Page 90 of Fated to the Warrior Wolf

The cheer that went up was as bloodthirsty as it was earsplitting, and my wolf didn’t like it. He looked around for Leigh and found her pale faced and clutching a hand over her mouth as if she was barely hanging on to her nausea.

I jogged across the stage and leapt down, shifting back in midair, to land at her side. I knelt, ignoring the pulsating crowd that Dirge and the other males of the pack were barely keeping back.

“Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer.Can’t answer?

“Let’s get them out of here. This crowd is going to want to celebrate all night,” Dirge said with a low growl. He was right.

The party had switched to revelry mode, the wolves inside high off the violence, the people high off the drama of it. They weren’t close enough to it to have any personal impact. Tothem, it was a spectacle. A historic moment—a failed coup and the fall of a powerful man.

It turned my stomach. My duty wasn’t for their entertainment. I scooped Leigh up under the elbows, helping her to her feet. I was about to lift her when screams nearby caught my attention.

“Gael! Gael! Come run with us!” It was a female, eyes bright with her wolf, already stripped naked and ready to shift. I averted my eyes, ignoring her and focusing on Leigh as Dirge put up an arm to block her from reaching us.

“Come on, I’ll?—”

“Gael.” The sensual purr came from closer this time.Too close. My wolf snarled, but before I could turn to find her, she had already pressed herself up against my side, rubbing shamelessly against my bare skin. My eyes went bright with my wolf, fangs dropping at his displeasure. He would never approve of any female but Leigh.

“Come on. We’ll show you a warrior’s welcome,” she said in a sultry whisper.

My snarl was not the response she was looking for. “Get off me,” I snapped, taking a giant step away. I wasn’t going to hurt a woman, but I didn’t have to entertain her bullshit while my mate watched either.

“Aww, come on. We would have a good time, I promise.” She smirked and sidled closer, ignoring my obvious rejection.

I wasn’t expecting what happened next, but when Leigh stepped between us, it was the most glorious sight I’d ever seen.

“He’s taken. Now take a hint andfuck all the way off.” Leigh stood tall, glowering at the other woman with vicious promise in her eyes.

“I don’t see any mate marks, sweetie?—”

Holy shit, how did women make a word likesweetiesound like an insult?

She pointedly looked me up and down, and I was kickingmyself for still being bare-ass naked. “—and you clearly haven’t bitten any of that glorious skin. Maybe he’d like to spend the night with me. Nothing like a good fight to get your hormones pumping.”

I was frozen, unsure whether to let Leigh handle it or step back in. Or run for the hills. That seemed like the safest option, because I already had enough crazy in my life dealing with Celeste, and I sure as hell didn’t want more from a stranger who was willing to strip naked and rub up against me in public.

I want Leigh.

“If you don’t take your mangy ass out of my sight in the next three seconds, I’m going to shift and show you how an alpha bitch takes it when someone comes on to her fated mate. And I guarantee it, you won’t be so brash when I’m done with you.”

“Please, you and what army? You don’t look so well.” The other woman squinched up her nose at Leigh.

“This one,” Shay snarled, taking Leigh’s shoulder, and I blinked twice when I realized that for the first time, she wasglittering, her fae side showing in full force.

The other woman gaped at Shay, then me as I snapped out of frozen-statue mode and slipped my arm around Leigh’s shoulders on the other side.

“She’s mine, and I’m not interested. So, please, leave before she rips your throat out. She might have morning sickness, but that won’t stop her.”

The other woman looked like she was about to argue, when a female alpha barked from over Dirge’s shoulder.

“Cristina! Knock it off. The man said no. Get yourself back to the inn, now.” The last was laced with alpha command, and Cristina whined and darted away. Thank the Goddess.

“Sorry about that. She’s young and doesn’t have any manners yet.” The female alpha shook her head, sizing the group of us up. “You’re part of the high alpha’s pack from the US, right?”

“Right,” Dirge answered. “And we’re leaving.”

“Understood. I’ll make sure you get no more trouble from my pack tonight. Congratulations, by the way.” She nodded politely to Leigh, then disappeared into the crowd.

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