off.
He caught an unfocused look of censure on Astrid's face as she paused in the doorway to turn back toward them. "Are you being mean to Sasha?"
"No. I'm just returning his greeting." The wolf's ears were still laid back as it darted out of the room. "Rin Tin Tin doesn't seem to like me very much."
She shrugged. "He doesn't like anyone much. Sometimes not even me."
Astrid turned and headed down the hallway with Zarek behind her. There was something very ominous about this man. Deadly. And it wasn't just the strength she had felt in his arm as she touched it.
He oozed an unnatural darkness that seemed to warn everyone, even the blind, to stay away from him. That was most likely what Sasha reacted to. It was extremely disconcerting.
Even frightening.
Maybe Artemis was right. Maybe she should judge him guilty and just go on home...
But he hadn't attacked her. At least not yet.
Astrid led him to the breakfast counter where she had three bar stools. Her sisters had placed them there earlier when they had come to visit and warn her about her latest assignment.