Page 4 of Wolf Desired

My breath hitched. I knew what all that bulky muscle looked like, and now I was getting a moment to know what it felt like to be wrapped in it.

The heat dropped to my core and turned the soft, achy memory of having sex with Bishop into something deeper and stronger.

“Are you saying you’re not open to multiple mates?” he asked, his voice gruff. “Will you refuse Bishop? If Whil can’t transfer the bond, you and Knox are stuck together, but that doesn’t mean that has to be everything in your life.”

I tipped my head to look up at him, and his gaze flickered to my lips before jumping back to my eyes.

“And you’d accept that?” I breathed, my lips tingling with the need for him to kiss me. “The weakest shifter in existence mated to both of your brothers?”

He cupped my cheek with his large palm. “I think we’ve already established that you’re not the weakest. You’ve killed a grimalkin—”

“By accident,” I reminded him.

“You’ve stood your ground against them twice, and you’ve walked until your feet bled on the chance you could set my brother free. Those are not the actions of a weak shifter.” He huffed a soft laugh. “A foolish one, maybe, but not weak.”

I dropped my gaze, unable to keep looking him in the eyes. I didn’t know what to do with words like that. I’d never been good enough or strong enough or anything enough, and just hearing that maybe I was, that maybe Cyrus saw me as something more than a weakling, made my insides squirm.

“I can’t shift,” I murmured. “My children might have the same curse I have.” And they might have the same problem. Unlike the rest of my pack whose wolf had awoken on the summer solstice after their eighteenth birthday, mine was still asleep and probably always would be… if I even had a wolf half to my soul.

“Bishop doesn’t care.” Cyrus brushed a stray lock of my dirty blond hair away from my eyes then hooked his thumb under my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze again. “He’s never courted a woman before—”

“I find that hard to believe.” From everything I’d seen, Bishop had left a trail of broken hearts behind him.

“Oh, he’s dated and flirted, but his wolf was never interested. Not until you.” His eyes dipped back to my mouth, and my pulse picked up, my body yearning for his lips on mine.

I leaned into him and breathed in his scent, my pulse pounding in my ears. Cyrus had never shown any interest in me before, and while a tiny voice in the back of my mind was screaming that this was wrong, this was how my body responded when I was in heat, the rest of me didn’t care. He was stunning and powerful, and he’d never be mine, but oh how my body wanted a taste of what it would be like.

Then the muscles in his jaw flexed, and he slid both hands to my shoulders and took a large step back.

The sudden separation sent chills rushing over me, and not just because I’d lost his body heat. He was rejecting me. He’d had a moment of weakness, a moment my now throbbing core desperately wanted, and realized it was a mistake.

“You’re not without options, Audrey,” he said, his voice gruff. “Just remember that when Whil can’t free you from Knox.” He turned back toward Knox and Bishop, who were even farther ahead of us. “Come on. We’re falling behind.”

“Right.” I fought to swallow my disappointment, confused about why I’d reacted so strongly to him, and hurried to catch up.

He set an even faster pace than before and I struggled to keep up. I was already achy — soreandturned on — and the longer I walked, the achier I became. I wasn’t walking off the side effects of the spell, and now I couldn’t stop staring at Cyrus’s ass or his broad, powerful shoulders easily carrying the packs… one of which I should have been carrying.

On top of that, the chill in the air that had deepened the closer we’d gotten to the temple didn’t warm up the farther we went away. Even with the sun still sitting high in the sky and blazing down on us, I shivered, which didn’t help with the achy muscles.

The path grew rockier and scraggly weeds and bushes started to dot the landscape. Cyrus was hot enough that I could see sweat darkening the back of his shirt every time one of the packs shifted, which made me think of my hands sliding over his slick skin, those bulky muscles flexing as he drove into me.

Fuck. I squeezed my eyes shut. What was wrong with me? Why was I thinking about sex with Cyrus when I could be remembering sex with Bishop?

My thoughts lurched to the previous night and how Bishop’s sleeker body had looked as he pushed oh-so-carefully inside me—

I stumbled over the uneven ground, the ache in my body sinking deep into my hips and back, making each step harder and harder.

A whisper of a breeze swept over us, rattling the dead stalks of grass, catching in strands that had fallen out of Cyrus’s braid, and making my teeth chatter.

Hugging myself, I fought to control my trembling, but that upset my balance and I stumbled again, bashing my knee against a rocky outcropping.

Shit.

I swallowed back my curse, not wanting to alert Cyrus that I still couldn’t walk a straight line without a pack, and limped forward. The injury wasn’t bad, but the impact had jarred up my entire body, pointing out every achy muscle and joint.

Rocky landscape meant we were getting closer to the abandoned village where we were going to spend the night.

I just needed to push a little farther, and then I could take a break because I wholeheartedly agreed with Cyrus. I didn’t want to be caught on the death god’s lands after dark.

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