Page 40 of Daddy's Mail Order Mate

I swallow back a sudden pooling of saliva under my tongue, and even though I haven’t shifted at all, my teeth feel too sharp for this mouth. In spite of myself, my voice comes thicker, lower, with a thickened texture to it that I know isn’tjustme.

“Let me hunt you.”

As though some sort of hunter’s spell, the birds quiet and the wind stills. The stagnant, silent air between us just makes the sound of our breaths suddenly more pronounced.

I hear her wet her tongue and watch her jaw twitch with the effort of trying to find her voice again.

“... What?”

“Think about it,” I urge. “I could chase after you as a wolf. We could force your survival instincts to take over.”

The suspense rises further still when she looks away, and the timidity of the expression makes me want to just—

I don’t know what. There is just a hunger that verges on violence brewing in my blood, and it’s getting harder and harder to ignore with each passing second.

“Fine.”

My lips start to twitch back as though to smile.

“But when… When it doesn’t work, you’ll drop it. Okay?”

Even with her couching remark, I can hear hope trying to break through her cynicism. I clench my hands around hers and unless I’m just deluding myself, I swear I hear her hide a gasp.

“Okay.”

With the pact sealed, my wolf practically howls through my bones, triumphant. But it clearly knows the true victory is yet to come. And oh, it isreadyfor the rush, the conflict, the tangle, the kill. It is ready to maul whatever shadows hidehismate.

When I think of my wolf as he, and not it…

That’s when I know that I’m on the brink of running absolutely wild.

It’s going to be difficult to keep myself in check, but the possibility of helping Gwen, and the temptation of it all is too much to deny.

Besides, I feel the thought stir through me, subconscious instinct manifesting in my own voice,it’s been too long since I went feral.

I slowly retract my hands from Gwen, turn, and set a steady march deeper into the woods, forcing lucidity back on myself with a sense of vicious discipline.

This isn’t about me. I need to help her and make up for the damage I’ve done. The last thing she needs is to suffer at my hands again.

But the sound of her footsteps following me makes my heart hammer like a war drum and I dread that I might not be able to keep that side of myself at bay much longer.

Chapter 11 - Gwen

This can't work. It won't work. All it'll do is humiliate me further and I'll probably just get myself hurt trying to stumble around the forest with a wolf chasing me down.

I stare at the broad expanse of Thorn's back ahead of me, blindly following after him in these unknown woods. My vision breaks off from him in a reawakened spike of old habit to try and find visual markers in the woods around me. I'd grown up constantly having to reorient myself around new places, thanks to the semi-nomadic nature of my childhood pack. In a way, I felt like a child again, tentatively trailing after Thorn in the hopes of his guidance and protection.

Ever since our first meeting, he'd always been protecting me, acting as a mentor and older peer before we started to nurture a childhood romance. He was the first person I ever truly felt I could trust all of myself too, which had only made his abandonment run that much deeper into my soul.

My throat vices practically shut, and pain resonates out through the rest of my body, centering on my constricting heart.

But what if it could work? Beneath the years of sorrow, I feel like there's some frozen fragment of the girl who'd loved him staring up at me from within. Hadn't she learned better, hadn'tIlearned better? But he must have rejected me because I was such a weak shifter. If I could just learn how to become a wolf again, maybe…

“Up here,” he murmurs. His voice is low, focused, almost monotone in its hushed intensity. Something washes through my nerves from my spine to my fingertips and all I want to do is get closer to him. I don't know what it is—the mate bond, my old feelings, something just fucked up with me… But whateverit is, there's something about how he speaks and how he carries himself that leaves me feeling utterly helpless to do anything but yearn after him. The composure and control, the shadowy strength kept in tight measure, every detail of his demeanor just woke something in me.

I let out a careful exhale that rattles ever so slightly and follow him out into what seems to be a small opening in the trees. There's a few traces of late wildflowers cropping up in the brush and detritus, speckling color along the forest floor kept well protected by a broad canopy of leaves.

He turns towards me and starts slipping off his jacket, and I force my jaw to be clamped shut to make sure I don't make any sort of expression when I realize he's about to start stripping down.

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