Page 79 of The Wolf in My Tavern

“Gray asked me to coach you. Explain things to you. Ready for when we reach our pack.”

“Fuck off,” I say through gritted teeth, relieved there are no further buckets waiting for me.

Drake smirks as he pushes away from the rail and, taking a nearby barrel, makes himself a seat.

I glance toward the closed cabin door before I turn back to Drake.

The bastard talks, and I’m forced to listen, given I have nowhere else to go. Preaching to me about fated mates, how when wolves imprint, it is for life… how this is the Goddess’ will… how Ada is likewise caught in the same pull… how this might seem strange to a man who has no experience with shifters, but how eventually, when I stop being ‘pigheaded’ it will all make perfect sense.

“Bollocks, it will make sense. Your wolf bastard friend has bewitched my woman, rutted her, and somehow managed to convince her that she likewise wants this!”

He sighs heavily at my outburst, then continues on.

I have no choice but to hear the words. But all the while, I am thinking about Ada, my woman, alone with that shifter bastard.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Callum

One week later…

“Fuck!” An involuntary cry leaves my lips as I am doused in a bucket full of cold water. “Gods!” And another one. “The fuck is wrong with you all?”

This is my lot in life now, being roused at the crack of dawn from where I’ve been chained all night, brought out onto the deck, stripped, and doused liberally with cold water. It is salty and leaves a residue on my skin that makes me fucking itch. I suppose it is better than the scent of my stale sweat and seed… which I spew copiously as I must watch that bastard rut the woman I love.

I understand that I’m pissed because it is not my dick she is getting… and craving, but that would require a reasonable side of me to be in command of my wits, and that is not the current case.

Worse, every single time, I am caught up in it, too. I swear there is something in shifter pheromones that bewitches otherwise sensible human minds. The moment he starts at her, my cock begins to harden… fuck, I am getting hard now, and all I’m doing is thinking about him rutting her, taking her, bending her over this or that, spreading her legs wide, and eating her out until she is begging him for his cock.

I didn’t know a man could take a woman in so many different ways. I didn’t know a woman could take a man in that many ways and not be broken as a result.

Okay, she is a little dazed afterward… and it gives me some small comfort that he cares for her, sitting her on his lap, feeding her, and ensuring she has plenty to drink—the lass is assuredly losing a lot of fluid.

Still, he would not need to coddle her at all were he not rutting her until she is too fucking weak to lift her arms to feed herself.

Then there is her pussy… he is very attentive, tending to any soreness there.

Fuck, I need to stop thinking about that.

“Uff!” The third bucket of water finally makes my cock go down, and I snatch up my pants that have copped some of the water as they lay on the deck and shuck them on. I barely notice the cold anymore—I guess I have gotten used to it.

Only something is not quite right today, and I frown as I look around.

Where is the shifter bastard, Drake? He is usually on hand to deliver his daily pearls of wisdom.

“Where’s—”

Clubs at the ready, the deckhands take me by the arms. Only they do not take me back toward the captain’s quarters. No, they manhandle me in the other direction… and the open hold door.

“Where are you taking me?” I grunt, summoning enthusiasm to fight when I haven’t for the last few days. I know I should fight more often, but at least when they take me back to the room, I can see Ada, and even if that bastard is rutting her, it comforts me in a twisted way. The thought of being separated from her for longer than the short time I spend on the deck—just fucking no.

I don’t like this development one bit. What does this mean? What is going to happen next? “Where the fuck are you taking me?” I thrash and kick out as they drag-shove me down the stairs, tossing me down the last few steps before following after me.

Mean bastards, all of them, taking no chances and using the short, rough clubs to keep me in line.

“Where is Ada? What have you done with her?”

“She be wit’ the wolf cap’n,” one deckhand says, slamming the club into my belly lest I think of causing trouble. “Ye know as much.”

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