Page 41 of Claimed By the Feral Wolves

“Your other mate?”

“No,” she says, her eyes flying up to mine again. “I mean, he’s claiming that we’re mates, that he feels the mating bond with me, but it’s not true. He’s not a good man. He’s just—this whole thing is a power play. He’s claiming me just so he can hurt me.”

Without thinking, I’ve started rowing the boat back in the direction of the shore halfway through her statement.What kind of deranged asshole claims an omega just to torture her?

The kind that I want to beat.

“Maverick,” Faye says, putting her hand out again, but this time I ignore her. “Maverick, no.Stop?—”

She lunges forward, trying to get the oar from my hand, but nearly throws herself over the side of the boat. I wrap an arm around her and haul her back, settling her on my lap firmly. The touch is overwhelming—her soft skin against mine, the way her skirt fans out over my lap. I expect her to move away immediately, but she just stays where she is, her wide, doe eyes meeting mine.

We stay still for a moment, breathing hard, looking at each other.

“I’ll take care of that fucker,” I growl, my voice coming out lower than I’ve ever heard it before.

My hands tighten on her hips, and she lets out a little noise that nearly makes me choke. Slowly, I move my hands up. I plant a palm on her back and start to rub in circles, watching as her eyes flutter and close. As much as I want her, reassuring her comes first.

“Okay,” she says lightly, as though she doesn’t actually believe I can get rid of the guy.

That’s fine—I’ll just have to prove it to him. To her. My mate doesn’t know me, yet, but she’ll learn soon enough that she’s my whole world. Nothing will ever be more important than her.

“Just let me–”

She shakes her head, then shifts to rest her cheek against my chest. “I don’t want you to go hurt him… right now.”

My blood is roaring through my veins. I want to kiss her. I want to touch her. As her perfect ass shifts against my erection, I wonder if she’s noticed. If my arousal is obvious. Surely such a tiny omega would climb off of me if she did. A scared one certainly would.Wouldn’t she?

“What pack are you from?” I ask tentatively, trying to continue my line of questioning from before. Trying to keep her in my lap as long as possible.

My chest loosens a bit when she actually responds to me, her voice quiet against my shirt. “Ivory,” she mumbles.

Ivory. The mountain pack. A small group without a lot of strong alphas, but with women who are world-renowned for their beauty. A lot about her starts to make sense. Her shyness. Her fragility.

I stroke her hair, lightly, tentatively. “You must be missing them a lot by now, right? You’ve been at The Selection for a while.”

“Well,” she says, softly, “yes, I have been here a while, but, well, I’m not exactly close to my pack.”

There’s a broken note of hurt in how she says it, and I swallow thickly, ignoring the asinine urge to go and make her entire pack pay for whatever they’ve done to her. All my life, I’ve wanted a pack, but if a woman like Faye doesn’t feel connected to her pack, they had to have screwed up pretty massively.

“I guess I can relate, not having a pack myself,” I say, chuckling. “But surely there must be someone you’re missing?”

Glancing down at her, I see that her eyes go far away, and I wish I knew what she’s thinking. Who she’s thinking about. Is there some man who has already stolen her heart? Some ex-boyfriend or past lover?

After a moment, she clears her throat. “I grew up with my grandparents and brother,” she says. “But I was mostly alone, even before they died.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, nuzzling my nose into her hair and breathing deeply.

Her scent is like coming home. Like having comfort here, close to me, to dip into whenever I want. It’s everything I ever imagined and more.

“Do you want a pack?” she asks, and the question startles me so much that my mind goes blank as I fish for a response to that. Misreading my response, she blushes deeply, her cheeks going from pale to crimson. “Sorry—I didn’t mean?—”

“No, it’s okay,” I say with a laugh. “I do. Not like, in any sort of urgent way, I mean. Being a feral is just fine. But having a pack would be good, too.”

I think about what it would be like to have a whole group of people at my back. A community to belong to. Other shifters to share my heartbreaks and triumphs. I can’t imagine such a thing, not really.

She shivers in my lap, and I reach down, grabbing the blanket that’s neatly folded beside me and opening it, wrapping us in its warmth. I’m happy when she relaxes against my chest, and I pick up the oar, steering us to a more private area of the lake. An area hidden behind tall grasses. A place away from that Kurt asshole.

The whole experience is surreal. I’m sitting there with my mate in my lap, aroused beyond words, grateful for every secondshe doesn’t spring away from me. It’s progress. More progress than I would’ve hoped for after her luke-warm reaction when we first met.

---