Page 63 of Enslaved

I’m about five feet away from a break in the trees ahead, where I think I might get a glimpse of the town when a wolf, sleek and gray, darts in front of me, blocking my path.

I skid to a stop.

My breath wheezes out of me as I meet the wolf’s silver-eyed stare. It peels its lips from its teeth and snarls.

I swallow. “I know you want to kill me,” I say, a tremble in my voice, “and I guess I can understand why. But can you wait to do it until after I know my aunt is okay?”

The wolf lowers its head and snarls again as it takes a step toward me.

A rustle of leaves behind me signals something coming closer. I spin around, coming face to face with a familiar large gray-black wolf. “Oh, it’s you.”

Great, the wolf who tried to eat me as I hung out of Keane’s cabin is back to finish the job.

“Look, I know you don’t like witches, but you care about family, right? Pack is important to you?” My gaze darts from the two creeping wolves as my heart gallops harder and harder. “Aunt Mel is family to me. She’s my pack. Please, can I just—”

A new growl draws my gaze away from the two unblinking wolves.

A black wolf with furious green eyes prowls closer.

Another one. Great. Just great.

“Please can I—” The wolves charge me.

A shriek pours from my mouth as I fling myself to the ground. I make myself into a tight ball and protect my neck and face. All the while, I reach for the uncontrollable power that lives inside me and drag it out.

And because I’m trying to control it, nothing happens.

A furious growl followed by a bone-crushing thud makes me flinch.

When nothing hits me or rips me apart, I wait another few seconds. No wolves tear into me, so I take it as a sign that I might just live through this. Inch by slow inch, I peel my hands from my face and peek through one eye.

My gaze hits a bare ass about four inches from my face and I blink.Huh?When I open both eyes, the same deeply tanned ass that’s more than a little hot is still right there.

Okay, so I’m not just seeing things.

Unless the wolves killed me so fast that I didn’t feel anything and went right to an afterlife filled with hot guys with hot—

“I can feel you staring at my ass.”

I tear my gaze away at the sound of a familiar growl that tells me I’m not dead because the ass belongs to Keane Destin, who I imagine is a lot harder to kill than I am.

Keane swings around and when I glimpse the roiling fury in his eyes, I start wishing the wolves had torn me apart.

I clear my throat. “Um, about the power thing…”

“Get up,” he snarls.

I bounce to my feet, moving so fast my head spins.

He grips my arm in a clamp-like vice as he drags me toward the break in the trees that I was running toward. As he does, I cast a glance to my right and then my left. “Those wolves. Are they—?”

Keane’s tense jaw doesn’t relax even a little. “Gone.”

Right. He must have shifted and scared them off.I guess that explains the naked ass.My gaze dips, and my cheeks heat.And the naked everything else.

His long strides eat up the distance to the tree break I was so desperate to reach before. We emerge on a slope that overlooks the town, and after that, I stop caring about Keane being naked or whether the wolves will come back.

The ground rushes up to meet me.

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