Page 57 of Taken By The Wolves
I laugh and it bursts out of me unexpectedly loud, making Finn jump.
“Scarlet, we’re serious.” Nixon leans forward, crowding.
Outside, the forest crowds in, the trees bending in the wind that rattles the windows in their frames, reminding me that everything about this palace is unfamiliar.
“Our mate bond,” Nixon continues, “it’s not like a human relationship. It’s deeper. When we claim you… when you choose to be ours… it’s forever.” He reaches across the table, takes my hand, and his touch is warm, grounding me. “You’ll feel it? The bond. I think you already do.”
Reed stands behind him, arms crossed over his broad chest, his brows furrowed in concentration. “It’s not only about love,” he adds. “It’s total devotion. It’s waking up every day knowing we belong to each other and this place.”
My heart pounds like a drumbeat because he’s right. The pull he’s talking about is like roots springing from my feet to anchor me, waking old and powerful sensations insideme.
But I shake my head.
“No,” I whisper. “I don’t…I don’t belong here. I have a home, a life, and family.”
“Your home is here. Your life is here. We’re your family, Scarlet. And you’ll bear our children to make a new pack.”
I shake my head, knowing for certain now that they’re wrong about all of this. “I can’t have children, Nixon. I’m barren.” I wince at the archaic word but it’s the only way I can make him hear the truth. “You need to find another mate.”
“There is no other mate,” he says. “It’s you. You’re the one marked for us. Born on the wolf moon. You’re ours, and there’s no changing it.”
“I can’t have children, Nixon. You’re not listening.” Frustration curls my fists in my lap. “There must be a way for you to find another mate. What if I died.”
“No,” Finn says, surprising me with this firmness. “There is no other way.”
“This is…” I look around, trying to find words that wouldn’t be insulting. I want to say it’s primitive, crazy, ridiculous. It’s a fantasy, an illusion, like the magicians on TV that wow with sleight of hand tricks. But none of those is right. “I’m an ordinary woman,” I say. “Not even that. I can’t give you what you need. I’m broken. I’m not what you want.”
Nixon’s fist thuds so hard against the table that I flinch.
“You are exactly what we want, Scarlet. Do you hear me? You’re not broken. You need to be with us to fulfil your destiny.”
“I don’t have a destiny, Nixon,” I yell. “This isn’t a fairy tale. You want to claim me, to bond me to you, but I’mhuman. I don’t belong in this world of yours.”
Finn is slumped forward, sunlight catching the dark threads of his hair and turning them bronze. His eyes are soft with understanding, his voice low and rich as the earth that cradled Ahya. “Goldie’s human. She didn’t think she belonged with Hunter, Robert, and Evan, either. She fought it for a long time, but the bond changed her. The forest changed her. But we can’t do this if you don’t want it.”
“We can,” Reed says. “We can do what Gregory did and force the claim, but we don’t want that. We’ve never wanted that. This only happens if it’s what you want, Scarlet.”
He stands and crosses to me, laying a hand firmly on my shoulder. “Scarlet, you’re not just a woman. Not anymore. The forest called to you. The goddess handed you a miracle child, the chance of a mate-bond, and a place in this pack. It’s fate.”
I glance at my hands, relishing the strength of Reed’s reassuring grip, Nixon’s firm words and Finn’s gentle explanations. These men… these wolf-men have done nothing but look out for me. Since I arrived at their cabin, they’ve been gentle and considerate, passionate and kind. They’ve given me space to develop feelings and waited to explain their world to me. Now they’re promising me a forever commitment and the family I thought could never be mine. “You said… you could give me children?”
Nixon nods. “Our seed is meant for you. If you choose us, if you ask for the claim, and let the bond settle into your body, it will heal what was broken. You were told you couldn’t have children in the human world. But here, with us… anything is possible. We will breed you, Scarlet. We will fill you with babies, and this house with our pack.”
The cabin seems to brace with my hesitation. Outside, abird trills and I close my eyes, fighting the sting there. I came on a quick trip to do business, but instead, I found men who want to promise me forever, a baby I’ve bonded with, and a world that doesn’t want to let me go.
“I thought I knew who I was,” I whisper. “I thought I had a path.”
Nixon reaches for my hand, and his fingers tighten around mine. “You did. And it led you here.”
“This place,” Finn murmurs, “You’re part of it now, Scarlet.”
I look from one to the other, these men who carry the wild in their eyes and speak like prophecy.
“I need time,” I say, my voice trembling.
“Take it,” Nixon murmurs. “We’ll wait. But know this, Scarlet. Your place is here. Not because we want you to stay. Not because you’re a part of us already. But because the forest, the goddess, the bond… you were chosen for us to love.”
And in my heart, something soft cracks open.
