Page 9 of Wolf Fated

“No! Stay.” I’m hit with words that hold weight and I can’t move another inch. It's not a request, but a command, one that resonates deep within me. Dominant. That’s the right word. I don’t understand why I think that, but it sits on his shoulders with the weight of rightness.

Suddenly, the room seems far too warm, the air too thick. Around me is a fragrance of a field filled with wildflowers. And that scent.

That scent is coming from me.

I’ve never smelt like this before. Mark always said I smelt of stale sweat. Well, what did he expect when I worked sixteen hours a day? But the sheriff’s nostrils flare and all thoughts of Mark disappear. My stomach churns, delicious thoughts of the sheriff vanishing.

“What were you thinking just then?” he says.

I blink up at him, stunned by the sudden shift in his demeanor. From sultry to skull-crushing in a millisecond. “Wh…what?”

He straightens, pushing away from the counter and taking a single, deliberate step toward me and I’m aware of his heady blend of sandalwood and musky masculinity. “You were distressed. Tell me who I have to put in line to make it right.”

“N…no one. Nothing.” There’s no way he could know what I was thinking and the last thing I’m going to do is have a conversation with a stranger about the man who ripped my heart out.

As he leans in, his breath ghosts over the shell of my ear, sending shivers racing down my spine. "It will never be nothing. Not with you," he rumbles, his voice a low, sensual purr that vibrates to the depths of my core.

His broad frame towers over me as he reaches past to grasp the handle of the coffeepot. Our bodies are inches apart, the heat radiating from him scorching my bare limbs. The power in those coiled limbs throbs with a leashed strength that makes my mouth water.

He pulls back, his smoldering gaze holding mine captive as he pours a steaming mug of coffee and extends it toward me. “Here. Drink. You’re welcome to come in here and have as many cups as you like. As well as anything you might want to eat.”

This man is dangerous.

He’s a force of nature that could sweep me up and consume me whole if I let him. And yet, even as every rational part of me screams to turn and run, I don’t. My nipples peak and interest burns through me. Because deep down, I know I want to be consumed. I want to surrender to the flames and let them burn me to ashes, if only to experience his touch.

His possession.

Something inside me clicks into place at the desire. A part of me I never knew existed and would never have known was there if not for coming face to face with him.

Only him.

I take the mug and our fingers brush. Electricity zaps up my arm. My breath stutters and my heart lurches into a frenzied gallop. His eyes blaze with triumph, a wolfish grin tugging at the corners of his sensual mouth as he drinks in my reaction. And in that moment, I know that I'm well and truly lost, and if I don’t leave town in the next hour, I might never have the strength to leave.

Chapter Six

Mitch

I couldn’t stay away from the Wolf’s Bite, not when my entire essence was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. From the moment I laid eyes on her in the diner, something raw and instinctual awoke within me, a force so powerful it threatened to consume me whole.

My mate.

The words echo through my mind, reverberating deep within the recesses of my soul. She's here. Finally. Breezing into Willowbrook, as near impossible as that is.

The Wolf’s Bite was the easy choice for Sally to send her. My sister, Cindi, runs it even when there aren’t many guests, least of all humans who find their way here. And none in the past twenty years.

There were always a trickle of humans with wolf shifter blood who would find our town but for some reason, that trickle slowed to a stop. Sarah is the only new female to arrive here in years, which makes her appearance more than remarkable.

The urge to whisk her away from the Wolf’s Bite, to covet her in my bed in my own lodgings is overwhelming. I have to play this right because the consequences of scaring my mate away is too big to fuck up.

Cindi laughed when she found me waiting in the hotel’s kitchen at the crack of dawn, demanding to know the female’s name, that knowing glint in her eye telling me she was already aware of the significance of our newest guest. News travels fast in a town like Willowbrook.

Especially when it involves the alpha and his potential mate.

And Sally.

The entire pack is buzzing with speculation. There had been witnesses at the diner, those who had seen the way my control nearly slipped the moment my gaze locked onto her.

Tongues are wagging, theories flying as to the identity of this mysterious woman who woke such a primal response in me. Some whisper that she must be my destined partner, the missing piece of my soul that I’ve searched for all my life.

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