Page 39 of In the Mouth of the Wolf

Panic rose in my gut. I was naked on the cold, dirty floor of a barn, while an older man, dressed in flannel and thick snow pants, stared at me in awe. The dominating scent of black truffle and grass enveloped me, and I shivered in disgust.

“Well, what do we have here?” he chuckled. I tucked my legs into my body and wrapped my arms around them, trying to cover as much of myself as possible.

“Can I please use your phone?” I asked meekly. I didn’t know any of the guys’ numbers by heart, but I could at least call information and ask for the number to Wolfcrest Construction or Maiingan City Hall. Both should lead me somewhere.

“Sure thing, sweetheart. Why don’t I take you into the house?” He grabbed a scratchy-looking blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders, then placed a spare pair of rubber boots in front of me to slip on. “It’s a good thing I found you,” he said. “Was that your first shift?”

I nodded dumbly. “Yes, I need to get in touch with my pack.”

“Your pack?” His eyes scanned my body slowly. “I don’t see any bond marks.”

With a burgeoning beer gut, thinning hair, and leathery skin from a lifetime of working outside, this guy looked old enough to be my dad.

The way he looked at me was anything but fatherly, though – he was an alpha, and I needed to be careful.

“We’re bonding soon, just working out the arrangements. They, um, wanted to finish my nest first.”

I had no clue what that even meant, but I remembered flashes of the guys mentioning them when I’d been in my heat. I needed to at least fake like I knew what I was talking about.

“Of course.” He nodded slowly. “Gotta impress you, right?”

We walked up the slippery, worn wooden steps onto the porch. “If you have a cell phone, I can just call from out here…” I said.

He pulled me inside. “Nonsense, you’re going to freeze to death, little thing that you are. I’m sure you’d love something hot to drink, right?”

The house was warm, and the smell of the coffee soon drowned out his alpha odor. “Sit right here, I’ll get ya a cup. How do you take it?”

“Um, black is fine,” I said nervously, looking around for a landline. An old guy like this in the countryside would definitely have one. I finally spotted it on a side table in the living room. “If you don’t mind, I’d really like to call my pack now, they must be worried sick.”

He handed me the drink and sat down next to me at the old linoleum table. “I bet they are. If you were my omega, I’m sure I’d be tearing the county apart looking for ya.”

I retreated further into my chair, looking into my chipped Milwaukee Brewers mug as I felt his gaze linger. “So, can I?”

“What’s the rush? I’ve never had the chance to see an omega in all her glory before, at least let me enjoy the company while I got it.” His voice turned rough, and I shuddered at its bite.

He sighed, reaching over to clumsily pluck a piece of straw from my hair. “And you shifted too, that’s incredible. The last one who could shift in my family was my grandfather, I think. I felt the drive, but nothing ever came of it. How’d you do it?”

I took a sip of the burnt, bitter coffee. Of course, it would be better with lots of cream and sugar, but I just needed something warm in my belly. I kept my eye on the phone. “I really don’t know. I wasn’t even trying, it just happened.”

“Hm,” he grunted. “I wonder if you’d pass the power on to any pups.”

The little heat that had accumulated in my body rose to my cheeks, and he chuckled. “Aren’t you the cutest thing, blushing at the thought of it? Me, on the other hand… let’s just say the idea of filling you with pups is giving my body a very different reaction. What do you say? That pack’s wasting their time with you, sweetheart. I could have you bonded to mine by the night, birthing your first by the summer.”

I coughed, trying to disguise the visceral reaction of puking at the idea of doing anything with this man. “Please, I already have a pack…”

“You don’t if you aren’t bonded yet. It’s finders-keepers at this point, and now that I’ve found ya, I think I’ll keep ya.”

I threw my coffee in his face and bolted for the door. He screamed in a rage, slamming his body into mine just as I’d reached the handle.

“I was gonna be so nice,” he snarled. “Take real good care of you.” He picked me up with ease and threw me over his shoulder.

I kicked and screamed, willing my wolf with all my power to come back, but she was exhausted, sleeping off the all-night run.

He headed up the stairs, pushing us through a door into a bedroom. Then he grabbed two belts from on top of his dresser and threw me on the bed. While sitting on my chest, he secured my wrists to the metal headboard.

“But if you wanna act like a bitch, I’m gonna treat you like one.”

“Please,” I begged. “Let me go, I don’t want to bond with you. I have a pack!”

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