Page 4 of Defiant
Wolf! Fluffy! Dammit bitch, I need you! We need to run!
Panic sears my brain but my wolf doesn’t reappear and the white wolf takes a menacing step toward me, his head lowering like he’s about to leap.
I turn and run, splashing across the stream, my feet slipping on the slime-coated stones, beetles made of dread skittering across my skin.
I don’t even make it to the other side when I’m body-slammed face-first into the dirt. I hit with a loud thud and the air leaves my chest in a loudoofas a solid weight presses down on my back. A solid weight that isn’t furry. That’s larger than me. That is most definitely male—based on the hot and heavy hardness pressed against my thigh.
He’s shifted back to human. Oh god. Tears fill my eyes as a thousand scenarios that suddenly seem worse than a wolf ripping out my throat come to mind. Humans are far worse monsters than wolves.
The arms around me move and lift his body up, caging me in as that hardness glides slowly across the back of my thigh. Each millimeter feels like a mile and anticipation crackles underneath my skin while brutally awful mental pictures assault me.
The day I meet my wolf is going to be the day I die … if I’m lucky enough to die.
“What the fuck are you doing in my territory?” a low, raspy male voice growls as he pushes his body further up off mine, his dick finally away from my skin. I don’t get a second to feel relief, however, because a huge palm is planted firmly on the middle of my back, pressing me down in the dirt. His other hand wraps in my braided ponytail and yanks my head back.
I gulp, not tasting air but sour panic on my tongue before I start to struggle.Mom’s an alpha wolf. You are too. Fight, Elena. She raised you to fight.My legs lash out and I push up with my left arm, jerking my right elbow backward into his solar plexus. The hit rings all the way down to my bone but he doesn’t even grunt.
I shove a knee up toward my chest, intending to attempt a donkey kick at his balls, but he anticipates that and smashes his bodyweight back on top of me, that thick dick right between my ass cheeks this time.
Dammit. I think I just made this ten times worse for myself. The urge to laugh and cry all at once hits me.
“Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in Lobo territory?” he growls, tightening his hold on my hair.
Wait.
Lobo territory? That’s my territory! That’s my pack! “I am a Lobo, dipshit,” I snarl.
“The fuck you are.” His body shifts and I feel his knee grind into my lower back. “I recognize all my wolves.”
“All your …” I trail off as red-hot shame colors my vision like someone just dropped a crimson scarf over my eyes. “Alpha Black?” I question hesitantly, praying I’m wrong, that this is some elaborate prank, that one of Jonah’s friends spotted me and they followed me and someone’s making a bad shifter TikTok right now.
“Who the fuck are you?” he demands, not answering. But I can hear the edge of command in his growl, feel it in the way my heart curls into the fetal position at his tone. This isn’t a beta playing at being an alpha.
I let out a sigh as I close my eyes. “I’m Elena DeMarkus.”
There’s a long pause before the huge knee on my back retreats and the hand that was pulling my hair slides to my shoulder. He rolls me over until my back hits the grass, then he stands up tall as I pant, trying to catch my breath as I stare up at the naked alpha in charge of the Lobos.
Black Maddox.
Close to seven feet tall, he has a thick, muscled torso, and dark eyes that can drink in your soul with a single look.
He’s in his forties and has ruled the Lobos with sharp teeth and no-nonsense rules for nearly a decade. My gaze takes him in. His brown hair meets in a widow’s peak above his broad forehead then sweeps down the sides of his face, brushing past his shoulders in a way that might have been considered feminine if Black hadn’t paired the hair with a full beard that makes some of my mom’s pack friends swoon and whisper, “Jason Momoa” under their breath.
I don’t think he looks like Jason. His eyebrows don’t have enough arch. They’re straight and thick and currently pulled down to match the scowl on his mouth. If it wasn’t for the back-breaking intensity that surrounds Black like a forcefield, I might have thought he was hotter than Momoa. He has the same cut abs, the same kind of veins popping in his thick forearms.
I’ve heard rumors about the skulls he’s smashed in with those thick hands, but I don’t look down at those.
In fact, I try very hard not to notice the tan shade of his nipples as they protrude from pecs chiseled like stone. I most definitely do not allow my eyes to slide lower than that. I’m already humiliated enough, no need to anger my alpha further.
“Elena?” he asks, his scowl turns questioning, those dark brows lifting even as shadows hide his deep-set eyes.
“My mom’s Kathryn DeMarkus,” I tell him. “She’s ranked alpha number one hundred forty-seven …” And fights every day to keep from slipping further down, I don’t add aloud.
I stare up at Black but he doesn’t respond. He just stares back at me, waiting. His nostrils flare and he leans in, giving a long sniff, like he’s trying to check my scent.
I don’t smell anything like mother, with her lavender and soap fragrance. I don’t even know if wolves in the same family are supposed to smell alike. I never thought to even ask that sort of question in my quest to wring any information out of her or Jonah. My ignorance digs into my heels like an uncomfortable burr.
Does he want an explanation?
