Theo's arms came around her and she was grateful until she realized he only wore the pants she'd brought him in the woods. He must be much colder than she was. Out of the flames and away from the danger she found herself unable to look away from the hard lines of his sculpted chest in the moonlight. Reaching out, she touched him and felt his heart jump beneath her fingertips. It was a powerful feeling to know she affected him that much with merely her touch.
With her thumb and forefinger, she stroked over his nipple and his eyes got wide. Faith was barely aware of the commotion the pack created around her as they tried to help Theo, Tristan, and Cullen. This was completely the wrong time but she couldn't control the primal need that filled her in his presence.
"I don't know how you can even look at me let alone touch me."
Faith scoffed and stroked the fire ravaged side of his face. He flinched and attempted to pull away but she grabbed the back of his neck to stop him. "Why, because you're scarred? I hardly notice. Does it hurt you?"
His eyes were hard. "Only every day."
"Have you ever tried to put something on it to soften up the skin, make the good portion around it feel better, less tight? Vitamin E?"
"I'm a wolf-shifter, we heal without the use of any of that stuff."
Faith dug deep to find her patience. This man could say the most infuriating things. So why was it she found him so damn sexy he made the skin on her toes tingle?
He's our mate.
Yes, but at the moment I'm trying to figure out if I like him as a person in addition to whatever plans the fates have for us.
Theo is the most self-sacrificing, bravest man we've ever known.
In that, Faith would not argue. She didn't know if she could make the same promise to sacrifice her health--both physical and emotional--again if she knew what the outcome would be ahead of time.
"Look Theo, when we get back from here," she interrupted him as he opened his mouth knowing what his argument would be. "Okay, if we get out of here, then I'm going to start to rub some creams on your face in the morning and at night and we'll see if we can't make it feel better."
Theo rolled his eyes but nodded at the idea. As she watched, his eyes got wide. "Oh boy, I think we'd better move." Theo motioned to the left. The pack had dispersed to other places and Cullen and Summer argued in front of the burning building. Although their voices were raised, the sexual tension between them filled the area around them.
Theo grabbed her hand and they walked quickly through the woods in the direction where they heard the voices of the rest of the pack. "I can't help feeling like we interrupted a private moment."
"I won't tell if you won't but I think you're right. I think if we'd stayed a few more minutes, we would have witnessed their mating."
Faith shook her head to clear the images from it. She didn't need to picture Cullen and Summer doing anything anywhere near mating.
Theo's eyes sparkled in the moonlight. "I'm trying not to think about it too."
"The mating is one of those things I know next to nothing about." Theo raised an eyebrow. "I don't mean the sex aspect of it. That I know about."
"How much do you know about the sex bit?" Had she imagined that his voice just lowered two octaves? She rolled her eyes. Men, they were so predictable.
"Were you under the impression that I had lived almost forty years out in the human world and I was still a virgin?"
She'd asked the question but was shocked at the silence that followed her sarcasm. Finally, he spoke. "I was under the impression that sex without one's mate was really bad for most of us. It's one of the inclinations to find your mate as soon as possible."
Faith had never heard that but at least her two failed relationships made a little more sense now. "That clears a few things up."
"So it wasn't any good with anyone else." Theo's face was impassive but his tone still felt scalding.
"You don't even want to mate with me, what do you care?" Really, she'd had about enough.
Theo grabbed her by her shoulders and swung her around until she faced him. The intensity of his expression grabbed her. "How can you think I don't want to mate with you? I'm sparing you the horror that I would be to live with. Once we mate, that's it. If something happens to me, you won't be able to resist the urge to kill yourself. You'll have to follow me to wherever it is that we go. What if I lose my mind like my father and kill you? Then you'll be stuck in eternity with the man who took your life."
"Theo, look at me." Faith pulled out of his arms and grabbed his face with both of her hands. "I spent most of my life thinking I was insane. When I left here, and was put out there," she pointed towards the ocean that led off the island and onto the mainland of Maine and the rest of the world. "I was an odd little girl who kept rambling about wolves and magic. The social workers in the first orphanage they put me in thought I was delusional and recommended putting me in an insane asylum. Fortunately, that didn't happen, but the people who ran the orphanage beat any thoughts they considered 'inappropriate' from my head. I'm not some weak ninny who is going to fall apart at the first sign of trouble. I've been gifted with some kind of power to bring you back from the demons. I think whether we like it or not we are made for one another."
"So do you like it or hate it that you're stuck with me?"
Faith sighed. "At the moment, I want to ring your neck but when you're not acting a fool, I like you a great deal. You're strong, brave, and compassionate. What's not to like?"
Theo glanced left and right. "Something feel 'off' to you?"
"You mean other than this whole situation? No." Freezing, she would have preferred to be indoors but other than that, she felt pretty normal.
Her would-be mate nodded his head but his eyes were still far away. "I want the names of all the people who beat you, Faith."
"They'd be in their sixties and seventies, Theo, and they don't age like us."
He turned his head to look her straight in the eyes. "I don't care."
Just then, as if they were swept up by a giant gust of wind, Faith found herself shoved up against Theo and floating in the air. "What the hell?"
Theo's strong arms came around her. "I have no idea but I've got you, wherever we're going, we're going together."
Two seconds later, they landed with a hard thump on a wooden floor. Faith lay still for a moment wondering if she was stunned or just unable to move. Theo jumped to his feet; his eyes scanned the room around them. Finding her balance, Faith forced herself to sit up. She rubbed her head and noted that her elbow throbbed. Oh well, all in all she'd only suffered minor injury from whatever had just happened to them.
"I know this place too."
Faith nodded, not surprised. This strange journey seemed to be a distorted trip down Theo's memory lane. He was seeing things he'd seen before and also things he'd missed. She had no idea who guided them but she hoped they knew what they were doing.
Looking around, she gasped. She knew where they were too. It was the main hotel, where the humans came to vacation not knowing they were being secretly scouted out to see if they were really missing wolf-shifters who just didn't know it. Ashlee had originally come up with the idea when she'd first mated Tristan, years before Faith came to Westervelt. As a pack they had sent out a magical inclination for the pack's mates to come to the hotel and surgical center. It had seemed like a good excuse as Ashlee and Summer's father had been, before he was killed by Kendrick's minions, a sought after plastic surgeon. They were currently standing in one of the recovery rooms.