Page 94 of The Wild Wolf's Rejected Mate

I draw my knees to my chest, doing my best to cover myself with my mess of a gown. A strip hangs off where I stepped on it, and there’s mud on the hem and grass stains everywhere.

Justus’s wolf flops onto his belly, laying his chin on the ground and gazing up at me with his golden eyes. Did they always glow like that?

His tail thwaps the tall grass behind him. I startle. He drops his tail with a whump.

I watch him. He watches me.

He slowly folds his ears back until they are flush against his head. He looks almost like a pup. A gargantuan, razor-clawed, sharp-fanged, oversized pup.

Very, very slowly, he raises his right ear. Just his right ear.

What does he hear? There’s a mouse rustling in the underbrush and a bullfrog croaking over in the woods, but otherwise, there’s nothing but the wind and our breath.

I frown.

He slowly lowers his right ear and lifts his left.

What is he doing now?

Even more slowly, he lowers his right ear and simultaneously lifts his tail straight up in the air like a handle.

He’s kidding around. I’ve lost my mind, run a mile in a bedsheet, and now I’m sitting in the dirt, and this wolf is joking with me. Oh, and lest I forget, I’m in heat. Explains why the other females today were enjoying their hot cups of tea by the fire while I was desperate for a breeze.

I can’t do this again.

My panic rises, and Justus’s wolf whines. He drops both tail and ears and wriggles forward on his belly, his furry rump working side to side.

I stretch my legs straight, my shoulders slumping. He’s not going to hurt me. He’s a sweet wolf.Justusis sweet.

I’m the problem.

Justus’s wolf sidles up and plops his head on my thigh. He stares up at my face, the angle making it look like he’s giving me a rueful smile.

“I wish I wasn’t like this,” I tell him, my eyes prickling with tears.

An owl screeches in the distance, and I glance away. In that split second, the wolf disappears, and Justus is there instead, sitting cross-legged beside me, knees up for modesty.

I hang my head, my cheeks heating. I was talking to the wolf. I didn’t mean to say that tohim.

“I don’t wish you were any different,” he says, gruff and gentle.

I sniff. “You can’t possibly feel that way.Idon’t.”

He shrugs. “We see things differently.”

That’s his story now. “‘Pathetic coward,’ remember?” I spit at him. “‘A female like you would make weak, spindly young.’”

I don’t want to be bitter like this, not anymore. I know I’m throwing his words from years ago in his face, and he’s apologized, and I believe he meant it. I don’t want to make him feel sorry again. I just want him to be honest.

His head bows forward, his long hair falling in his face. My stomach knots. I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to hurtme, either, but I’ve got a multi-tool in my brain, and it’s all knives, and every edge is serrated.

His bare chest rises, and he lifts his head back up, skewering me with his gaze, shining gold in the dark. “Something happened to you,” he says.

My lower lip trembles. I don’t have to answer. He’s not asking.

“You survived.” He takes a deep breath, and his nostrils flare. “I hadn’t found you yet, and I wasn’t there to protect you, and you survived. Then I found you, and like an idiot, I walked away, and you kept surviving. Our young will be tough as hell. They’ll be so, so strong.” His deep voice is too ragged to be bullshit.

I mash my lips together to stop the trembling, but all that does is make my chin wobble.

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