“Your blood—”
“You suspect I have Pantera blood?”
“Yes.” His glowing gaze lowered, studying her face with a fierce intensity. “I can smell it.”
She arched a brow at him. “Are you saying I smell?”
His nose flared and he inhaled, the heat of his body wrapping around her like a caress. “Oh yeah, you smell, kitten. And it’s glorious.”
She shuddered at his words, at the way he’d spoken them, while new, terrifying sensations swirled through her. She had Pantera blood inside her? How? How was that even possible?
She forced her mind back, but it only fell into darkness.
She growled to herself, and abruptly turned away from his burning gaze. She couldn’t process her strange reaction to this male or what he’d said. Not after what she’d been through. It wasn’t true. Couldn’t be, and yet…
“I’ve always known there was something different about me,” she said almost to herself. “Why else would I have been taken, locked up…”
“Not different,” Cerviel said. “Superior.”
She smiled at his words, a moment of lightness, pressing her head tight against his chest as he pushed his way through a wall of pine branches illuminated by the half-moon’s light. The landscape was becoming increasingly remote and untamed. The sort of place humans rarely visited. The sort of place where an animal might be very comfortable.
“You don’t lack in confidence,” she pointed out.
He laughed softly. “No. I’m sure many would call me an arrogant bastard.”
She glanced up at him.
“In fact, my Pantera brothers have called me much worse.” He gave her a wink.
The action went straight through her and penetrated her heart. The one that had broken, then had ceased to beat during her time in the cage. He was something. Dangerous and sexy, yet held so much warmth and kindness within him. Her eyes searched his, so dark and liquid. He was one of the good guys. She was certain of it. Just as she was suddenly certain she would do anything to get him to smile at her again.
She swallowed thickly, feeling oddly vulnerable. “Do you have a big family?”
As a quick breeze picked up around them, he ducked beneath a low overhang and followed a narrow path that led along a deepening ravine.
“Hundreds.”
She blinked. Had she heard him right? “Hundreds?”
He slowed as the path narrowed. On one side was a wall of rock, on the other a sheer drop-off. She gripped him a little tighter.
“My pack is my family,” he told her, though his voice held a thread of sadness as he said it.
“That must be nice.” Envy speared her heart. She couldn’t imagine being surrounded by a large, loving pack. She’d been alone for so, so long.
He glanced down at her, his brows pulled together. “Have you always been at the ranch?”
“I…” Her words trailed away as she gave a helpless shake of her head. “I don’t know.”
His frown deepened. “What do you mean?”
She hated having to tell him this. It made her feel so damn weak. “I think something was done to me,” she admitted, her gut clenching with both pain and sickness as she tried to push back in time. “I can’t remember anything before waking up in that cage five years ago.”
He looked stunned. “Nothing?”
She shook her head. “It’s blank. It’s as if my mind was erased.” She regarded him with somber, pensive eyes. “It’s as if I never existed.”
5B CHAPTER 4
It was a nearly impossible task, but Cerviel bit back his urge to press Hallie for more details on her loss of memory. There was only one reason to clear someone’s mind. And that was because they had information that would be dangerous.
But right now he needed to concentrate on finding a place to keep her safe from Donaldson. At least until he could make sure it was safe to signal for the chopper and they could get the hell out of Wyoming.
Following the curve of the narrow pathway, he discovered a wide opening that led into a cave. It