Page 11 of Reformed Wolf

Kicking my door open, I hopped down, breathing in the cool night air. There was a faint whiff of various shifters, but nothing definitive. Bolstered, Jude and I walked up to the gate. There was an intercom on the left, and shrugging off the growing unease, I approached it and pressed the button.

For a long moment, nothing happened, but then I heard a small whirr, and I looked up to find a camera trained right on me. There was a click, and though no one spoke, I had a feeling they were waiting for me to say something. “Uh, hello? I have this… card?” I said, digging it out of my pocket and holding it up to the camera. I felt like such an idiot. I couldn’t even tell them the name of the man who gave me the card. There was no way this would work, and I couldn’t blame them. I wouldn’t let me in either.

But then there was a soft buzz and a click, and the gate slowly swung open. Jude and I exchanged a wary glance, and he shrugged and jerked his head toward the mansion we could see in the near distance, peeking over a rise. “What are you waiting for? Go get your man.”

There’s no way it’s that easy…

We walked side by side toward the house. I felt movement across the shadowed grounds, like a whispering touch across my senses. Guards patrolled, escorting us from out of sight, keeping us from wandering the property. Irritation ate at my nerves. “Why did he leave me?” I snapped when the pressure finally got to be too much. “Last night, he just… walked away! How could he do it? Didn’t he feel the same way I felt? Is this some kind of game to him?”

Jude shook his head. “You didn’t see him when he stumbled out of that bathroom. He was… shaken.”

“You mean I— Did I scare him?” The thought that I might’ve treated him as anything other than precious made my insides itch.

“No, no, not like that. More like he was unsteady, had a lot on his mind. But he was also smiling, so I’m sure you made a good impression.”

Except he was the one who’d made the impression. He’d barely given me a chance to get started on him. Well, I wouldn’t let him walk away a second time.

The house only seemed to get more ridiculous as it came into full view. Two stories, with marble columns reaching from the ground all the way up, like some kind of Greek monument, along with wide balconies and so many windows that it glittered in the moonlight. I wondered how many people lived there. Did my omega come from a big family? The house was larger than our entire camp.

The front door opened as we approached, and light spilled across the lawn. “Not here, idiots. Go around back,” a man said gruffly, hiking his thumb to the side. He wore a suit that fit tight across his barrel chest and scented of boar. “And you’d better hurry. It’s about to begin.”

“Yeah. Right. Thanks,” I said, keeping my voice level, even as my heart felt like it was lodged in my throat. I’d caught a whiff of my mate through the open door, but it wasn’t like I could just barge past the guy and force my way in. It wasn’t that I didn’t think I could take him, but he had security guard written all over him, and I highly doubted he was working alone. Not in a place like this. I waved at the guard vaguely as I grabbed Jude by the arm and started off at a jog in the direction he’d indicated.

As soon as we’d rounded the corner, Jude glanced back over his shoulder and muttered, “Late for what?”

“You think I have any idea?” I hissed through gritted teeth. “I’m just as in the dark as you are, but I can tell you one thing. I can’t wait to get my hands on that mate of mine. He’s got some serious explaining to do.”

“Why didn’t you just ask that guy where he was? Maybe this is just some kind of misunderstanding. Like he thinks we’re here to clean the pool or something.”

“Do you really believe that?” I asked as we made our way to the back of the house where a landscaped yard spread out. My nostrils flared, alarms ringing in my head at the array of scents.

Jude smelled it too, and his pace slowed, his claws extending. “No. I don’t.” He paused to peek around the corner, his head swiveling left and right, watching for the threat we both knew was here. Because the air was ripe with the stench of predators.

Past-me would’ve wondered if one omega was worth all this trouble, probably would’ve cut and run shortly after coming in his mouth, but things had changed. Hell, understatement of the year. It felt like the laws of physics themselves had shifted. Why else did it feel like gravity no longer applied? My compass no longer pointed north.

And badass panther or not, if my mate was in danger, I would not hesitate to throw myself into the fray.

Heat licked along my insides, and a low growl rumbled from the back of my throat. I didn’t need to look in a mirror to know my eyes had gone wolfy. Fur began to sprout along the back of my hands. He is ours, my wolf snarled, sharing my sentiment exactly.

I didn’t bother with caution or skulking around like Jude was doing. I just marched around that corner like I owned the damn place. “Wait!” Jude snapped, making a grab for me, but I was done waiting. It was time for action.

There was a set of guards, similarly dressed in suits, on either side of a set of sunken steps leading into the earth, like a root cellar. Both their eyes lit up with their beasts when they saw me coming—some sort of eagle and a crocodile, if my nose was right—their hands straying to guns holstered at their waists, but they didn’t draw. Instead, they waited to see what I would do.

I bit down on my tongue to keep from lashing out, coming to a stop in front of them. I felt Jude’s heat as he moved in at my back. Drawing out the business card again, I held it up between two fingers. “I’ve been invited,” I said, telling the truth but leaving out any details.

The guards exchanged a glance, then the eagle stepped aside and nodded at me. “Don’t get started too early,” he said, eyes drifting down to where I was tapping a tempo out on my thigh, my claws snagging on my jeans. “Mr. Caruso takes this very seriously, and he expects you to play by his rules. If you can’t abide them, you will be escorted from the premises.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t want to upset Mr. Caruso.” I was confused, untethered, and bordering on feral in my desperation to see my mate, but I didn’t allow myself to blink as I stared right at him.

His eyes trailed down my body, taking me in, and he chuckled and shook his head. “You don’t stand a chance.”

How was I supposed to answer that? A chance at what?

As I descended the set of concrete stairs, the skin on the back of my neck prickled in warning. I felt like I was walking into a den of vipers—almost literally, considering I was pretty sure there were at least three kinds of venomous snake shifters in here. What the hell was going on?

Shoving open the doors at the bottom of the stairs, my senses were assaulted by a barrage of sounds and smells and a suffocating wave of body heat. Instinctively, I held my breath, my wolf pressing to take control of my body in self-defense. I took in my surroundings, glad for my shifter eyesight. There were concrete walls and floors, low lighting from sconces. It was almost a bit like the bar last night, with rock music and a crowd of shifters milling around in small groups, but that was where the similarities ended. The mood in the room was not lighthearted or fun—there was aggression and violence pricking at my senses. Oh yeah, and then there was the fucking cage.

Right there in the center of the open space was a big-ass caged arena like I’d seen on a TV in a bar once, the kind used for MMA bouts. I eased into the room, weaving through the crowd to get a closer look.

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