Page 69 of Wolf Heart

CHAPTER19

ASPEN

Juniper stares out where Raven disappeared into the woods and I want to punch the bastard for making her sad.

Yet, I know that he’s torn like the rest of us about her. I’d thought she’d be a quick fuck like all the other women I’ve been with, but she’s an addiction I can’t stop. Being with her only makes me want her more. Can't be anything more than lust. I've been with too many women to get my hopes up. Not until the witches break our curse. Which means sacrificing Juniper. My stomach knots at the idea.

One glance at Dex and I know he feels the same way. We don’t want to let her go, not yet. Not until we’re sated and can walk away from her.

Except time and Raven are against us. He wants to save his sister and as many of the others in his pack as he can.

There’s no way I can blame him for that and would be the first to shove an unshifted wolf at the witches to cure them. To figure out a way to break this curse on our kind and never have to worry about the lost ones or their contagious bite again.

But that was before I met Juniper. Before I tasted her. Before I sank into her and started losing parts of myself to her.

Even my wolf rumbles in my chest to take her again, tame her, and bring her wolf under our dominion. Be her Alpha, her lover.

She meets my gaze and I know I'll never have enough of her.

A hawk cries out, flying from one of the oaks nearby. He's flying fast and high, well above the canopy of the forest; he has no concern for distances or landmarks. No worry of lost ones or even us wolves.

"Never seen one come so close to us." Juniper smiles and I lose myself in her joy.

"Reminds me of one my father and I found injured when I was a boy."

"Oh?" She tilts her head to the side, waiting for me to continue.

Fuck. Why had I even said anything? "Yeah." I swallowed. "My father usually let his wolf rule his actions. But when he saw how drawn I was to the bird, he let me keep it."

She closes the distance between us, placing her hand on my arm. "What happened?"

My wolf wants to protect her. A possessive growl erupts from my chest when Dex takes a step closer. The animal in me is more protective than he should be. More aggressive and pushes me to take what it wants. To claim Juniper as my own. I can't though. Dex wants her too and I know Raven does as well even if he pretends he doesn't.

"He trained it to go after enemy wolf packs. Circle around and lead us straight to them." I shudder. "He got so good he started attacking their eyes. And nothing I could do stopped him. It was like my dad had control over him and when he went after a wolf pup," I shook my head, clenching my fists, "I had to put him down."

"What did your dad do?" she asks, her voice soft.

"Said it was a lesson to never get attached to anything or anyone. The only one I can count on is myself."

Her hand lightly squeezes my arm and she lifts on her tiptoes, kissing my lips in a rose-petal soft kiss.

"Let's head out." I kiss her back. "Raven couldn't have gotten ahead of us too much. We'll get you that cure, wolf."

Juniper raises her head at the word. Wolf.

I can’t stop the rumble of approval that comes from my chest and she shivers.

She might be all kinds of wrong for me, but I want her just the same. Not literally, though, I’d never leave the pack for a woman and surely not a witch. She'll have to pick which of us she'll bond with if we can convince her wolf this Michael is a dipshit.

My wolf snaps inside my chest, demanding she's ours, demanding I bite her and mark her as ours.

Am I ready to go against Raven for her? Fight our Alpha when he only wants to save others at the cost of one girl?

Hell no. I need to figure out what the hell to do because my wolf says she's mine. Yet, Dex and I agreed she belonged to both of us and Raven too if he wasn't such a stubborn ass.

The three of us walk into the woods, following Raven's scent. For once, he's the prey and we're the hunters.

Dex's wolf must sense my own getting possessive because he keeps giving me glares over Juniper.

---