With Her Capture (5 page)

“My whelped name is Magdaline. My sire
nicknamed me Magda when I was too young to remember.”

It was a nice name for a sire to call his
cub. But the female across from him was hardly a cub any longer.
She also wasn’t shivering anymore. The cave had warmed nicely. He
selfishly wished he’d thought to have brought her one of his
t-shirts, or something that would reveal that tempting body he knew
was underneath the baggy folds of his sweats she wore.

“Magdaline. It’s a beautiful name.”

“Everyone calls me Magda.”

He wanted to know who everyone was.

She pulled a large breast from the bag and
ripped at the cooked flesh with her teeth. He watched her chew,
swallow. Then she moved, straightening, standing. Instantly, she
grabbed the sweatpants with her free hand. He hid a smile as he
watched, not daring to move or say a word. When she started around
the fire toward him he sensed it took a fair amount of courage on
her part to approach him.

Her gaze met his. Magda stared at him,
studying him, and sniffed before moving to sit closer. Once she was
cross-legged again, this time on the same side of the fire as him,
she extended her hand and held the bag of chicken out to him.

“You will always be able to trust me,” he
told her, hoping she smelled the truth in his words.

“I don’t know the meaning of trust.”

He believed her. It was why her dark eyes
didn’t radiate as they should.

Instead of taking the bag, Ayden grabbed the
breast from her other hand before she was able to stop him. “Allow
me to show you,” he whispered, and held the breast to her mouth so
she could take another bite.

Magda didn’t take her eyes from his when she
opened her mouth, closed her teeth on the cooked flesh, and ripped
more meat from the bones of the chicken. He’d never enjoyed
watching a female eat before. She swallowed, tore off more meat,
and ate. When she reached to take the breast from his hand, he let
her have it. Then in silence, they ate his kill.

“Are you full?” he asked when she’d eaten
three pieces and didn’t reach for a fourth.

“Yes.” She sucked on one finger, then on
another.

He fought a low possessive growl that
threatened to rise in his throat. She had to know what she was
doing to him by sucking her fingers into her mouth.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her voice soft,
sated.

Ayden imagined her sounding that way after he
fucked her. He wouldn’t want her whispered thanks, though. He had
no intention of servicing her for gratitude. He would want her
blissful submission, her limp next to him or possibly draped over
his naked body. Ayden pictured her cheeks rosy pink and her hair
tangled much the way it was now. The only difference would be her
eyes glowing with happiness and his scent embedded in her
flesh.

“Are you warm?”

“I am.” She looked at him for the first time
since she started eating. Those dark eyes were still flat.

Somehow he needed to gain her trust. Since
they started eating he’d grown more comfortable. Ayden reclined on
his side, propped up on his elbow. If he wished, all he’d have to
do was extend a finger and stroke her outer thigh. If he did,
something told him she would leap to the other side of the
fire.

Possibly she believed now that he wouldn’t
kill her. Magda remained cross-legged. Her back was straight. Other
than the pink hue on her dark cheeks, nothing about her had
changed. Even her scent still reeked of her wariness.

He wanted to kiss her. More than his next
breath he wanted to taste her. If he wrapped his hand around that
thick mane of long hair and tugged until her face was close to his,
it would be a start to bringing life back into her tattered
soul.

Magda had been hunted far too long. He wasn’t
sure what compelled him. But he knew his mind was already made up.
This incredible
beaute noire
would be his, and he would kill
to insure she was never hunted again.

Chapter Four

Magda woke curled up in the thick sleeping
bag Ayden had left her. She buried her nose in it for a moment,
breathing in his scent. No one had ever treated her the way he had
the night before. No one other than her sire or mother, and they
were both dead.

She refused to think of her littermates right
now. They had to be safe. She wouldn’t have the strength to get
through the day if she believed otherwise. Magda inhaled again,
filling her lungs with the masculine, compelling scent laced
through the sleeping bag.

