Page 17 of Unforgivable

"He's an asshole," Ezra chimes in. "Pups!" he bellows out a second later.

Inuit and Sarj come tumbling into the kitchen. They must have been hiding just outside the doorway. Sarj runs over to me right away. "Ez don't like wolves in his k-kitchen," he whispers with an adorable worried look on his face.

"She was trying to help, Sarj," Ezra defends me.

"Still," he says doubtfully.

"Ah, Lyri, maybe don't help?" Inuit is looking into the slop bucket with a grimace. "I wonder if Chops will even eat this?" he mumbles.

Ezra sets down a dish of pancakes in front of me. They're cooked to perfection, just a slight golden brown on the outside.

"Eat, pretty. I'll take you outside after."

Sarj plops down in the chair next to me, ignoring the adult males' dual growls of disappointment. I grin at the pup. He's such a cutie, with dark, tight curls shorn close to his scalp and big, brown eyes that remind me of Dee and Dum.

"Thjis thinks you'll be able to ride today, but only if you sit in my lap. Is that OK, Lyri?"

I look at Rhet, startled. "Ride what?" I blurt out.

Both Rhet and Ezra snicker at my burning face. Yes, my mind did go there. How could it not?

"A horse, pretty," Rhet winks at me.

"Oh," I say slowly. Part of me is excited about the idea. Horses have to be carefully trained to accept wolf shifter riders. You can imagine they aren't thrilled at the thought of allowing a predator on their backs. Because of that, not too many shifters have even seen horses up close, let alone ridden them.

Part of me is, of course, nervous. "That might be fun," I say slowly.

"You'll love it," Rhet promises me with a wink. Standing, he takes the dish in front of him and places it in the dishwasher. When he moves, I watch how his shirt pulls tight over his stomach. He has nice muscle tone, good abs. It would be sexy, but there's no spark there, nothing that makes me or my wolf sit up and take notice. He's a good-looking wolf, but he's not our mate.

I bite my lower lip, hard, to keep it from trembling. Rhet may not be ours, but I can't be self-defeating right now. I have to make this work because the alternative for me is death in the wild. The snow from last week has melted away, but winter is closing in fast. My wolf and I are still weak and malnourished, despite Ezra's best efforts to feed us. I don't think my chances of survival out there on my own are very high.

So, I'll deal with the stress and fear of letting males touch me and the disgust that they're not my mate. Rhet is handsome. They all are. I just wonder if I can fake it til' I make it.

"Lyri?" Rhet murmurs in my ear.

I jump at little, only to realize that I've been staring at his stomach like a perv. "Sorry, just thinking," I rush out.

"Are you done?" he indicates my plate with a nod.

It's Ezra who snatches the plate from in front of me and scrapes it silently into the bin. Rhet scoops me up, ignoring Ezra as he bangs around in the kitchen. I peek at the other male over Rhet's shoulder, but Ezra doesn't look at us as we leave.

"It's a little warmer today," Rhet tells me in the mudroom. "I'll just put you in Inuit's jacket and his boots, and you'll be fine."

"OK," I try to help him pull it on myself, but twisting my torso puts added stress on my hips.

"There, let's go, hmm?"

The horses are beautiful. There are two in their stalls, side-by-side. One is a Quarter horse, and the other is an Appaloosa, according to Rhet. Not that the names mean anything to me. The Quarter Horse, named Wheat, is light, golden brown and the Appaloosa, named Demon, is black with a butt that looks like someone splashed white paint on him.

"This is Thjis' bud," Rhet tells me, scratching Demon's nose aggressively. "He's a sweet horse, but fucking mischievous as hell."

"Maybe he's mad because fate pranked him with the ass of a dalmatian."

Rhet's laughter spooks Demon into shuffling backward in his stall.

"Shit, pretty," he wipes tears of laughter off of his face, "the Appaloosa is a beautiful, highly-respected horse."

"Dalmatians are beautiful dogs," I protest.

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