Page 36 of Wolf Forsaken

"I don't know you and what I do know doesn't work in your favor."Her words stung, and I wanted to tuck my tail between my legs but dug deep to stop it from happening.

"You don't know them hardly either."I sniffed the air and groaned."Great. Just perfect."

Cole came tramping out of the woods, and his hair bristled when he saw me and Ivy standing close together.

"The two packs don't get along. What am I supposed to do with that? I don't want to play mediator."

"What if I would've found you first? Because then they'd be the enemies and not me."She cocked her head to the side in consideration. She knew I was right.

Cole walked right between us, turning so our muzzles were almost touching. He growled, but I didn't back up, letting out my own. I knew exactly what he was saying without actually hearing his words.

He was trying to stake his claim on her, but I wasn't about to let him. For the second time, I found myself in a fight for dominance. We lunged at each other, his teeth snapping and our anger growing louder and louder. It was a long time coming.

We rolled around on the ground, getting mud all over ourselves. For Cole having been shot and poisoned not too long ago, his strength seemed to be perfectly fine. Had it all been an act to infiltrate my pack and take over?

He rammed into me from the side and sent me flying, my head hitting the ground and a jolt of pain running through the side of my skull.

I pulled myself to my feet and stumbled a bit. My head felt fuzzy, and a trickle of something ran down the side of it. The copper scent of blood permeated my nose, and I felt like vomiting.

"Stop it!" Ivy's voice pierced my brain, and I realized she was standing over me in her human form. "Can't you men just get along? You fight and bicker more than two teenage girls."

I flopped down onto the ground and whimpered like a newborn pup. Damn, my head hurt. Had I cracked my skull wide open? I wasn't sure, but it felt like it.

Ivy's hands went to my head, pulling the fur away from the wound and examining it. "This is a pretty nasty gash. It's probably going to need stitches or staples or whatever it is you guys use."

"What the hell did he hit his head on?" Cole stood next to her and looked past me to where I had originally fallen. "Damn, that's a pretty jagged rock."

Cursing under his breath, he scooped me up and carried me toward the house. "There should be a key under that statue of a wolf."

"You really need a key out here?" She pushed the bronzed wolf up to grab the key underneath.

"Wolves can be criminals too."

While they were discussing wolves breaking into each other's houses, my vision was growing blurrier by the second. Damn, I'd really done a number on myself. It was all Cole's fault, too. If he would have just let us be, we would never have gotten in a fight. I looked up at him with narrowed eyes that made my head hurt even worse.

"Don't give me that look." Cole rolled his eyes. "You're just as much to blame for this as I am. What did you think was going to happen when you came out here alone with her?"

Well, I thought I'd get to spend some one-on-one time with my mate. This might not have beenThe Bachelorette, but I fully intended on getting my rose.

Ivy opened the door and stepped inside the house. The smell of dust filled my nose, and I sneezed. It had been too long since I'd been out there. It was a really nice house too, it just got lonely out in the middle of the woods with no one else around.

Cole carried me into the kitchen and put me on the kitchen table. A towel was pressed to my head and fingers stroked along my spine. Warmness and tingles spread across my entire body.

"You're healing him," Cole whispered.

"I am not." There was a moment of silence, and Ivy let out a strained laugh. "Okay, I guess I am."

The head wound must have been too much for my brain, and I was hallucinating. My vision popped with color and then nothing mattered anymore as the darkness took me.

* * *

I woketo the sound of what sounded like wood cracking. Rubbing my eyes, I sat up in my bed and looked around my bedroom. What was that?

I heard the sound again and my dad's hushed curse. I scrambled out of bed and rushed across my room, ignoring the pain in my foot when I stepped on a stray building brick and not caring if I kicked over what I was building.

I threw open my door and ran down the hall. My dad was kneeling on the floor where the couch should've been, prying the wooden floorboards up with a crowbar.

"Dad?" I rubbed my eyes again, trying to see more clearly. I padded across the living room and his head turned toward me, a manic look in his eyes. "What's wrong?"

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