It was enticing, too. A temptation she didn’t
need. If Ayden hadn’t left the night before when he had, she wasn’t
sure what she might have done. When he’d sprawled out along the
fire, he’d been inches from her. Fool that she was, she hadn’t
moved. Ayden was a deadly creature. Every muscle in his body—and
she’d stared at all of them by the end of the night—was proof of
how dangerous he was. Why did danger turn her on? It never had
before.

She always had the sense to run when her life
depended on it. Granted he’d brought her food, made a fire for her,
and left her with clothes and a sleeping bag. That didn’t smell of
a male who planned on killing her. It smelled of a male planning on
seducing her. Yet he hadn’t.

Maybe some wild sex would help her mood. She
needed rejuvenating. She’d been on the run since their den burnt to
the ground. That had been almost two months ago. Since then, she
hadn’t awakened from a sleep and remained curled in warmth this
long.

The moment she stuck her nose out of the bag
a cold chill hit her. She lowered the bag some more and risked
exposing her entire face. Then staring at the wood piled at her
cave entrance, she willed a large branch to break in two and enter
the cave. The wood split and tumbled to the rocky floor. Instead of
making the sound she expected, Magda heard a loud clanging
sound.

“What the hell?” She sat up, her heart
instantly in her throat.

What kind of fool was she to believe lying in
bed leisurely was an option?

The cold didn’t matter anymore. She unzipped
the bag. Her boots were next to her. She groaned approval when they
still held the warmth from last night’s fire. After slipping them
on she sniffed the air and approached the entrance to the cave,
stepping over the long branch, now broken in two next to hot ashes
from the fire. There was something shiny on the other side of the
remaining logs and rocks. When she’d snapped the closest branch
with her gift it had caused the branches on the outer edge of her
pile by the entrance to fall on whatever was out there.

Magda worked her way around the pile of wood
and stone, holding on to the waist of the oversized sweats she
still wore, and gasped. A large wash pan, shiny and silver, had
been left on the other side of her camouflaged door to her cave.
She took a step toward it, straining to peer inside the wash pan
but not get too close. It had no scent. That didn’t mean something
might not be inside. It was empty.

No sooner had she determined that fact then
her nose did pick up on something. Her stomach growled so loud she
swore it echoed off the neighboring mountain. Magda shot her
attention to the edge of the cliff outside her cave.

An elk—a beautiful, full grown, well fed
elk—lay dead on its side. Its neck had been ripped out. The smell
of its blood, of exposed raw meat under its torn fur, did a number
on her. Magda’s teeth grew before she gave any thought to making
the change. Her stomach roared, reminding her how long it had been
since she’d truly enjoyed fresh kill. The need to refurbish her
body outweighed any coherent thoughts.

Magda leapt at the dead elk, embracing the
change mid-air. The oversized sweatshirt hung on her when her body
covered in fur. The pants slipped right off her.

Clothes were something she’d worry about
later. The fire in her veins, as the change rushed through her,
lasted less time than usual. Magda transformed with such fury it
made her dizzy.

By the time she landed, Magda was on all
fours. She swayed, and her world blurred.

The rich, beautiful, intoxicating aroma of
fresh kill kept her firmly planted on her four paws. It also
cleared her vision. She needed to make sure that what she saw in
her flesh was still there now that she was in her fur. Magda wagged
her tail and let out a yelp that she was glad no one heard. It was
the sound of an excited pup, and a sound she hadn’t made since she
had been one herself and her sire had laid the litter’s kill before
his three cubs. He had then sat back on his haunches and watched,
smelling of pride and satisfaction while Magda and her littermates
snarled and fought for the best meat. She let go of her memories
and enjoyed the elk meat.

It wasn’t until she was done eating, feeling
sated and lazy that she noticed the soup pot on the other side of
the wash pan. She sniffed at it. The pot was covered with Ayden’s
scent. He’d done this—all of this. He had killed the elk. And while
she’d enjoyed the best night sleep she’d had in months, he’d
dragged his kill, the pot and wash pan up the mountain for her to
find outside the cave.

