Page 48 of The Wild Wolf's Rejected Mate

Is my wolf really going to strut into the midst of another pack? TheLast Pack?

They’ll tear you apart.

She’s beginning to see the issue. A high-pitched whine rises from her throat, and she continues to creep backward, her belly dragging in the dirt, a fresh wave of fear perfuming the air. Justus squeezes his eyes shut, the tip of his nose flushing red as if the scent burns. It kind of does if you’re not used to it.

They’ll rend you limb from limb. Eat your flesh. Suck the marrow from your bones.

The pecking voice is back in her full glory, a tinge of vindication in her tone.

Your mate hates you. He’ll hand you over to his pack and leave.

She flashes a picture in my head that I didn’t even know existed in my mind—Justus walking away from my nest by the river, his back stiff, his muscles tensed, his hands balled in fists. Like he’d been hurt, and he was hiding it. I’ve seen plenty of males walk away like that when Killian has the males spar after dinner in the lodge. The ones who lose.

What do I do? I’m petrified, crouched low and shaking, terrified, with every reason to be, while this male waits for me, his palms raised, like I’ve lost my mind yet again.

How would he like to stroll into the Quarry Pack commons naked and uninvited?

My wolf whines. It’s a question. Do I want our skin? Upon consideration, she doesn’t want to walk into this, either.

There is no way in hell. I huddle in my corner, and she huffs a sigh.

At the same time, Justus seems to make a call. He huffs, too, scoops up my wolf, and tucks her under his arm like a football again.

“Never the easy way with you, eh?” he grumbles, more in resignation than complaint.

Little does he know how right he is—it is never, ever the easy way for me.

The last legof the journey to the Last Pack is only about a half mile, so the voice doesn’t have much time to predict our imminent demise, but she makes up for it with imagination.

They’ll skin you, wear your fur, chew on your flesh until you’re almost dead, then let you heal, and then do it again, night after night.

Her warnings come louder and faster as Justus climbs a steep, pebbled path that winds between craggy outcroppings and emerges on a kind of tableland.

My breath catches. This can’t be real.

I’ve never seen any place like this before. We emerge from a narrow choke point between two sheer rocks, and all of a sudden, a sprawling glade and entire shifter camp is spread in front of us. Slabs of white rock rise like a natural amphitheater around it, dotted with deep green patches of tall hemlock, cedar, and cypress, and beyond and above the terraced rock, other ridges and spires tower to the north and west. Water burbles somewhere, but I can’t see the source.

I don’t see how it could possibly be man-made, but I also don’t see how nature could make a place so clearly designed as shelter. It’s a place out of time. Even the colors are enchanted. Every brown and green and white is bold—the brownest brown, the greenest green.

As my gaze darts around the clearing, searching for threats and escape routes, I pick out at least a dozen low, slopedentranceways among the rocks. Those must be the dens. Glowing almond-shaped eyes blink from the shadows, visible from hundreds of yards away.

Closer, and more terrifying, dozens of males have risen to their feet, looming beside rough-hewn stools, wooden crates, and overturned rusted buckets, glaring at me in spiky silence, poised to attack. I know that stance. I’ve seen it a hundred times in front of Killian’s dais after dinner when he calls the males to fight.

Don’t move. Don’t breathe.

My wolf presses closer to Justus’s side, searching for the feel of his low rumble. It soothes her. She trusts him to protect her.

I don’t.

I cram myself in the furthest corner of the limbo where I exist, sliding down to scrunch myself into the smallest space possible, hugging my knees to my chest. I wish I’d run when I had the chance. I should have never taken a different way home. I should never have left my room in my cabin where I wassafe.

Safe, but scared all the time, anyway.

My wolf peeks under Justus’s arm at the males stalking toward us. Some are in full fur on four legs, but most have arrested themselves mid-shift, pointy-eared and fanged with various degrees of shag. None are in their skin alone.

When we arrived, two males were fighting, but they separated the instant we emerged in the glade. Now, they stalk toward us side by side, chests heaving. The skinnier one’s ear is torn and bloody, half perked, the other half drooping like a leaf with a snapped stem.

Most of the males were clustered by the huge fire pit in the center of the clearing when we arrived. Now they approach us, carrying whatever they were working with. One elder carries a fiddle and bow at his side. Another holds a knife in one hand and a rabbit skin in the other.

---