Page 15 of Wild Wolf

“Shut your mouth,” I hissed.

“You’re a two-trick pony, all you can do is say shut up and growl like a grunty bear. Don’t you do anything else? You’re pretty, but I’m thinking my sex pot needs more than pretty to let you join the main gang. So maybe she just took your D to buy your loyalty to help her fly free from her cage. Guess it worked if that was the case.” He smacked me on the bicep and I lunged, my fangs aimed for his throat as I shoved him against the brick wall.

Before I could bite him, his fist connected with my jaw, but I was fully feral, throwing my weight against him and shoving my forearm to his chest to pin him there. He leaned forward, his might forcing my arm to give before he placed a firm kiss to my lips. I reared back in anger and he skipped off down the alley with a bark of manic laughter. I was left with Rosalie cocking an eyebrow at me while Ethan continued on down the alley after Sin.

“Problem?” she questioned.

“He goaded me,” I muttered, feeling like a fool under her scrutiny.

“He goads everyone,” she said, stepping closer to me.

We hadn’t spent a moment alone since the escape and I felt the tension between us shivering through the atmosphere. All I wanted to do was grab her and pull her against me, tell her I wanted her in any way I could have her. But my pride wouldn’t let the words out, and they were a fool’s hope anyway. She had two moon mates and a feral Incubus to keep her satisfied. I hardly brought anything more to that situation and I didn’t exactly see how I could ever accept that three other men had a claim on her. We weren’t destined for each other, and what Sin had said was a truth that left me raw. I was Rosalie’s key to escape, nothing more. But here I was, still trailing along in her wake like a stray dog hoping for scraps. It was pathetic.

“Mason…” Her voice softened, her brow furrowing as she moved closer, her hand extending towards me. “Why are you still following me into chaos? You know what this will mean for you tonight.”

Her thoughts were clearly aligned with mine. She saw my stupidity for what it was and there was no hiding from it now.

“I can’t leave your side until you break this curse.” Stupid fucking answer. The coward’s one. I touched my wrist where the rose vine curled around it, the mark of the moon curse promising my death. I didn’t know when or how, but I doubted I had much longer left. Somehow that didn’t seem like the most pressing matter of my soul anymore. Her needs and desires were instead and treading this path to help her fulfil them was the only one I wanted to walk.

Her eyes darkened and she was suddenly cold, shutting me out. “Mm.” She turned her back on me, heading after the others and I swore beneath my breath.

I stood there for two long seconds before following on, my decision already made. I wasn’t backing out on this.

Ethan was waiting at the bottom of a fire escape ladder, but Sin had started up it, singing his farm song again and swaying his ass side to side as he climbed. The silencing bubble was keeping his insane bullshit from being heard by anyone outside our group, but I was unfortunate enough to be inside it.

“- and on that farm he had an Ethan, E-I-E-I-O. With an ass stash here and an ass stash there. Here’s a grape, there’s a grape, everywhere a bum grape.”

“Will you be quiet and focus?” Ethan called up to him, pursing his lips.

Rosalie stepped onto the ladder, brushing past Ethan and giving him a seductive look as she went. He placed his hands on her hips as if helping her onto the ladder even though she clearly didn’t need any assistance and his fingers roamed down to her ass, cupping before he let go and smirked as she climbed away from him. He went next and I followed, scaling the building all the way until we made it to the penthouse at the summit.

Sin already had a window popped open and was disappearing inside with Rosalie close behind him. When Ethan made it in, I swung myself after him off the ladder, landing in a dark hallway, the only sound between us the distant hum of a refrigerator.

Sin was silent at last, a violent look about him as he cocked his head and prowled down the hallway. “Come out, come out little warden.”

This was the moment when I should have been concealing my face, working on spells to mask myself from being recognised. But as Rosalie met my gaze, a dark kind of protectiveness wrapped around my soul and I found I wanted to be seen here with her. Insane as that thought was, it stayed my hand from concealing myself and I stepped close to her instead in a show of unity.

Her eyes trailed over me curiously before she headed after Sin, and Ethan’s shoulder touched mine as we followed as one.

I glanced at him and a silent understanding passed between us. She was our priority. Whatever happened here tonight, no wicked fate would befall her.

Sin pushed doors open, peeking into rooms and I couldn’t help but notice the luxury home Pike had claimed for herself. The Darkmore Warden’s salary had to be good, but this good? Doubtful. Rosalie had told me about the paper trail of money that Jerome had found coming straight from Drav Enterprises to Pike’s bank account and I had to admit that being a ruthless bitch who mercilessly sacrificed Fae to a fate worse than death clearly paid well. The more I thought about it, the further it riled an aggression in me which begged to be let out.

People like her were leeches, just like the man who had raised me. They thrived when they were in control and only managed to taste greatness in life through the achievements of others. They had no integrity, no real talent of their own, yet here Pike was, standing on the backs of those who got in her path to build her pretty little empire. My hand curled into a fist at my side and Ethan noted the change, strangely attuned to me in that moment.

“What did she do to you?” he murmured.

“Not me,” I said quietly. “But others.”

“You’ve got an actual heart under that iron exterior, haven’t you Cain?” he said, a slight taunt to his voice, but it seemed to be in friendly jest instead of a nasty jibe.

“Not much of one.”

“I think it’s the kind layered in scars. That’s what makes you fit in with us. We’re all broken on the inside.” He moved on at a quicker pace, giving me no time to respond to that and a frown creased my brow as I hurried after him. Did he really think I fit with them? I was one of the officers who had kept them all in line, that kind of shit didn’t just get forgotten. And hell, why was I even thinking about the hope that he might want to?

I ground my teeth, pushing out the errant idea and focusing on the reason we were here.

Sin sprang into another room with an ‘ah-ha!” and Rosalie darted after him. A commotion broke out and I started running, chasing Ethan into the room and finding Sin standing over Pike in her bed, holding her down with his air magic while he set her pillows on fire and made them beat her round the head.

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