So now they were working on plan B, perving on—er, no, scouting out the enemy. He eyed the woman below.
The sunlight filtered through the trees, picking out copper highlights in her braided brown hair. He wished he could see her eyes, but they were too far off. She turned away, her back to them, and Matthias couldn’t help noticing the indentation of her slender waist, the sexy curve of her hips, the way her jeans cupped her trim butt. She had an athletic figure that drew his attention, and he grew hard as he eyed her lean grace as she walked around the clearing, instructing her charges.
A cool breeze washed over him, a sign that the chill snows of winter were just around the corner. It teased the back of his neck, and he could almost imagine it was her fingers caressing him, playing with him, teasing him. Tempting him. He watched her hands as she spoke, the smooth, rolling gestures hypnotic and innately sensual. He wanted those hands on him. The lust he felt now was at first uncomfortable, then painful, and wholly surprising and unwelcome.
His eyes narrowed. He didn’t like the rise of desire within. Didn’t like it at all. He told himself he was merely surveying the enemy, that his intense interest—not lust—was completely warranted. She was undeniably sexy, moving with a lithe fluidity that called to a part of him he’d trapped and buried. His senses sharpened. His body throbbed in time with the slow, languid thump of his heart. The leaves in the surrounding trees rustled, whispering encouragement. He took a deep breath to calm his body’s reaction, and breathed in the loamy richness of the earth, the rock on which they lay hard and unrelenting. He caught the whiff of a scent, something he knew by instinct was hers, a delicate trail of spice amidst the fragrant forest. He dug his fingers into the stone outcrop as he battled the sensuality that was flooding him. He wanted to leap down, grab her and carry her off. The beast within him unfurled, awakened by his reactions, stretching, arching.
This was not the time to lose himself in an attraction, damn it. He was tempted, though. Tempted to ignore his goal, the reason he was spying on the enemy, to abandon his friend and surrender to the lust that was licking at his defenses, like a bushfire consuming the land.
The woman commanded the attention of several adolescents as she spoke with them quietly. Matthias felt a smile tease at the corners of his mouth as he watched a little boy of maybe five years old standing next to her. Once again, his reaction surprised him as much as it displeased him. The kid mimicked her stance, nodding and frowning as she spoke to the group. A man stood behind the class, and Matthias wondered briefly who he was and what his connection was to the woman. Something deep, dark and possessive rose within him, and yes, so did a hint of jealousy, of envy, that this man was within her trusted circle. The man nodded, then jogged away into the undergrowth.
The woman held up her hands, calling their focus back to her as she assigned partners within the group. Her back was to him, but her movement raised her shirt and jacket, calling his attention back to her butt, her waist. This reaction he had to her was new. Alien. The kid started to wander off, but she grabbed hold of the back of the younger kid’s hooded pullover, not once breaking her focus from the adolescents as she gently pulled the child back to her side. Matthias sucked in a breath as, just for a moment, the scene below merged with a memory he’d ruthlessly ignored and never thought to revisit, of another woman, another boy...another time.
The kid frowned up at her, folding his arms as his lips pouted, but the woman ruffled his hair absently as she kept talking. After a few more minutes of instructions, she clapped her hands and gestured to the edge of the clearing, and the pairs of adolescents took off in multiple directions.
“That must be the Woodland Tracker Prime,” Zane murmured. “I’ve heard she’s good. One of the best.”
Matthias raised his eyebrows briefly at his friend’s remarks. The guardian had a knack for acquiring intel. So far he’d been quite valuable in getting information on the Woodland pack. Although he had to admit, even he’d heard of the Woodland Tracker Prime.
“Hmm.” Matthias didn’t take his gaze off the woman as she finally turned her attention to the boy. She folded her arms and tipped her head to the side. Her brown braid slid forward over her shoulder, and his body tightened. He wanted to touch that hair, unravel the braid and watch it slide through his fingers. He wondered if it was as silky as it looked. Again, he was stunned by his curiosity—no, his need—to know more of this woman.
She was tall, he could tell, despite their angle of viewing. Damn, she had great legs. Long, slender and encased in denim, her coltish frame had just enough curves to catch and hold his attention. Those legs...wrapped around his waist...
He clenched his teeth. This was not the time to get horny over a she-wolf, for God’s sake—no matter how long it’d been since he’d looked at another woman as more than just a pack mate. The woman below was Woodland. The enemy. Her family—hell, maybe even she, had been responsible for Jared’s death. The pack was systematically thumbing its collective nose at the rest of the lycan tribe. They had killed his friend, his mentor, his alpha prime.
And she was one of them.
Everyone at Woodland would pay for what they’d done to Alpine. Just the thought that she was part of the enemy pack—and in a trusted position, if she was training juveniles—was enough to snap everything back into perspective. He wasn’t there to ogle. He was there to gather information, maybe even hunt.
From this distance, he couldn’t make out what was being said. The kid dragged his toe in the dirt, and she squatted down so that her eyes were level with his. Her jeans tightened around her butt, although it was the sight of the woman leaning in to the little boy that brought a tightness to his throat, the emotion taking him by surprise. He shifted, trying to shrug the moment off. She looked nothing like Cara.
“One would almost think Woodland care for their young, too,” Zane commented in a rough whisper.
“They’re still lycans,” Matthias murmured. And as such, had similar weaknesses to the rest of the lycan tribe, weaknesses that could be exploited. “They’ll still value life.” The young were to be protected, nurtured. Loved.
Whatever the woman said cheered up the kid, as he started to strut about the clearing. He’d point at something, and she’d either shake her head or shrug, walking behind him with her hands clasped behind her back. She was relaxed, patiently answering the questions the boy asked. Eventually he reached the point where the man had stood, and looked up at his instructor. She smiled and nodded, giving him a high five, then knelt beside him, tracing something in the dirt. The kid nodded, took a few steps, then pointed. She gave him a thumbs-up, rising to her feet to follow.
Zane started to shuffle back from the edge, but Matthias’s hand shot out, clutching his forearm. They both froze. The woman halted at the edge of the clearing and cocked her head to the side. She turned to slowly scan the area. Matthias didn’t move. His muscles clenched tight, and his breath caught in his chest. The reason they’d picked this vantage point was because they couldn’t be seen from below, yet the woman’s gaze remained glued to the ridge for a moment, before finally drifting on. The boy must have asked her something, for she turned to him, a reassuring smile on her face as she held her arms out. He ran up to her, and she grasped his wrists, swinging him up and over her shoulders until he could wrap his arms around her neck. She carried him, piggyback-style, into the woods, furtively glancing over her shoulder as she went.
Matthias relaxed once she was out of sight.
“Did she see us?” Zane asked as he retreated from the ridge.
Matthias shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Should we go after her? She could prove valuable.”
He shook his head. “No.” He kept scanning the trees, but it was as though the brown-haired woman had melted into the forest, disappearing like a wisp of mist. He smiled. They wouldn’t go after her, not now.
Maybe