Page 9 of Fated to the Wolf Billionaire

“Please just come, touch her fur. See that it’s real,” Olivia begged, unaware of my internal freak-out. And for some reason, I took a step forward, and then another.

Because deep down in my stomach, I’d rather believe the impossible than that I was losing it. And if that wolf was real?

I wasn’t going crazy. I wasn’t slipping over the edge into delusion, into mental illness and suffering.

I closed the last of the distance and petted the wolf.

Relief, sharp and instant, filled me as I stroked the soft, thick fur. She let out a happy yip, and I jumped in surprise as she licked me on the chin. Wolf drool was dripping off my chin, and when I wiped it away with my sleeve, the fabric was wet. This close, I couldsmellthe canine scent of her.

“Holy shit, the wolf is real.” I swayed slightly with shock, petting her on the head again, even as I felt weird about it. I was basically petting a stranger on the head. But her tail was wagging, and she didn’t seem offended. “You’reallwolf shifters?”

“Yes, all of us. Even Reed.” Brielle answered my question from the couch.

You could have knocked me over with a feather right then. “So, are all the myths just… true? Do I need to be worried about Dracula coming and sucking me dry and then stuffing me in a coffin?”

“Not all of them, no. Garlic doesn’t do anything against vampires. We’re pretty sure the Italians started that rumor so their populace wouldn’t be afraid,” Brielle said with a soft smile. “Shay.” She addressed the wolf. “I’m sorry to ask, but I might need a recharge, whenever you’re ready to shift back.”

The wolf yipped her agreement, and a second later, the woman was back. Buck naked, but back.

I sank to the edge of the bed, averting my eyes from her nudity as Olivia went and rummaged through a closet, coming back with a pair of sweats for her to slip into. As soon as she was dressed, I watched as she clasped Brielle’s hand in hers, and then closed her eyes.

My jaw dropped when an electric-looking crackle of energy danced over her skin. “What is she doing? It looks like she’s electrocuting Brielle,” I asked Olivia, the only one without her eyes closed.

Her eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean? They’re just holding hands.”

“No, they’re holding hands, but there’s… electricity dancing all over them. It started with Shay, and now—now Brielle is covered too.”

Shay cracked one eye and focused on me. “You can see my powers?”

I shrugged, not sure what to think about anything I’d seen in this room. “I guess? It’s like electricity.”

Shay flattened her lips and tilted her head to the side with a shrug before closing her eyes again and concentrating on what she was doing. The electricity tracing over her intensified, and I watched in fascination as Brielle’s color came back, her cheeks turning rosy again under Shay’s touch.

“That’s enough, thank you,” Brielle gasped a moment later, closing her other hand over Shay’s. “You’re getting really good at that.” She smiled at her friend before turning back to me. She opened her mouth as if to tell me something, then surged to her feet with a worried frown. “Something’s wrong. Kane’s blocking our bond, and— We need to go. They’re in the head priestess’s office.”

The urgent tone of her voice had everyone moving, even me. Even if the wholepriestessthing was still giving me the cult creeps. I followed them out of the room, Olivia staying back with me as Shay and the man she spoke to in a rushed whisper outside the door raced down the hallway ahead of us.

“What’s going on?” I asked Olivia as I tried to will my still-tired legs to move faster.

“I don’t know. Kane is Brielle’s mate, her alpha. They have a mental bond, and whatever she heard must have worried her,” she told me as we trailed behind them.

Her mate? I didn’t know what that meant. But it didn’t seem like the time to ask, so I stored the question away for later.

When we stepped out of the building we were in, it was to an open courtyard that felt like it was frozen in time, or perhaps that I’d somehow stepped into the pages of a fairy tale. Everything was stone, covered in trailing vines, with lovely plants the only adornment. Yet somehow… there wasmore. Magical light, much like what had flowed over Shay’s skin as she touched Brielle, encased the entire area in a bubble.I stopped and gaped up at the bright barrier across the sky until Olivia tugged on my arm to get me moving again.

“What are you looking at? We’ve got to keep up. I don’t know where the head priestess’s office is.”

“Sorry, sorry.” I started walking again, putting a little more oomph into my steps, despite the fact that I still felt like shit. Seizures took a lot out of me, and I usually ended up in bed for a few days after, doing nothing but eating and sleeping until I felt human again. But I dug deep and kept up. Something inside me was tugging me, pulling me toward the other side of the enclave with a force I didn’t understand.

We followed Brielle into a long, low stone building across the courtyard, and she broke into a run as soon as she was inside.

“This must be bad. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Brielle run before,” Olivia murmured quietly to me as we increased our semifast walking pace to a jog. I was hanging on to her arm, but the closer I got, the stronger I felt. The stronger thedrivecompelled me to close the distance.

But what I saw when I got to the door she vanished into, I couldn’t explain. There was a woman in a blue tunic with a scary, double-bladed sword, pointed at a giant black wolf with glowing red eyes.

I paused, terror flooding me at the angry, slavering beast. The Shay-wolf was sweet and friendly. This one was trying to find an opening past the woman’s sword, while the rest of the people circled behind him, yelling for him to stop, to shift back.

“Reed! You cannot attack the head priestess!” The words out of Brielle’s mouth stunned me.

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