Page 45 of Taken By The Wolves
He looks at me then, and the raw and haunted depth of his gaze spears me. “The shifters were hunted. Rejected. Feared. Packs scattered. Many died. Those who survived learned to hide in plain sight.”
My voice is barely a whisper. “So, you’re saying that this baby is a shifter. A wolf-human. A werewolf.”
“Yes.”
I blink, heart thudding, glancing between the three men who have been my rescuers and my company, my friends and my lovers, dread swelling until it almost chokes me.
“How do you know this story, Nixon?”
“We’re not what you think, Scarlet.” he says softly. “We’re the same as this child.”
The night of the attack rushes back: the snarling wolves, Nixon’s inhuman strength, the wolf in the house. This can’t be right. It’s stories. Old folklore. The kind of thing mymom would drag out to warn me of the dangers of the world.
“You’re saying you’re… shifters.”
“Yes…men… and wolves.”
The breath I take rattles through me. “And the night I was attacked?”
“Finn and Reed found you,” he says gently. “They fought off your attacker. Protected you. And the wolf you saw in the cabin?”
“Finn,” I murmur, heart twisting. “It was him.”
“Yes. When he changed back, you saw him in his human form.”
Everything inside me feels like it’s turning inside out. Fear and fascination war for dominance, but I have a million questions, and the most pressing ones involve this child. “So, this baby…” I glance down, brushing a thumb across her tiny cheek. “She’s a shifter, too?”
“Yes,” he says. “Born to a woman named Aura. Mate to a neighboring alpha, Gregory. He claimed her as his mate before she was ready. Then she was attacked by a rival. Left for dead. Gregory cast her aside because she was carrying a bastard child.”
I can barely breathe. “She’s a baby… an innocent.”
“She’s a miracle,” he says. “And a warning. Shifters are almost always men. In all our years amongst our own kind, this is the first female shifter any of us have seen.”
I stare at the child, so small and precious against my skin, and warmth blooms in my chest.
Then I look at Reed. “Show me,” I say, voice steady.
He flinches. “Scarlet…”
“I need to see it,” I insist. “I need you to show me it’s real.”
He meets my eyes, holding them captive. The air shift before it happens with a release of invisible pressure, laced with electricity, like a storm on the horizon. His body quivers, muscles tightening, spine curving. In seconds, he’s gone and, in his place, stands a wolf, huge, sleek, golden-eyed, and silent.
My breath leaves me in a rush, overwhelmed.
It’s not a costume. It can’t be. And it’s not a trick. Reed’s clothes are in a pool at the wolf’s feet.
It’s a real wolf… a wolf housing the heart and mind of a man.
Reed lowers his head to me like he’s bowing.
I reach out my hand, filled with awe and wonder, and when he nuzzles into my palm, gently licking my skin, I want to laugh out loud and cry, too.
There’s something so tragic about this; men forced to live with half their natures concealed. They’re beautiful, rare, and special, and yet they hide themselves in the mundane, fearful of rejection or persecution.
How many years have they lived like this, building furniture with calloused hands, managing lumber shipments, all while something primal simmers beneath their skin? I see it now, the way their silence was never emptiness but restraint. The way Nixon’s eyes held storms he didn’t dare let break. The way Reed wore laughter like armor. The way Finn softened everything, even his secrets, like he was trying to apologize for what he was before I ever asked the question.
And I never would have asked, not before today.
