Page 46 of The Wolf She Shouldn't Desire

He shakes his head in acknowledgment before turning his gaze off to the side. “I’d say give me a heads up next time but all I’ll say is if you need to go for an extended run and don’t give me a heads up, I’m sending out a search party in the future. I about did it this time if Westley hadn’t picked up on you five minutes ago while on patrol.”

I shake out my coat and return to staring at him.

“Alright then. You good?”

A deep rumbling in my chest starts, but I don’t allow it to turn into a growl.

“Not good then. Your head on right, at least? We got a situation that needs your attention but not if your head is not in it and clouded with whatever is going on right now.”

With a sigh, I transform back into my human form. Now, I stand in front of Eric naked, but as wolves, we have become used to this since we don’t always have clothes nearby to change into.

“My head is good. What’s going on?”

“Zion is having difficulty with a group of wolves in the eastern side of the city. Says they are harassing other wolves like a group of thugs demanding payment for ‘protection.’”

“In other words, give us money and we won’t harm you.”

“That pretty much sums it up. They seem to thriving on hurting others and are scaring the shit out of the wolves on that side of the city. They’re stirring up so much trouble that the vampires over there are starting to take note. It’s just a matter of time before they antagonize a vamp or, god forbid, harm a human.”

“Seems like we need to pay them a little visit then.”

“Yeah. We also need to pay Brenden a visit again.”

This time I can’t stop the growl that crawls up my chest. “Why?”

“They had another attack on their wolves by vampires.”

“Zander’s minions?” I sneer viciously this time. All my muscles tense with the question.

“Sounds like it,” Eric responds with his own anger lacing his response.

My anger becomes agitated again like gasoline thrown on a fire. It was still burning before Eric reported another attack, but I had managed to calm the flames somewhat. Now, theflames are back to where they had started a day ago, if not bigger.

Closing my eyes and clenching my fists, I take a few deep breaths pushing back on my wolf who is fighting to come back out. Before I became pissed like never before when I found out about the asshole being arranged to marry Talia, I was pissed he and his minions were attacking wolves and I still am. I need to focus, though, on the fact that he is attacking wolves more and nothing else, so I can handle the situation properly and not let my emotions control my actions. That’s a recipe for a disaster and not how I became the alpha of the most powerful pack in the city.

Opening my eyes, Eric stares back at me expectantly. “We’ll visit both parts of the city and take care of the issues. Talk it out with me on the way back to the house how we should handle each situation in hopes that these dumbasses will figure it out and think twice before fucking with the wolves in this city anymore. I don’t want to have to repeat the lesson twice.”

“Oh, with the mood I can tell you are in, I would bet you’ll come out on top.”

“Damn straight,” I grunt as we start to walk back to the pack house.

Chapter 22

Talia

Warm blood flows down my throat and energizes my body as I suck on the wrist of a human I found trying to assault a womanafterI saw him stab a man who accidentally bumped him on the street. I usually stick to blood bags––most of us do now of days––but when I do tap into a fresh human blood supply it’s with dirt bags like this that I have no remorse taking from. Not the greatest tasting blood as their vileness seems to taint their blood, but a little taste of their own medicine, and at times, taking one more terrible soul off this earth, balances the scale. It’s good every once in a while also to take straight from the source. Blood bags aren’t bad, but it’s not fresh and some of the nutrients and such that we get from blood deteriorates as time passes once the blood is out of the human.

Ripping my mouth away from his wrist, I toss him to the ground. There’s still a sliver of life in him to where I haven’t killed him…yet. The sound of my knife being pulled from my boot cuts through the air. I crouch down onto my haunches and slice at his wrist. Can’t have the humans panicking thinking a cult is going around pretending to be vampires or starting to actually believe vampires existed. The perk of us being fictional in the human eyes benefits us greatly, and we take hiding our bite marks when we take from a human seriously. As for taking from his wrist rather than his throat like you see in movies andtelevision shows? That’s an intimate act for me and one I refuse to do with scum like this. Vampires are split on it. Some think biting into the neck is natural, and the way it should be done while others see it as intimate. Something that should be shared with humans we are close to or our mates, but not random people. To each their own, I guess. I just see it as intimate and choose to only bite on the neck in very rare occasions.

The human groans slightly, bringing my attention back to him. He’s not dead yet but unless someone finds him soon, he will likely bleed out what little blood he has remaining from the slash on his wrist and be seen as a suicide. I see a knife of his own sticking out of the waist of his pants and grab it. I rub it in the wound on his wrist a little causing him to whimper and then clasp it into his other hand and let go, which in turn causes him to drop it naturally. Good. Scene is all set and no one will suspect a thing. I don’t need to be worried about cameras as this part of the city has none. Insufficient funds to cater to this run-down part of it or whatever excuse politicians want to give for not helping here.

The heels of my boots click on the pavement as I make my way down the street and begin to head back towards the coven house. My father has a small reception planned to have our coven mingle with Zander’s and a few select others we are allies with. I’m suspicious he is going to announce my marriage to Zander tonight––I wouldn’t know since they leave me out of discussions––and really wish I could find any excuse to not attend, but I can’t. If I don’t show up, my father will likely use the excuse of being made a fool by me to threaten Danny again. My shoulders slump, and I sigh with that thought.

My thoughts turn to what I could possibly do to get my father to break the arrangement he made with Zander, but everything falls flat. Danny and the others have failed to come up with anything as well, and with each passing day, a darkand miserable cloud overshadows and consumes me. Maybe there is something that would cause Zander to back out of the arrangement?

No. He would never since this is what he has been aiming for a long time—an in with my father and a way to have me under his control and in his bed. My stomach roils at the particular image that thought conjures. Fuck, how the hell am I going to get through this if I can’t get out of it?!

Suddenly, my mind recalls a few nights ago. The look on Jordan’s face when I told him I have to marry Zander. The same bastard that he was asking about in order to help his friends and allies who Zander has been attacking without cause or reasoning with no end in sight.

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