Page 77 of Rejected Wolf's Secret Baby (Rejected Moons 4)

Emmy wails and reaches for me, and now Idostruggle against Lonnie’s hold, but it’s no use. I can’t get free. I claw and scratch at his face, but he grabs my arms and twists them behind my back. I slam my knee into his gut, and he lets out a puff of air—I know I’ve hurt him—but he holds onto me anyway.

I want to shift. The wolf is clamoring to come out. But Ican’t. If I shift, they’ll all shift. And if this turns into a bunch of wolves brawling, it would take a miracle for Emmy not to be badly hurt, or even killed.

They don’t care if she dies. Only I do. So I’m the one who has to try to keep this from escalating.

“Give her back to me,” I cry, reaching out for her. “Please!We’ll leave, I promise. I swear.”

Lonnie shakes his head. “It’s too late for that,” he says.

“What do you want to do, boss?” the man holding Emmy asks. “Should we kill her?”

My wolf comes ripping to the surface. I barely manage to keep It caged. I need to be human. There’s no way I can beat all of them if it comes to a brawl. My mind is more important than my physical strength right now.

“No,” Lonnie says. “We don’t need to kill her. She’s a part of my bloodline. We’ll raise her as our own. Kill the mother.”

“What do you want to keep her for?” his friend demands. “She’s notyours.”

“She could be, though,” Lonnie says. “She could be a strong member of this pack. And we can use all the strong allies we can get.”

“But her mother…”

“Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter who her mother is. Before long, she’ll forget all about these first few years of her life.

He talks about me as if I have nothing to do with him.

Honestly, it’s kind of freeing.

And it changes things. If Lonnie wants Emmy alive, it means they won’t let her be killed. It means I can let the wolf out now.

Immediately, the wolf understands and rises gleefully to the surface.

Lonnie notices the change in my stance. He looks down at me. “Fuck.”

“If you come near me,” I say, “anyof you, I’ll rip your throats out.” My hands curl, ready for the release of leaping into my wolf form.

But I restrain myself.

I’ll do it if I have to. But I’m still outnumbered, and if there’s even a chance I can talk my way out of this, I still have to try that first.

“You can’t fight us all off,” one of the men says.

“I can kill one of you,” I growl. “Which one’s willing to die for this shithead?” I jerk my head in Lonnie’s direction. “Because if you are, come forward and let’s do it.”

They hesitate.

I thought so. None of them wants to die to advance Lonnie’s position in the pack. They like him because he’s a bully, because he pushes people around and gets what he wants for himself and his friends. They’re not prepared for someone who bites back.

They’re not prepared for me.

Lonnie snarls. “She’s the only threat to me becoming alpha,” he says. “Don’t you all realize that? She’s the only thing that can stand in our way now. If we get her out of the way, the road is clear. Vern stood up against me tonight, so we can take him out too. By this time tomorrow morning, I’ll be alpha, and we’ll all be running this pack together.”

“He’s not going to let you help run the pack,” I say to the others. “This is Lonnie. He’s not going to share power with anyone else here, and you know that.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Lonnie says. “No one fucking asked you to talk.”

“Just give me my daughter,” I say. “I’m not going to challenge you for power.”

“Yes you are,” Lonnie says. He looks around at the others. “We know she is, because Brandon was with her. He abandoned us and ran to her. He was supposed to be keeping her from attracting a mate, but he fell for her instead. He’ll challenge for alpha.”

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