“That’s it?” she asks softly. Then with a quiet, bitter laugh, she pivots sharply away, heading back toward the house.
That pained laugh knifes through my chest, so harshly that I stumble under the assault and have to stifle a moan.
On the edge of the moment, I’ve fucking hesitated. Again.
I always have to find the right thing to say. I always need more time to put the words together in a way that doesn’t just piss her off —
The wolf surges forward, taking advantage of my confused state to take me over completely. I stumble a few more steps under the internal onslaught. Then I throw my head back as a strangled, grief-filled howl rips through my entire self, my entire being, and out my throat.
My mate.
My mate is rejecting me.
The change from man to wolf floods through me, dangerous and abrupt. The pain is so incapacitating that all I can do is writhe on the muddy ground and endure it.
To my utter horror, when the wolf gains his feet, I’m no longer in full control. I’m shoved into the back of my own mind. The wolf is ascendant and so, so dangerously unchecked.
And Mirth. My darling, perfect Mirth, has run back to us. Run back at my howl. When she should have been fleeing in the opposite direction.
The wolf leaps, easily closing the distance between us and Mirth. He knocks her onto her back, then pins her down with a large paw spanned across her chest. No claws, but the wolf could crush her.
Mirth’s purple eyes widen as her concern transforms into panic.
Stop. Stop. Not like this, I scream in my own head.
The wolf doesn’t listen. I’ve denied him for too long, dampened his urges and instincts with a steady diet of mage-wrought drugs and alcohol. He wants his mate. Even though that mate is one of the awry and not another shifter, he’s wanted her for even longer than I have— the self-deluded human half of our whole.
He looms over our mate, exerting dominance and baring his teeth. He slowly lowers his huge head. An unvoiced growl vibrates through his chest.
Mirth is too tiny like this, too vulnerable.
He’s going to bite her, and —
“Absolutely not,” she snaps, coldly fierce and utterly ticked off.
The wolf huffs. But he hesitates for just a moment. Listening. Because he likes Mirth like this — with the perfect-princess mask and the perfectly-in-control tone even while pinned to the ground with an abnormally large wolf salivating over her.
He likes it just as much as I do.
Mirth reaches up, wraps her hand around the wolf’s jaw, then clasps his mouth closed. She’s so petite compared to my beastthat her hand spans only half of the wolf’s jaw and nose. But she still grips him firmly, then angles the wolf’s head so she can look him deliberately and directly in the eye.
Exactly everything you aren’t supposed to do with a wolf shifter.
“You want me, Bolan?” she says firmly, still acting as if she hasn’t even noticed the fucking huge beast pinning her to the ground. “You use your words. Or better yet, your fucking mouth. On mine. On me. No games. Just the truth of it all. Make a fucking choice.”
Then she addresses the wolf, and yes, there is a difference in her tone, in her intent, even though we’re the same being. “I haven’t given you permission to touch me.”
The wolf exhales in clear dispute. In his mind, he needs no more consent than what’s already been granted from the universe.
She narrows her eyes at him. “Either give the man back or go for a run.”
Utterly inexplicably, the wolf concedes, stepping to the side. A deep, ferociously pleased contentment sinks into me. The wolf likes our mate’s dominance. And … her acceptance? The wolf doesn’t feel rejected at all.
And that … all these years … was it the wolf who held my end of the bond, shredded but not broken? Because Mirth never outright rejected us. Only me, the human part of myself, tried to reject her. More specifically, to reject our bond.
I’m honestly not certain she ever knew what I was to her all those years ago … what I still am to her.
Mirth gets to her feet with a huff, brushing off her mud-soaked pants as if doing so will improve their condition in any way. Ignoring the wolf, she walks stiffly over to the pile of clothing I left behind when I transformed, and grabs her sweater.
