Page 106 of Destined For The Wolf Daddy

It was my turn for my heart to race, but I forced myself to put on a flirtatious smile through the fear of being rendered useless. I did my best to just imagine that I was flirting with my husband. That a known stalker and psychopath wasn’t threatening to keep me tied up.

“Cheeky,” I teased. “Trying to threaten me with a good time?”

Curt’s brows shot up, his eyes flashing with something hungry. Then came the smell of his arousal.

I felt sick.

“I’m confused,” he said, walking toward me slowly, like a wolf about to pounce on his meal. “I thought you were hopelessly committed to your hack husband.”

“I was,” I said, hating having to tell the lie, but I forged on. “But then I saw him fall apart over his son. You should have seen how he wept. It was…”

“Pathetic?” Curt offered helpfully.

I hoped the expression of disgust on my face looked like it was in response to the memory of my weeping husband. “Yes,” I said emphatically. “Nothing is more humiliating than a weakling alpha.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Curt said as he stopped just inches away from me. I could feel warmth rolling off him, smell his desire for me, and the acrid scent of old, burned tobacco. He reached out a hand, slow and almost challenging. Like he was testing to see if an aggressive dog had finally been cowed out of its poor behavior.

Then he smoothed his gloved fingers through my hair.

I forced myself to lean into his hand like I’d been waiting for that touch. Like I couldn’t bear another moment without it.

“Good girl,” Curt said, his voice low and rough. “Now all we have to do is figure out how to get that bastard’s smell off you.”

I forced myself not to think of the implications of that remark.

Chapter 17

Cole

We were given a place to go.

I felt numb the entire drive there. I don’t think I truly saw anything as I sat in the passenger seat while Travis drove.

The drop-off for Noah would be on the opposite side of town from where Marley was meant to go. At a place I wasn’t familiar with—they wanted me on my back foot. They wanted me uncertain and shaken.

Well, they had done it.

They’d forced me to trade my rock, my better half, my love for the purpose of my whole life: my son. I felt utterly deconstructed. Just a shell of a man.

What was I if I couldn’t protect my family?

When we arrived, I still felt numb. I felt like I was no longer inhabiting my body as Travis and I leaned against the hood of the truck, staring out at the huge tanks of a reservoir I was almost certain we shouldn’t have been letting ourselves into.

Suddenly, the piercing beams of an approaching truck sliced through the darkness, casting an unwelcome spotlight on our clandestine meeting. As the vehicle pulled to a halt across the reservoir, two figures emerged, silhouetted against the night. Dread settled like a stone in my stomach when I discerned the unmistakable shape of a cat carrier.

My heart, which had momentarily forgotten how to beat, thundered back to life with a vengeance. There, confined within the carrier, was Noah. My son, a helpless captive in this twisted game orchestrated by Curt and his malevolent pack.

A surge of emotions—guilt, rage, fear—coursed through me, jolting me out of the numbness that had gripped me since the ordeal began. I fought the urge to charge at Curt's lackeys, the darkness conspiring with my turmoil. Yet, Travis, steadfast as ever, anchored me with a firm grip on my arm.

“Don’t,” he said quietly. “The reservoirs.”

I looked between Curt’s henchmen and the water, dark and deep in a churning tank below us. If they threw Noah in the water, it would take a damn miracle for me to get to him before he drowned.

This was a protective measure to make sure weaker shifters wouldn’t be put in any danger, dangling my son like a tightly confined treat in front of my snout.

Curt's lackey, a sinister grin etched on her face, taunted Travis with venomous words. “That's right. Keep your little mutt on a short leash, half-breed. Unless we want something to happen to sweet Marley? Or for the little pup to be thrown into the water?"

The words were a cruel echo in the still night. My chest tightened with the helplessness of being unable to shield those I loved. Noah whimpered and wailed in the cat carrier. I could only imagine how he felt smashed in the little box, like he couldn’t breathe or move. It was enough to make me want to vomit.

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