Page 23 of Fated to the Feral Wolf

The sorrow of that realization gutted me worse than any bullet, and I sank to my haunches, right there in the middle of the village.

Violent sobs racked me, and Dirge tried to push in, lick my face, but I shoved him away. He wasn’t what I needed,couldn’t bewhat I needed. Leigh’s arms came around me in a tight hug, and she rocked me right there in the grass, on the cold ground under the waning moon.

Only after the tears stopped did Leigh’s words come. “She’s not angry at you, Shay. She’s thrilled. Thrilled, do you hear me?” Leigh shook me lightly, making sure I didn’t miss her meaning. “No one begrudges you this time with your mate. I mean, Iaoin was disgruntled, but Ilana tore him a new one for trying to lay claim to you when we’re on a diplomatic mission. I like her.” She said the last bit with an impish twist to her lips.

But I found no joy in it. “We’re supposed to be at the feast. It’s bad enough that I’m not there, but I took you from her too. She needs your support right now—oursupport—as much as I do. It’s just… our lives were so simple before. How did they get so messed up so fast?” I scrubbed at my scratchy eyes, trying to erase the evidence of my breakdown.

She shrugged, unperturbed. “Shit happens when it’s supposed to. Maybe lover wolf is important to all this. Maybe he has a piece of the puzzle we need to fix Bri.”

“I hadn’t even considered that,” I murmured, sparing a glance for Dirge, who lay not ten feet away, a mournful expression clear on his wolf features as he watched someone else comfort me. But I hardened my heart and looked away. “We should go now. The feast is probably going to go on all night.”

My stomach chose that moment to rumble, and Leigh laughed, throwing her head back, face tilted to the moon, soaking up the rays.

“I’m sure it is,” she said once she could breathe again. “But what about Fluff Butt? Isn’t he going to take issue with being around Iaoin?”

I thought about it, really thought about it. I didn’t knowhow or why, but I knew in my soul that he’d been pulled free of his feral state. Hecouldshift back.

He was choosing not to.

And I wasn’t sure I could forgive him for that. I needed some space to process.

“I think it’s time we’re honest about where this is going.” I swallowed hard, speaking difficult even as I felt the rightness of what I had to say. “The feast is for human participants. If he’s unwilling to shift, he should wait in our rooms.”

Leigh’s jaw dropped as she glanced from me to Dirge, then back again. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but, uh, he’s unwilling to leave your side. And anyone who tries to separate you two is in danger of meeting the business end of those canines. Droolius Caesar isdetermined.”

“Are you ready to shift?” I met his gaze, lifting my chin in challenge when I delivered the question.

He dropped his eyes, and my broken heart turned to shards. Tiny fragments that could blow away with the faintest wind.

“Then I don’t need you by my side this evening,” I said, the words leaving me hollowed out.

He threw back his head and howled, the mournful sound raising the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck.

Gael appeared from his position by the nearest building. “I can see him to a room.” The offer was a pleasant surprise, and I nodded, even as Leigh tensed at my side. I gripped her fingers tighter.

“Thank you, Gael. You can take him to whichever room I’m assigned to.”

He nodded and turned, not wasting any time, but Dirge hesitated. I wouldn’t meet his eyes this time, keeping mine firmly fixed on the inoffensive blades of grass that were tinged silver by the moon.

“Come on, then,” Gael murmured to the wolf. “She’s notgoing to change her mind.” Then, more quietly, he added, “Neither of them is.”

I could tell he didn’t mean for us to hear that last part, uttered under his breath. But we did, and Leigh leaned against me as if I were a raft, and she was adrift at sea.

The two of us were quite a pair as we watched the men we shouldn’t love walk away into the night.

SEVENTEEN

Dirge

My mate rejected me. She finally shifted. We shared that time together. At last, we were equals.

And her response was to reject me.

I’d always known I was unworthy. But her confirmation of it cut deeper than any blade.

I sat in her room and howled until my throat was raw. And then I howled some more, my pleas to the Moon Goddess falling on deaf ears.

Mercy wasn’t mine to have.

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