Page 51 of The Wild Wolf's Rejected Mate

“This is Nessa,” Justus says. “Annie’s from Quarry Pack,” he tells her.

She seems reassured by this and melts back into the gathering, tucking herself against the flank of a huge gray wolf. Three little wolf pups appear as if by magic between their legs. They gape at me, wide-eyed, their tiny tails thwapping the ground.

Instantly, my heart melts like cotton candy in water. Where did they come from?

They’re shifter pups, but they’re in their fur. How is that possible? Males don’t shift until puberty, and females don’t shift until they recognize their mates.

Except that’s not always true, is it? Killian Kelly shifted when he was still a pup to save Una and Mari. Were these pups attacked? They can’t be more than a year old.

My wolf growls and glares at Justus, displeased at the thought that he might’ve let them be hurt. His brow wrinkles.

Can the pups shift back and forth to human babies, or are they stuck as wolves until puberty? Somehow my curiosity allows me to relax enough to venture a little closer to theboundary between my wolf and me. The pups don’t seem traumatized. One lies on her side, dozing off. Her belly is pure white. It looks so soft.

Another pup snuffles around the feet and legs of the males around him, yipping and nipping and head-butting at random until he gets a pat on his flank or a scratch behind his ears.

The third pup—the littlest one, a mix of her mother’s black and her father’s gray—seems as captivated by me as I am by her. She keeps padding toward me. The first few times, her dam yipped at her to come back, but when she just kept approaching, her dam gave a rumble, warning her to behave, and let her come.

She trots straight to me. Inside my wolf, I reach for her. It’s a reflex. I’ve done it before I realize what I’m doing, and as soon as it registers, I drop my arms to my sides.

I don’t get close to new people, not even the cutest little ball of fluff I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Her paws are no bigger than walnuts, and her nose is a black jelly bean. The others smile down fondly as she pads between their legs.

She keeps coming closer until she gets to the invisible line around Justus and me that no one is passing, and then she plunks herself onto her tiny rump and begins to groom her coat as she watches me.

An unsettling ache throbs in my chest. She is so small. So trusting. So defenseless. And there are so many males here, and so few females. They—we—are outnumbered ten to one. They could do whatever they want to us. They have the power.

You’re trapped. You and the pups. There’s no way out.

The furry, curvaceous female’s snout wrinkles. “Justus, she shouldn’t smell like that. Something’s wrong.”

I can’t settle on where to look at her. The draped fabric serving as her dress is rigged so it only covers her nipples, and it doesn’t cover her furry hips or thighs at all. It covers her privates, but every time she moves, the skirt swishes left or right,or bunches up in the middle, and somehow that makes her look more naked than if she wasn’t wearing anything at all.

I don’t want her to come any closer. Neither does my wolf, but she doesn’t want to growl and disturb the pup.Idon’t want my wolf to growl and anger a Last Pack female who outweighs me by fifty pounds.

I force my gaze to settle above her neck because I was raised not to gawk, but her face is as arresting as her body. She has whiskey-gold human eyes with a wolf’s muzzle, long whiskers, and lush human lips that are pillowy on top because of the snout.

In a way, she reminds me of the small band of human females who come to the farmers’ market sometimes wearing fake tails, headband ears, and shirts that show off their breasts. Human males are all over them—and Quarry Pack males would be as well—but these Last Pack males keep their distance from her. She has an invisible fence around her, too, like Justus and I do.

The males closest to her are all standing at attention, their chests as puffed as possible and their stances so wide it looks like they’re about to do the calisthenics that Quarry Pack males do before they go on patrol.

My wolf eyes Justus. He’s not puffing anything, and his gaze is well above the female’s neck, but my wolf isn’t happy. She wants to bare her teeth, but the pup is watching.

“Annie, this is Diantha,” he says. “Diantha, there’s nothing wrong. Annie’s just—she’s quick to alarm.”

“She’s alarmed?I’malarmed,” the redhead mumbles. “Wait ’til Killian Kelly gets here. Everyone will wish they were more alarmed then.” Despite the incessant smack talk, his head is still bent, and his neck is bared.

Justus growls a warning, not very loud and no longer than a second or two, but the redhead snaps his mouth shut right quick.My wolf and the pup startle. The pup whines. My wolf snaps her teeth at Justus.

He raises his palms and smiles at my wolf as he says to the redhead out of the corner of his mouth, “Weren’t you the one who traded all our pelts and steaks for three Quarry Pack females just last year? That was you, wasn’t it, Alroy?”

“He tried to,” the male with the drumstick calls out, helpfully. “Wouldn’t call it a trade, though, when y’all came back with nothing but your tails between your legs.”

“I learned my lesson,” the redhead—Alroy—mutters. “More than I can say for some. And it was Khalil’s idea, too.”

“Don’t bring my name into it,” Khalil says quickly.

“I don’t think she should smell that way,” Diantha says to Justus as if neither of the pack males have spoken. “You need to do something about it.”

The other females murmur in agreement. It’s strange—as the males manspread, they also made more room for the band of females in their center. The females are fanning out now, and I can make out more pups among them, in both skins and furs. They must shift then. My mind is boggled.

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