Page 14 of The Predator's Wolf Mate

His suggestion knocked the wind from me. “Are you sure? I wanted to, but I thought it was too soon. You said to take things slowly.”

He grabbed both of my hands. “Our animals know best, Aziz. If they are bonded, they will help you and I grow closer and that’s all I want. Plus, with their bond, we can feel each other a bit more. And that will be important to me, for my reassurance. I’m going to need a lot of reassurance through this, mate.”

Mate. He called me mate.

“I’ll give you all the reassurance you need, omega. Now, take your clothes off. I want to see that beautiful wolf of yours.”

Jack stood, but took nothing off as I undressed. “I’ve had a baby, Aziz. I’m not exactly fit anymore either. I’ve been focused on my mental health more than anything. I never turn down an extra pancake.”

Shirtless and with my jeans already undone at the waist, I hugged him to me, letting the skin-to-skin contact take away some of his fears. “You will always be the most beautiful person in the world to me, in all your stages of life, and in all your shapes and sizes. I want you however I can get you, omega.”

When I pulled back, Jack had tears running down his face. “They’re happy ones, Aziz. I promise.” He blocked my incoming apology.

We took off the rest of our clothes and shifted. I was right. Jack was a stunning wolf. He was mostly chocolate brown but had streaks of red running through his thick fur. We ran together through the woods. He nipped at my hyena’s legs, and my beast nuzzled his neck, taking in his deep, rich scent. My hyena had a greater sense of smell than most other shifters, and I wanted Jack’s ingrained in me.

We had run almost to the base of the mountain when a snap of a twig rang out right behind us. I put myself in between Jack and the noise, ready to defend my mate against whatever was out there.

I shifted onto two legs and called out, “Who are you?” I smelled another shifter. A lot of other shifters, but most were young, cubs to my nose.

“It’s just us. We mean no harm.” A young man came out of the woods, followed by six tiny bear shifter cubs. “My name’s Ryan, and I mean you no harm.”

Chapter Eleven

Jack

Ryan couldn’t have been more than eighteen or twenty. Behind him were six tiny bear cubs, each of them unique from the others. From their looks, they weren’t a family. At least not by birth.

“Why are you here?” I asked, not wanting to scare them away. Fear poured off them, their little bodies quivering, their eyes sunken as if they hadn’t eaten a decent meal in a very long time.

“We heard...we heard this was a safehouse. An omega house. And we need that—we need to be safe,” he said, guarding the cubs. “I promise you, we don’t mean any harm. We just need help.”

“Are these kin?” I asked.

“No, and, before you ask, we’re not clan either. We were all together in a place that wasn’t like this one.” He was being careful with his words and, for a second, I thought maybe he was being less than honest with us, but as he continued, I realized he was trying to protect the cubs, to shelter then from the harsh truths that brought them here.

I nodded in understanding.

“I’d be happy to tell you all about it, but maybe not now. The cubs have been through enough. Please, even if you can’t take me, can you take them? I’m doing the best I can to lead them, but I don’t know how to find enough food for them, especially the young ones. I’m pretty confident no one’s following us, but the longer we stay out in the open, the likelier it is we’ll end up back in the same position. I left my mate...” He was already holding two of the cubs, comforting them.

“Yeah, we’ll help. Just follow us.”

We shifted, and three of the cubs clung to Ryan’s back.

Aziz took his skin. “Hey, little ones, you can take turns with me now, too. We won’t hurt you. Maybe give Ryan a little break.”

“You can ride on me, too,” I added.

They all looked at Ryan and he gave them a nod, letting them know we were safe.

I was taken aback that anyone had heard of this place, and it made my belly uneasy. We hadn’t been overly quiet about moving here. We bought the place, making it public record. And we had accounts set up at a few stores, but those were all human run. They thought this was a group home or a cult, depending on how deep their conspiracy-theory love ran. They wouldn’t know what we were up to.

And maybe Ryan didn’t either. Maybe he meant he heard there was a pack of different beasts here and that was that. One thing was for sure, we needed to find out. If people knew this was a safehouse, it would be less safe and we’d need to amp up security. Not that security was lax. The alphas made sure of that.

Aziz shifted again.

The trip was short, all three adults going as quickly and safely as we could, carrying two cubs each. I didn’t want us out in the open until we knew what we were dealing with, and I sensed Aziz felt the same.

As we walked into the front gathering space, Nora was setting up some activity centers for later. “Oh my! Visitors? Or are we looking at new residents?”

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