Page 45 of The Wild Wolf's Rejected Mate

My wolf doesn’t play. She never has, not even when we were very little. She stays quiet and keeps her head down.

But now she’s closing her jaw on Justus’s arm, slowly shaking her head back and forth, gnawing his bicep like a marrow bone. Suddenly, with a growl, he flips to face us. She drops his arm and scurries backward, but there’s no space, so she ends up plastered against the curved dirt wall with her paws braced on his rock-solid chest.

He grins, his fangs flashing bright white in his thick beard. He snaps them, playfully, pretending to bite my snout.

My wolf yelps.

I scream.

Fight! Run!

Immediately, a fog of fear swamps the small space, and I have a close up of his face as it contorts in horror and disgust. If he was wearing a shirt, he’d tug it up over his face like the males at Moon Lake Academy did when someone passed gas. My wolf screws her eyes shut and shoves her snout into the dirt as if that will get us out of this.

I smellawful.

Usually, for me, embarrassment is an aftereffect, and panic is the main reaction, but for some reason, even though the pecking voice is wailing in the background somewhere about how I need to claw my way out through the dirt, I’m not drowning in terror.

The reflexive fear is there, but for the first time, it’s being drowned out by a desperate, terminal mortification. I stunk the placeup. I can taste it in my mouth. That meanshecan taste it inhismouth, too.

“Sweetling,” he says, low and cajoling. “Open your eyes, sweetling.”

He doesn’t sound totally disgusted. Actually, his voice is oddly nasal. I peek.

He’s pinching his nose closed. My wolf moans like she’s the most miserable creature alive. He grins again, flashing those long, wickedly sharp canines, but this time, I don’t panic, and I don’t look away. I can’t. His teeth are so clean and pointy. His soft lips are so mysteriously curved as they disappear into his beard. I want to trace them with my fingers to see if they’re as soft as they seem. Or if his beard is as scratchy.

“I’m not a danger to you. No need to smoke me out,” he says, chuckling, and bobs forward to drop a quick kiss on my nose before he wriggles backward, out of our alcove. “Come on now before that stink settles into your fur. If I walk into camp with you reeking like this, the females will beat me with their brooms.”

He’s teasing. Females would never do something like that to a male his size. He’s still grinning while he walks a few steps and pauses to stretch, arching his back and folding his arms behind his head.

His abs are taut. There is a smattering of hair peeking above the waistband of his low hanging sweatpants.

Run. Now. It’s your chance.

The voice is so faint, like it’s coming from under a bucket.

My wolf ignores her completely and pads over to stand next to him. She lifts her rump and lowers her forepaws to stretch her own back, cracking her spine, breathing through her mouth while her fur airs out.

It’s very early. The gray light is only now turning mellow gold and every new green leaf is still wet with dew.

The voice is right. Now is our best chance to escape. I could trot off to the bushes. Pretend to need privacy to relieve myself. Get a head start.

Which he’d close in seconds.

He’s fast and strong and somehow familiar with the terrain, even though it’s not his territory. The area we’ve been passing through isn’t marked by any pack. There are some signs of humans, the wrappers, cigarette butts, and bottles that follow their passage like the wake of a boat, but none of it is fresh. There’s no one out here now except us.

If I ran, and for some reason he let me go, I’d be alone. It’d take a day to get home—ifI could find my way. I can track as well as most, but he carried me for miles while I slept, and he doesn’t leave signs. I noticed that early on.

Would my wolf even let me go?

No. I don’t even need to ask her. She’s fascinated by him. Even now, she’s mimicking his side stretches, even though it doesn’t work at all with her sausage-shaped body. If I want to run, I have to take back our skin, and then I’ll be naked and slow. I won’t get far if he comes after me.

Maybe he wouldn’t. He seems fond of my wolf, but he hates me. His contempt burned in his eyes at the river. He didn’t try to hide it. He wanted me to know how he felt. I don’t need to dig the bond out of the deep hole I buried it in to confirm it and feel his hatred in my insides.

I don’t care. It’s good that he hates me. I don’t want any of this. I want my morning tea, my toast and jam, and my bathroom. I’m so dirty. My fur is stiff, and I do not want to know what’s in it.

I don’t want to go to the Last Pack. Everyone says they live in dens like our ancestors, like animals, with no laws but strengthand no justice except claws and fangs. At least that’s what the instructors said at Moon Lake Academy. The Last Pack chapter in the textbook was short and mostly about how they steal pups and females.

Justus stole me. But why, if he loathes me?

---