Page 12 of Rejected Wolf

“You f-f-found m-me,” I got out as shivers wracked my body.

His whine sounded worried to me. I pet him and tried to assure him I was okay, but I couldn’t seem to form the words. My tongue felt thick, and my lips were numb—to be honest, most of me was. The shivering had started to slow down, a sure sign of hypothermia. My eyelids were too heavy.

“I just… need to sleeeep…”

A sharp pain cut through the fog, and my eyes snapped open. My wolf had nipped me on the fingers, not hard enough to break the skin, just a pinch. “Ow,” I groused. He gripped my sleeve and jerked back. “What…? Where are w-we going?” I asked as I rolled onto my belly and pushed up onto all fours. I hadn’t actually expected an answer, but it would’ve been a good time for him to change into a man, just sayin’.

The benefit of crawling was that it warmed me up a little. My wolf kept looking back over his shoulder at me, yipping at me to keep up. Soon, there was a darker patch in the landscape, a shadow that deepened as we got close. “A cave,” I panted.

I wasn’t sure I would fit through the opening, but my wolf went first, and at the prospect of being out of this rain, I was willing to try. I had to lie down flat, and I wasn’t sure if I had the energy to do it, but my wolf was there waiting, and that was incentive enough to keep going. The ceiling was vaulted once I was past the entrance. It smelled like wild animal, but as long as they weren’t in residence, I wasn’t in a position to be picky.

Working together, we managed to peel off most of my wet clothes, before I lay down, exhausted and sore. My wolf nestled close, and I wrapped an arm around him, absorbing his heat.

“I’ve m-missed you so much,” I whispered into the fur, breathing him in. He didn’t smell like anything I’d ever experienced. It was like… vanilla cupcakes, maybe, sweet and rich.

Now, when the shivers left me, it wasn’t because I was close to death. It was because I was warm and safe at last. “Mine…” I murmured as I fell asleep.

Chapter 7

Jude

I woke up slowly,awareness creeping over me. It was still dark, but I could hear birdsong in the distance. There was no rooster crowing, no children shrieking or giggling, no crackle of the fire. There was only warmth. Where was I? Not the camp…

The ground was harder than usual, my hip aching as I lay on my side on what felt like hard-packed earth instead of my sleeping bag. But that wasn’t the only thing that was hard…

My morning wood stood thick and thirsty against my stomach, as though I’d been having the sexiest dream, but when I arched my hips, I found friction against something soft. And when that something moaned and pressed back, I froze, and my eyes flew open.

The cave!

My skin prickled, my body suddenly not just warm but too hot, and my heart galloped in my chest as I took stock. The human. Shit, the human was pressed right up against me, his back to my chest, head propped on my right arm. The mostlynakedhuman! My left arm was draped over him, palm splayed over his soft abdomen, rising and falling with his slow, even breath.

How the fuck did this happen?! Okay, so obviously I remembered my wolf dragging him out of the river and leading him to the cave, I was there too, but we’d had a deal. I would give my wolf his fur, let him play the hero, and then once our job was done, I would never have to see this man again. At no point had I agreed to wake up with his ass cheeks sandwiched around my boner, with nothing but a thin layer of fabric between us!

I clenched my eyes shut hard. Maybe this was all a dream. It was possible that I’d only imagined feeling my mate’s panic in my chest as he fell into the river. But… no. I knew that if I’d ignored that feeling last night, if I’d played it off as paranoia, my mate would’ve drowned. I couldn’t have lived with that guilt. It didn’t matter that I didn’t trust humans; when it came right down to it, I hadn’t hesitated to come to his rescue.

Reluctant but curious, I opened my eyes, taking the opportunity to inspect him from this angle. His hair was darkbrown, a little on the long side, the loose curls flipping in all directions. He wasn’t wearing the glasses I remembered, but his thick lashes flickered as his eyes moved behind the lids. Was he dreaming about me? I wondered. I could see a light scattering of freckles over his cheek, like a whole galaxy of stars, and I imagined I could trace constellations with my fingertip.

From this close, his distinct aroma was overwhelming, seeping into my pores, and while a part of me was determined to hold my breath until I got the hell out of here, another part of me (just an itty-bitty tiny part, hardly worth mentioning) wanted to bury my face in his neck and breathe him in until it was the only thing I could ever scent again. If I wasn’t so repulsed by the very idea of him, I would probably be pleased by how he felt in my arms, how he fit against me.

And then, as if things couldn’t get worse, he moaned in his sleep, clinging to the arm I had draped around his waist, and the faintest whiff of his arousal hit me like a sledgehammer.

I bit my tongue hard to hold in my whimper as a drop of precum squeezed from the crown of my dick, soaking into his briefs when he rocked his hips back. Fuck.

I needed to get out of here, faster than humanly possible, but I remained frozen right where I was. Vesta said he wasin danger. Now he wasn’t. My job here was done. I could leave anytime, but I hesitated. Why? It certainly wasn’t because I didn’twantto leave, that would be ridiculous. No, it was because of what would happen if Ididmove.

If I moved, it would wake him up, and that would inevitably lead to screaming. Humansalwaysscreamed—about wolves, sure, but I was sure it wouldn’t help when he woke up next to a naked man! Sure, he’d seemed weirdly okay about a wolf dragging him out of the river, but it was probably shock and fatigue, relief that he wasn’t dead. He didn’t know what was going on, didn’t register the potential danger after nearly drowning, but he’d gone to sleep next to a wolf. To wake up next to a naked stranger would be more than enough to make anyone scream.

My wolf objected to the word “stranger,” though.Ours, he rumbled possessively.And we are his.

I scoffed at him and his unshakable belief in this bond we shared with the human.Mark my words.He’s going to scream, and you’re going to feel bad. Just you wait.

Except the omega doesn’t scream. He groaned as he woke up, grinding against me as he stretched, though it had to have been by accident, then he simply rolled over in my arms until he was facing me, his own stiff cock rubbingagainst mine and making me hiss in a breath. He opened his eyes and blinked up at me blearily.

Just wait, the screaming would start any second now. I held my breath and braced for it. In three… two… one…

But then his lips stretched into a lazy smile. “My, what big eyes you have,” he said, giggling, his voice gravelly with sleep. His gaze traveled down my torso, all the way down to my boner, his jaw dropping. “Big indeed…”

What? I don’t get it.I frowned, confused, but my wolf didn’t understand the reference either. If anything, it was Morgan’s eyes that were unusually large, when his glasses magnified them.

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