“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he cursed out loud. Thinking sexually about a werewolf was practically bestiality. And if he were going to swing that way, he’d much rather do it with something that didn’t talk as much as she did, like a goat or a pony.

Ally or not, she continued to grate on his nerves.

Her expression flickered for a moment, and she looked hurt and offended. Then he remembered he’d spoken aloud, and she probably thought his remark was directed at her.

He’d opened his mouth to explain when she cut him off. “Fine. Carry me, if you think it will be faster.”

Recovering fast, he smiled superciliously. “I do.”

She stood behind him, tentatively placing her hands on his shoulders. He stooped slightly and reached back to lift her up. The natural place to rest hands, of course, was the perfectly round curve of her ass.

Pervert. Furry. Furvert, he chastised himself as he boosted her onto his back. “Up you go.”

“This is humiliating,” she growled at him, her mouth so close to his ear her breath stirred his hair.

He hooked his elbows under her knees to help support her. Her arms around his neck didn’t choke him. She was strong enough to hold her own weight, for the most part.

“You wouldn’t have been humiliated if you’d stayed at home,” he pointed out, then corrected himself. “At the apartment.”

“Fine. You are right and I, a lowly female, am wrong. Is that better?” Was that a hint of playfulness he heard in her voice?

It buoyed his spirits some. “Much. Are we still going straight?”

She’d refused to let him drive the car while they searched for Nathan. She’d said she couldn’t get a good scent that way.

The thought turned his stomach.

She lifted up slightly, audibly sniffing the wind. “No, turn up ahead.”

Her heels dug into him and she balled the shoulders of his T-shirt in her hands and tugged. He yanked the front of his shirt flat. “Stop that, I’m not a horse.”

“Sorry,” she said in a way that implied she didn’t care what kind of animal he was. “But turn right up ahead.”

The farther she led him into the neighborhood, the more it looked familiar. Dread tightened his guts. “Are you sure we’re on the right track?”

She gave a snort of disgust. “Do you have a better way of finding him that you are not sharing with me? Using it to second-guess my sense of smell? I said turn right.”

In the guise of hoisting her higher on his back, he jostled her wounded leg. “Sorry, did that hurt?”

“You are a spiteful man. I will be glad when this is all over.” She suddenly sounded tired and even laid her head against his shoulder as he walked.