Page 25 of Rejected By the Alpha King

“Done,” I said tiredly. “I’m cold. Can we go back?”

He didn’t say anything as he carried me back. “Can you shift? You’ll be warmer,” he said as he put me down.

As if she knew she was being summoned, my wolf rose swiftly inside me. I pushed back just a little, but I was already feeling the chill in my bones. Closing my eyes, I gave myself over to the change for the second time in twenty-four hours.

It used to be swift and painless. I’d seen some shifters take up to five minutes to shift, but I could do it in seconds. Still, I was rusty, and I didn’t have the adrenaline of dying to hasten the change.

She erupted out of me, but those first few seconds of joy were tempered when we both realized that he wasn’t going to shift. She started to panic.

“Easy, sweetheart,” he said in a low voice. “I just want to feed you.”

He held out bits of jerky to her, and she took it from his hands hesitantly. Her healing magic filled me, but I couldn’t relax. I kept waiting for Jax to grab us. To hurt her.

Softly, he ran his knuckles over her head. “When she’s stronger, I’ll hunt for you. For right now, I hope you’ll sleep and heal her.”

Sleep? Around him? Not a chance. Not with her. Immediately, I grabbed the reigns and started to shift back. I was dry and turned to dress. When I looked back at him, he didn’t bother to hide his disappointment.

“Thank you for your help,” I said woodenly and curled back on the ground. It would take more than saving my life before I could trust anyone.

That included him.

11

Jax

Anna slept until nightfall, and when she rose, there was more color in her cheeks. I watched carefully as she rose and stretched. Her steps were steady and confident, and her own relief was evident in her small smile.

“Do you think we’re far enough from the boundary to shift and hunt?” I asked. I wasn’t stupid enough to blindly trust her again, but after that last attack, I knew I needed her input. I’d only been to Wisteria Wood once when I was a kid. We barely survived the first two days before we had to turn back and take the long way around.

“Probably. I don’t really know where we are, but I don’t feel…I don’t think we’ll find trouble as long as we don’t get any closer while it’s still dark.”

Feel? Why would she stumble over that word?

“We?” I asked as I stood. “You’re not coming unless you shift.”

I hadn’t meant to snarl at her. I’d never planned to leave her. Not because I thought she would run, but because she was a magnet for trouble. Still, giving her a challenge seemed to help, and as expected, she narrowed her eyes.

“I wasn’t planning on going as a human. She’s going to be a little rusty, but I’ll be back at a hundred percent if I let her out again. I don’t want to be weak another night.”

She looked at me expectantly, and I knew she was waiting on me. Apparently, she trusted my wolf more than me.

I understood the feeling well.

Stripping, I stood, flashed her a cocky smile, and let my wolf out. Her features softened as she studied him, and my wolf preened under her attention. Then he turned and bounded out of the thicket to give her some privacy.

It was another few minutes before she cautiously crept out. I knew it hadn’t taken her that long to shift. She was just as fast as me. At full strength, or maybe at full confidence, she might even be faster. It was purely Anna’s hesitation holding her back.

Parker had told me that she wasn’t shifting. Until I saw her hobbling out on that fucked up knee, I assumed she’d been shifting in her room and not going out to run or hunt. That alone seemed unnatural to me, but then she hadn’t even shifted to heal herself for this trip. Now I knew her terror for her wolf was even greater than her terror of my wolves.

And she’d been pretty fucking terrified of them.

What the hell had been done to her wolf to make Anna so paralyzed with fear?

She said we had to save her.

Saul thought Cora had been talking about Anna. Maybe he wasn’t wrong.

My wolf growled at me and bowed low at Anna. She immediately flopped down, exposed her throat and belly, and whined.

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