Page 33 of Rejected Wolf

Dr. Taylor scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m not letting this opportunity slip away. Both of you, get in the truck.”

“But he’s not even my mate,” I pleaded, lying like our lives depended on it. “Just look at his neck. I haven’t marked him.”

That had him pausing, and I clung to that hope. “Then why do you care what happens to him?”

“He’s an innocent in all this, and I’m not some heartless monster,” I snapped, implying that he was the worst of the two of us if he was prepared to experiment on a fellow human. “Just let him go, and I won’t put up a fight. I’ll even shift for you.”

His face showed more wrinkles than I remembered as he frowned. I never found out if I’d won him over or not, because when he opened his mouth to answer, he was interrupted by the trill of a phone.

Dr. Taylor pulled his cell from his pocket. “I’ve got him,” he said in greeting.

With my beast so close to the surface, I heard every word on the other end of the line. “Good work,” the voice said, and it was enough to make the world tilt on an awkward angle—or maybe that was me. I concentratedon Morgan’s tight grip at my waist, keeping me anchored. Because the voice was straight out of my nightmares—the director, Dr. Gray. “Do you need backup?” he asked.

Dr. Taylor turned to the side, as if trying to shield the call from being overheard, but it was pointless. I heard it all. “No. He says he’s willing to come in quietly as long as I let the human go.”

I held my breath for Dr. Gray’s answer. “I’m going to send a team. I need you to take the omega with you. We might need him to keep this one in line.”

No. No, no, no, nononono.

Concrete walls painted white, tiled floors. Bright lights, a metal table, and a floor drain for easy cleaning.

No matter what it took, I refused to let Morgan and our child be subjected to their so-called tests.

While Dr. Taylor was distracted, I tilted my head and whispered over my shoulder, “When I make my move, I need you to run.”

I couldn’t see Morgan to gauge his reaction, but the scent of his fear was acidic on the back of my tongue, and I swore he tightened his grip on me. He wasn’t going to let go, but I needed to be able to move freely. I reached back and offered my hand. Morgan didn’t hesitate to take it, lacing our fingers. I tried to convey what I needed from him,that I needed to know he was safe so I wasn’t distracted by trying to protect him.

Power surged through my veins, teeth sharp enough to tear, claws to rend. My wolf was an extension of me, and together, we were an unstoppable force.

Morgan’s breath caught in his throat, and he loosened his grip. I felt him trail a finger along one claw, before he took a small step back, putting space between us. I regretted scaring him, but this needed to be done, end of story. I would beg for his forgiveness after.

Their actions could not go unpunished. My father, telling me to run, even while resigning himself to imprisonment or death. Amelia, Carter, and Isaac, their lives cut too short.

The second Dr. Taylor looked down at his phone to hang up, I was already moving. The hand holding the gun had dipped just enough in his distraction that it was no longer pointing dead center. His slow human reflexes didn’t even register that I was coming at him until I was halfway there.

He had no chance of stopping me.

I slammed a closed fist straight into his nose, felt the bones break, heard the satisfying yelp of pain, before the blood began to gush from his face, hot and metallic. Howironic that, for all our differences, our blood smelled almost the same.

The man went down like a sack of bricks, the gun falling from his limp grip with a slushy clatter on the wet pavement. I didn’t stop, though. Icouldn’t. I lunged forward and straddled his hips, keeping him pinned down, though he fought weakly.

A childhood of fear drove my fists. “How dare you think you could lay a hand on my mate,” I roared in his face between punches. I saw red, blind to anything but the rage fueling me. “He’smine!” Face, chest, stomach, there wasn’t an inch of him I didn’t mar. Blood spattered across my clothes, the sidewalk, and the coppery tang drove me mad! How many times had he takenmyblood? Well, now it was time to return the favor.

Morgan’s voice was in the background, but my focus remained on the sorry excuse of a man beneath me. “Jude. Jude!”

A hand came down on my shoulder, and I gasped, drawing a deep breath into my lungs as if I hadn’t breathed in days. It was like waking from a dream, climbing up from the fog of blood rage.

I blinked up at my mate, then down at the bloody mess of Dr. Taylor’s face, steaming in the cold. “I—I just…” I didn’t know what to say to excuse what I’d done. I felt likeI should apologize, but I wasn’t sorry for what I’d inflicted on Dr. Taylor. I was a predator, and I did what needed to be done. This was just a part of who I was. I finally settled on, “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

I stood up on shaky legs, the adrenaline leaving me weak as a pup as it abandoned me. Head bowed to my chest, I waited for Morgan’s tears, his panic over the violence he’d witnessed, preparing myself for the worst, but it never came. Instead, he walked around in front of me and reached up, tilting my chin so he could look into my face.

“Are you okay?” he asked gently.

I blinked in confusion. Surely I’d heard him wrong. “What?”

“Are you hurt? There’s a lot of blood.” His hands hovered over my chest, then down my arms to my fists. He took one gingerly in his hands, his tender touch a stark difference to the way they still throbbed.

“I’m fine, the blood’s not mine.” I pulled my hands back. I didn’t want to get that monster’s blood on my mate.

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