Page 16 of Moonlit Choosing Ritual

“Please, just for a minute.”

“You can talk to her here, Blaze!” Megan’s strict voice made him tense up.

“Okay…” he drawled. “In a month there’s this Moonlit Choosing Ritual. Annnddd—” He looked at his friends for approval but none supported him. In fact, they grunted and growled at him. He shook his head. “And I’d like to invite you to it.”

I stared at him and blinked. “That’s the ceremony where Alpha Talon will choose Aria as his bride, right? Is it a big show?”

Blaze laughed so hard that his laughter boomed in the restaurant. I could see a hint of a smile on his friends’ faces. “Yes, that too. But the Choosing is open for all unmated people.”

Oh.

He reached for me and placed his hand back on my arm.

Suddenly, the door opened and my jaw dropped. My psycho boss walked in, wearing nothing but jeans. Talon rolled his neck and prowled toward me with the intensity of a predator. His dark hair was disheveled. He was panting, looking like he had run a marathon. His dark eyes locked with mine, and I think for a moment they turned amber. Fear bubbled in my chest. When his attention moved to Blaze, his muscles bunched up, rippling beneath his skin. His fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

His chest rumbled, and he actually growled like an… animal.

Everyone in the restaurant got up and bowed to him. Whoa.

This man dominated everyone in the room with just his presence. He seemed to suck up all the oxygen in the room.

His presence was like a darkening sky, a brooding, ominous threat that promised a fierce outburst. The tension coiled like a spring, compressed tightly, demanding release. A muscle feathered in his jaw as he gazed at the men with his hawk-like, sharp, unyielding gaze, pinning them down in a clear show of domination.

He closed the gap between us and tilted his head down to look at me. “What are you doing here?” he seethed.

“Working,” I snapped. I wasn’t going to bend to his condescending and domineering attitude.

He narrowed his eyes. “Have you forgotten what you’re wearing?”

I blanched, hoping he wouldn’t do what I thought he would.

“Open the top buttons of your shirt.”

No. No, no, no.

“Open them!” he practically snarled, when I defied his order.

Tears brimmed in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall, denying him the satisfaction of knowing he had affected me. I opened my eyes and revealed my collar for everyone to see. Humiliation washed over me like a crimson tide.

Talon pulled the leash out and tugged me to him. When I was an inch away from slamming into his chest, he looked up at everyone with a lethal intensity, and in a guttural voice declared, “She’s mine.”

Wrath like never before blasted in my chest. I tipped my head up. “I’m not yours,” I muttered under my breath.

Chapter 9

Talon

When I found her, immense relief warred with a torrent of rage inside me.

My wolf had run to the other side of the pack, circled the perimeter, and when he detected her scent, charged into this bar. It took two excruciating hours.

Every public building in my pack had a mandatory clothes basket outside for shifters. Many of us were ravenous after a good run, and so we would arrive in wolf form and shift before entering.

I grabbed a pair of jeans outside Megan’s bar, hastily slipped them on, and stormed into the restaurant. My muscles tensed with every stride, because the place was charged with the heavy scent of testosterone—and her.

It didn’t ease the storm brewing inside me to see Blaze’s hand resting on her forearm. And when he said he wanted to invite her to the Moonlit Choosing Ritual, it was like pouring fuel on the fire.

It took all my strength to resist the urge to tear his arm off. Instead, my anger turned toward her.

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