Page 86 of The Wolf in My Tavern

“Whelp, I have years of training and experience over you,” Gray growls. “And I am not afraid of a fucking challenge… And whether you have royal blood or not.”

Drake grimaces. “And you said my delivery could use some finessing.”

My pounding heart skips a beat in my chest.

“I did not mean to mention his blood,” Gray admits.

I choke out a laugh. “You have all gone fucking mad. The lass’ pussy has bewitched you.”

“I am inclined to agree with you,” Gray says, all calm again. “I am normally more composed than this. But before this is done, we will need to establish our places, and my wolf is eager to get it done.”

Shifter. High blood. Royal blood. His words might as well be in a foreign language for all they make sense. Knotted cock? He said I had a knotted cock. “Fuck,” I mutter. “Is that what is happening to my cock? I thought there was something wrong with it… it got stuck when… Fuck!”

A low, menacing rumble emanates from Gray’s chest.

Drake chuckles. It leads to a deeper guffaw that he must hold his belly to contain. “Poor lad,” he says. “Thank the Goddess we are here to put you out of your misery.” He wipes tears of laughter from his eyes and winces. “No man should ever worry about his cock. Did you not notice the same swellings on Gray’s as he was fucking your wench?”

“I did not look at his cock!”

“No?” Drake says, still grinning, even though Gray is grinding his teeth a pace away. “It is a fine cock. There are many lasses and a nearly equal number of men who have coveted Gray’s cock.”

Fine. I have looked at it as it was going into Ada’s pussy, watched him using her roughly, making her writhe and come, and her body contort in pleasure.

The strange presence in my mind, the restlessness I have felt more and more of late, manifests and takes shape. I feel like there is a dark space inside of me. A dark space—it is not actual space—but the fur of a wolf, a wolf with piercing green eyes, steps out of the darkness and shakes out his coat.

My throat chokes up. I blink, hating to show weakness.

The wolf, my wolf, the other part of me, pads forward, further into the light of my mind, and sits down expectantly.

I don’t notice that Gray has come up closer. I have been lost inside myself and am confused to find him standing right before me.

“Royal shifters,” he says, “all have green eyes. My wolf sensed your hidden beast. Reluctant. Mute, as it is sometimes called, is when a shifter cannot call their beast to the surface. Just as a mute human cannot speak, a mute shifter cannot reveal their wolf. There are ways of forcing it or coaxing it. In your case, I believe it will need to be forced… There is no link between us. We are not pack brothers… Whether you will it or not, we will one day be brothers of a kind, different and far more profound, for we shall share the same mate.”

A growl. It is not only my growl but that of my wolf.

“You know I speak the truth,” he says bluntly, getting right in my face. “You know she has taken to me. She took to me from the first day I saw her. My wolf knew she was the one. I tried to fight it, but one cannot fight against the pull of a fated mate. You felt the same pull when you first saw her, did you not?”

My growl is lower in timbre and full of menace.

“I know that you did. Knew instantly that she was the one, and that no other would ever be for you. That if you could not be with her, you might as well die.”

His words are like knives: stabbing me, wounding me.

“It is the same for me. I can no more walk away from her than you can, Callum. I love her.”

His use of my name for the first time, followed by his declaration of love, stirs up a confusing array of emotions. “You don’t fucking love her.”

“I love her,” he repeats. “I would follow her to the ends of the earth.” His smile is sardonic. “I would sneak aboard a ship if someone had taken her. I would stand between her and an army if that were what I needed to do, just like you stood between her and a ship full of men with weapons plus two powerful shifters. Even knowing you could not possibly win and might die in the trying, you still did that because she is your soulmate. She is the missing piece of you. She was placed by the Goddess on this planet, in our world, and through a set of unparalleled circumstances, she crossed paths with you. One does not fight the fate of the Goddess. Trust me, I tried. I tried to deny it, but it is not only about us, is it, Callum?”

I wish he wouldn’t use my name. I wish he would stick to whelp.

He plants his fist against the wall beside my face. “It is also about her and what she wants and needs. But she is no ordinary beta lass. She is an omega, a chosen one, as they call them in some parts of the world. Thank the Goddess that you saved her before those skin traders realized what they had. I hate to think what one of her kind might have gone through should they have realized her value. An omega can take a lot. They are made for rutting and breeding, as you have probably noticed. More often, they need more than one mate. I was not inclined to share myself with a woman, nor did I envisage a future where I might need to. But it is out of my hands, just as it is out of yours… and hers. Any fated mate who fights the calling generally withers and dies… Perhaps you could guilt her into leaving with you, and she would, for she has been brought up in the human world, where one man and one woman are the norm. But know that if you deny my claim, she will always be missing half of herself.”

I do not blink away the sting at the back of my eyes. I fucking hate this conversation and the way it twists a knife. With each word that leaves his lips, he traps me more securely.

“I do not want to fight with you, Callum. But I know that we will. We have to. Only one male may lead. There is a hierarchy for a reason. I am older than you by many years. For all you have a lot of heart and determination and considerable fucking strength, you are an alpha who is beta by nature. At least that is the life you have lived thus far.”

“A green-eyed shifter has not been seen in many years. They fled during the pack wars and went into hiding. I am the pack leader’s son, but you, Callum, are the rightful leader of all the packs.”

---