Page 22 of Tolerated By the Sigma (Mate Hunt 7)

We reachedthe site of the crash less than ten minutes later, and there were already cops parked on the road, not too far from the smoking car. They jogged over as Rocco put his and Del’s car into park, and I squeezed Felix’s little hand before I pretty much jumped out of the vehicle.

I recognized all of them, of course. One of them had been in one of the packs I’d considered mine before we graduated high school. After graduation, they had all pretty much disowned me because I wasn’t any of their mates and they worried I’d be some kind of distraction or competition or something. It had been really difficult for a while, but the past was in the past.

“Hey, Henry.” I forced a tiny smile, my gaze jerking to the forest, where I could hear snarling and smell smoke.

“You’re Oscar’s mate?” Henry’s gaze was both stricken and full of pity. He hadn’t met his mate yet, and I got a stupid amount of pleasure from the fact that he was still alone and I’d found a mate myself—even if we were currently a catastrophe.

“He goes by Ryder now,” I corrected, my voice pretty flat. “How is he?”

The guy’s gaze grew incredulous. “Trying to kill a pair of humans.”

“He only cares about the bastard who attacked me. He’s trying to get revenge,” I corrected. “It’s a logical thing for a wolf to do.”

The fact that I’d mentioned liking said human wasn’t important.

“Well, you need to get him away from them,” Henry said, his expression growing critical.

My fists clenched at my sides. “You want to drop that judgmental attitude before I knock your lights out?”

His face twisted incredulously. “You still think you can take a werewolf, Char?”

“Iama werewolf,” I shot back. “And even if I can’t take you, you’d better believe my fucking savage mate would.”

Another cop came over. “Are you going after him, or should we take a gun out there? The main alpha is on his way.”

“I’ve got it.” My voice was hard, my anger harder. “Just back off, okay? You judgmental assholes only make things worse for him.”

I waved at Del, who looked about ready to launch into the fight herself.

Rocco held her back, nodding at me as I turned and jogged into the forest.

I would use nudity if I needed to, but… well, I didn’t want to. And I was pretty sure I could achieve the same thing without actually taking my clothes off, so I didn’t bother.

I didn’t want to see the bastard who had attacked me while he was trapped in his car—and really didn’t wanthimto seemewhile he was trapped in the car—so I headed just away from it a bit. Raising my voice, I called, “Oscar!”

There was no sign that he had heard me, but I was almost positive he had.

“I’m going to take my clothes off, and this tree is looking at me all lustily,” I called out, not so loud that anyone else would be able to hear unless they were in their wolf forms. “I think it wants to fuck me, and I do not have positive feelings about tree-sex.” I continued heading further into the forest, crossing my fingers hard that he was following me. “There’s probably a word for that, too, but I don’t want to google that shit because who knows what else I’ll find in the process. The last time I googled something sexual, I ended up learning about penis piercings, and I’ve never looked at a dick the same, and—”

A furry monster crashed into me, nearly knocking me over. He shoved himself between me and the ground, catching my body on his back, and then snarling at me as he curved his head around so he could more effectively chastise me.

“The main alpha is on his way, Oscar. He and I are kind of buddies, but he’s still a strict asshole. We’ve either got to hide until this shit blows over, or go out and face the music. That’s not the saying, is it? I can’t remember. But anyway, we need to decide. It’ll be better if you’re in skin while we decide that, too.”

I hoped that not-so-sly attempt at getting him to shift would work, but nope.

He ducked under one of my legs, knocked the other one over so I crashed onto his back, my arms wrapping around his warm body, and then darted into the forest.

My head bobbed as he ran, but my wolf didn’t try to make her way out. She was calm and quiet; she probably needed to be, to balance out Oscar’s insanity.

As he ran, my arms remained wrapped around him, holding him tightly but not fiercely. I wasn’t afraid he would drop me; he was way too possessive, and protective, for that.

And I really needed to stop talking about other men and their man parts, like yesterday. My luck would inevitably run out, and someone was actually going to die one of these times.

We ranfor what felt like forever before Oscar finally slowed down. I thought I heard murmuring off to our left a bit, but before I had time to think about that, my eyes landed on a tent.

It was nothing fancy—just a cheap pop-up tent. The zipper was closed, and I didn’t see anyone around, which was strange. I opened my mouth to ask Oscar about it, but before I could, he grabbed the zipper between his teeth and tugged the tent open.

My arms wrapped tighter around him as he stepped inside swiftly, and my back landed on some kind of soft padding a moment later.

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