Page 31 of Fated to the Feral Wolf

He jerked like I’d slapped him. “But I bit you last night. If this isn’t a dream…” He tipped my head gently to the side, baring the side of my neck where he’d sunk his teeth into my skin the night before. “Shit! You’re marked. You’re still marked.” He let go of me, backing up a step with a tortured expression and raking both hands through his long black hair.

“Don’t be silly. I checked when I woke up, and…” My fingers felt the evidence on my neck, tidily healed scar tissue in the shape of his bite. My flesh felt real and solid, despite the fact that I was outside my corporeal body. “What the hell?” I whispered, looking up at him in shock.

“I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I— No, no. I thought it was a dream. Shay, you have to believe me. I’d never mark you without your consent if I knew—” He backed up until he hit the wall, his eyes closing in abject horror.

“Shh.” I stepped into his personal space, grabbing his arms and pulling them down to my waist before he could do something truly regrettable, like rip out all that gorgeous hair. Pulling it was my self-appointed job as of yesterday.

The memory of what we’d been doing when I pulled that hair sent a bolt of liquid heat straight to my core. Damn, I was horny. But I needed to focus.

“It’s okay. Neither one of us knew what was happening, and like I said, there’s no real mark on me. Whatever this is…” I risked letting go of one arm so I could wave at my neck, “it’s not the real deal. If I’m honest, I’m not really sure how this works, but if it lets us talk, I’m willing to try it.”

He gazed sorrowfully down at me, not convinced that I wasn’t upset. “It is the gravest of sins to hurt your mate. And taking that choice from you…” He shook his head, refusing to meet my eyes. “It is an injury beyond any I could ever forgive myself for.”

“Okay, would you lay off?” Anger was starting to burn off the haze of lust surrounding me. “I get it. You got caught up inthe moment. Whatever. Neither one of us knew this was more than a hot sex dream. I’m not mad about an accidental mark, even if it’s… never mind. I’m a lot more concerned about the choice where you’re refusing to shift when we’renotasleep. Can we talk about that?”

I don’t know if I was channeling Leigh or what, but I’d never been so sassy in all my life. Especially not with a man. I resisted the urge to slap a hand over my mouth, though. It needed to be said, and I didn’t want to waste whatever time we had on him kicking himself over an accident.

His eyes sprang open, a different kind of fear filling them as he gazed down at me.

“I can’t shift back, not now, not ever.” He was adamant, resolve straightening his shoulders as he pushed off the wall and let me go as he began to pace in agitation.

“Ever?” The beginnings of anger ratcheted up to eleven as his words sank in. “So I’m just supposed to live essentially alone for the rest of my life? Dirge, I’m only twenty-six. I need more than a dream to hold on to for the next nine hundred years.”

“I would understand.” He swallowed hard, his jaw tensing before he ground out, “I would understand if you needed to take a lover.”

My jaw dropped.

“You fucking bastard!” I leapt at him, my wolf enraged at the suggestion. I could barely hang on to my shift, and if we weren’t in some drug-induced dream state, I’m pretty sure she’d have torn his throat out for the suggestion.

I tackled him, both of us falling to the plush, patterned rug at the foot of the bed. He didn’t resist, and I landed on top of his chest, straddling his rib cage as I struggled to keep my wolf from shredding out of me.

“How could you even say that to me? You are my mate, and if you think I care so little about the mate bond that I’d take another partner while you’re right here, well, you don’tdeserveto be at my side anymore. You can get the hell out and not come back.” Granted, I was pinning his shoulders to the rug with claw-tipped fingers, so leaving was a little difficult.

“Shay. Shailene,” he crooned, his hands gentle as they caressed my sides, sending tingles of anticipation and need through me.

I growled, baring my teeth as I refused to let up.

“It would destroy me, watching you with another. But if protection is all that I can offer you, I don’t expect you to remain chaste.”

“I don’t want excuses or pretty condolences, damn you! I want an answer. Why? Tell me why.” I held his gaze then, challenging him, hell—dominatinghim in this pose.

He sighed, the sound weary as his hands continued their slow work of stroking, soothing.

“I am old, Shay. Old enough that the darkness was starting to get to me. Drag at me. So, I went hunting for a mate. For nearly a hundred years, I traveled. Looking for dense populations of shifters, hoping to happen across my female. But I never did. My mother’s second pregnancy brought me home, as childbirth takes more wolves than any war has in living memory.”

My anger started to wane as his fingertips massaged the sensitive skin beneath my breasts, and as I was consumed by this piece of his history. I hadn’t known he and Reed had a younger sibling.

“For a while, my family anchored me. The joy of a new pup is not small, and for years, I was content again. The darkness held at bay. But as Benedict hit his teenage years… that surge of alpha pheromones triggered my own, and it grew harder and harder to contain the need inside me.”

My grip on his shoulders loosened, my claws retracting as the need to comfort Dirge took over. “I’m sorry, that must have been incredibly difficult.”

“It was. And in my desperation, I sought the lore. Who could help me find my mate? Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, I found an answer.”

A chill went down my spine, and now I was clutching his shoulders for a different reason: fear.

“What did you do, Dirge?”

Sorrow painted his handsome face as he continued the tale. “I sought the Fates.”

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