Taking her time, Magda searched down the
rocky decline of the mountain. She studied the scattered trees
growing sideways amidst boulders and crevices. She squinted and
sniffed in the direction of the rushing water loaded with trout.
There wasn’t much to see above her, but she looked anyway. A strong
breeze rustled through her coat and she breathed it in. She didn’t
smell Ayden, or any werewolf for that matter. Magda relaxed and
focused on the soup pot and wash pan. At least Ayden hadn’t seen
her behave like a pup in her excitement over his gifts.

Magda scooped the sweatpants up with her
teeth and dropped them into the pot, then one at a time, dragged
the pot and pan into her cave. After building up the fire, she
changed into her human form. She was going to have a bath. A long,
leisurely hot bath. Magda pulled a thick, large towel from the soup
pot and laughed. The sound stilled her.

“When have you last laughed, Magdaline
Keller?” she mused, but didn’t try remembering. She stared at the
contents that had fallen from the towel.

Bath salts, fragranced soap, shampoo,
conditioner, a wash cloth—and a hair brush.

“Oh fucking tail,” she cried out, and laughed
some more. “I might just mount you before you can decide when the
right time is to fuck me.”

Ayden considered himself lucky that Magda
hadn’t spotted him down the mountain. A strong breeze blowing
through at just the right moment had helped matters. If she’d
spotted him, he wouldn’t have had the pleasure of hearing her
laughter in the cave.

She was so run down that another day on her
own and she wouldn’t have had the strength to keep running and
hiding. He’d sniffed her out just in time. If the fates were to be
believed, and there were times when he definitely believed in them,
then they definitely had their paws in this one. She was so excited
over fresh kill and a hot bath. It made it worth it sniffing out
the perfect hiding place after leaving his kill and the gifts for
her outside the cave. Although the elk hadn’t brought her back to
perfect health. A female in her prime would have searched more to
find who left her gifts. In spite of thinking that Magda had a
pretty good idea who left the elk and pot and pan for her, he still
definitely needed to protect her.

Ayden stayed where he was, on a perch not too
far from the cave. He smelled her while she feasted on the elk. He
heard her when she laughed inside the cave. Now he imagined her in
her human form, naked and preparing for her bath. Picturing how she
looked, with her tan skin and long black hair tumbling over perky
breasts got his dick hard. Not to mention that her happiness and
enthusiasm created a feeling inside him he wasn’t sure he’d
experienced before.

Sure there had been happy moments while
growing up with his litter. When his sire and mother had still been
alive he’d been thrilled when they were impressed by something he’d
done. When he’d killed his first deer, been the first to sniff out
danger, or times when he’d been left to protect his mother and
younger littermate while his sire hunted had all made him
incredibly happy and pleased with himself. And there had been many
times like that. Ayden would be the first to howl he’d been whelped
into a happy den. But none of those moments compared to the
satisfaction, and the thrill he’d known when he easily smelled her
reaction to his gifts.

Magda dragged the wash pan and soup pot into
the cave. If he’d had lips while in his fur he would have grinned
like a fool at the sound coming from the cave a few moments later.
She’d found the toiletries he’d scrounged around for. He’d never
tell her how hard it was for a single male to gather pretty
smelling female bathroom things without being sniffed up one side
and down another to see if he told the truth as to why he needed
them.

If need be, he would have lied. And granted,
he might have taken some advantage knowing what most on the
mountain thought of his litter. His great-great great grandsire had
first brought his litter here from the north when they’d hunted
their way down from Alaska. His mama’s litter had lived on this
mountain almost as long. There wasn’t anyone on this mountain who
didn’t know and respect him and his littermate.

Ayden would run with his head held just as
high tomorrow for what he said today in order to get the supplies
for Magda. He had howled to two different dens, litters he knew had
females living there. Of course they sniffed him from head to toe,
giggled and smelled incredibly amused at his request. Mamas pushed
their unmated daughters out the front door of their dens to hand
over supplies and flirt mercilessly with him, but he had gotten
what he’d needed. Maybe a few of them believed a litter that had
been hunting buddies with his sire and mama had a sick female, who
couldn’t get out on her own, and needed a few personal items. Part
of what he’d howled had been the truth. He did know a female who
wasn’t able to run and get toiletries.