Dangerous Territory

Three

When she looked up, he was already staring at her.

He was...

Scruffy.

One of the first things she noticed was the beard and long hair.

Overgrown would be putting it mildly.

The strands of deep mahogany coloured hair hung around his face, dull and lifeless just like the facility; his beard, wild and ungroomed, reaching down to his chest in wiry waves.

She also noticed that he was tall. Taller than the prison guards that had his hands bound with the cuffs in front of him, but also much slimmer than them.

She couldn't see much muscle definition on him but that may have been because he was clad, neck to ankle, in a baggy grey jumpsuit.

Inmate number four.

Her mate.

His eyes, an intense shade of stormy grey that shot right through her, trained on her face as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing in front of him.

She almost whimpered.

Almost.

She took in the way he stood, slightly hunched over as the middle aged, human guards gripped his forearms, his long fingers clasping the chains in front of him and exposed wrists marred red from the tight cuffs.

His prisoner grab wasn't flattering, he had bags under his eyes and was kind of grubby looking, yet for some reason Mala found herself thinking he was incredibly sexy.

He was rugged in a type of scrawny, indolent way.

She wanted to feel his beard rub against the side of her face and thread her hands through his hair, tear that jumpsuit from his body and make him look even more dishevelled than he already was. She wanted him rip off her dress with his teeth and use his lips to bruise up every piece of skin he could find. Hell, she wanted his mark on her neck and his babies in her womb.

She jumped out of the dangerous spiral of thoughts as she heard a sharp shout, sense slowly returning to her mind.

"Keep it moving."

She was in big trouble.

The moment that her mate-

No, she corrected herself.

The moment that inmate number four had stopped walking, everyone else in the hallway had too.

He had been frozen in place, staring at Mala for what felt like an eternity, but must have been no more than five seconds.

Still, that was five seconds too long.

All she could smell was his overpowering scent, it was rising above him in waves and permeating itself into every corner of her mind. She would never forget it as long as she lived, not at all surprised by the fact that he smelled like everything she loved about the outdoors.

What she couldn't understand was why there was no trace of feral wolf entangled in it, especially as she had assumed that all the inmates were uncontrollable beasts.

What had he done to end up here?

Unwavering confusion inked its tendrils into her brain, a dull note of pain making its presence known at her temple. She didn't know whether she was subconsciously ignoring the part of his scent that screamed feral or if it really wasn't there.

Her mate flinched as the guard on his right side prodded him forward, blinking like he was coming out of a daze, and she had to bite her tongue to stop from making an involuntary sound of alarm.