Page 28 of Outside the Pack

The wolves shifted back into their human forms and dressed in the clothes they’d tied in bundles to keep with them. They stretched and talked amongst themselves while I found another stash of my clothes for her to wear. I handed them to her, and she accepted with a brief nod. I turned my back to allow her to change, and I stood in front of her so that none of the men nearby could sneak a peek at her body.

After she’d changed, I found a felled tree to sit on. I patted the spot next to me for Bryn to sit.

She wore my dry clothes, practically drowning in them because they were so big. Her body swayed a little with fatigue, and I could hear her heartbeat racing. Though she was clearly unwell, she raised a haughty brow as if to say, What? I’m fine.

I sighed. “You’re obviously still in shock and exhausted, unsurprising given last night’s events. Let me help you.”

She frowned, shifting from foot to foot.

I thought she would resist me further,r but to my surprise, after a sigh, she came willingly. She sat next to me, and I wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her flush to my chest. She fit nicely against me as if she was meant to be there.

“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” she muttered under her breath.

“Because you need to rest.”

That seemed to be enough of a reason for her. She leaned against me, and with another sigh, she nuzzled into me.

Concern twisted in my gut, and I felt an answering whine from my wolf. She’s yelling at me one minute, practically cuddling with me the next. The trauma of Redwolf’s treatment of her…She’s clearly confused. We need to get home as soon as possible so she can be somewhere warm. Safe.

Of course, I needed her to be healthy if I was going to use her to get to Troy, but more than that, the idea of her being so upset made my chest ache. But I didn’t have time to look into those sorts of worries. I needed to keep my mind on my goals, namely, to end the Kings’ reign and take over the pack that should have been mine all along.

It was so hard to keep my mind focused on anything beyond Bryn. I put on a show of not caring what she did or said or responding to her when she spoke, but in truth, she was impossible to ignore. Every move she made, every sound that slipped past those plump, pink lips had me riveted. And her smell…she was so sweet, so intoxicating. It took everything in me not to press my nose into her hair and inhale deeply.

I couldn’t do this. The urge to be intimate with her, to hold her with both arms and to taste her lips the way I had in so many dreams was maddening. When the urges became too strong, I pulled away from her despite my wolf’s protesting whine.

“You feel better now?” I asked.

She looked up at me, blinking slowly as if she were coming out of a dream. Her hair had fallen into her face again, and she brushed it behind her ear.

“Y-yeah, I think so.” She nodded.

“Great.” I sat up too quickly, almost knocking her off the trunk. “Dom, I’m going to scout ahead for a few miles.”

Dom met my gaze across the clearing. “Got it. Let me know if you need anything.”

I nodded. I would have shifted right there, but given the way Bryn looked away from my pack when they were nude, I decided to do it behind tree cover. I jogged away from the clearing. When I was a few yards away, surrounded by trees, I stripped off my clothes and shifted.

In my wolf form, I shook out my thick, black fur and stretched. My senses were heightened now, and my reflexes were sharper. The air was a vector for smells and sounds and tastes. I pawed at the ground, scenting the soil to orient myself, and then I began to run. I wove between the trees like a shadow and ran a few miles ahead to check out the path home.

The run allowed me to relax. By the time I returned, I felt I had finally gotten rid of the pent-up emotions and impulses after twenty miles (ten toward the camp and ten back) of running. But after I’d shifted into my human form and gotten dressed, I emerged from between the trees to find Bryn talking to Dom. They weren’t standing close to each other, there were still a couple of feet between them, but he’d managed to put a slight smile on her face—the first one I had seen from her since I saved her from Troy.

My heart began to pound at the sight of her face—the way her cheeks lifted, the slight spark in those beautiful, gemlike eyes—but my wolf growled at Dom’s proximity to her. In that moment, my wolf almost saw Dom as an enemy, someone who could never be near her like that. Fortunately, the run had tired my wolf enough for me to take control. Instead of going over and pulling Bryn to my side, I made a brief, sharp whistle, calling my team to attention. Dom immediately jogged from Bryn’s side to mine.

Good, I thought, my wolf calming. It was a much more diplomatic solution to the issue than snapping at my beta in front of my pack. “The path ahead is clear,” I announced. “Let’s get moving.”

The group trudged onward. After a few hours, we decided to set up camp a few miles from the river. I could still hear the sound of the river rushing. I directed my team to begin setting up camp and instructed Jasper to kill a rabbit and set it up to cook by the fire. My team could go longer without food while remaining strong, but I’d heard Bryn’s stomach growling as we walked.

I heard it growling again as my team got to work on the camp, but she was further away from them—already almost a mile north, following the flow of the river rather than trying to cross it. She was trying to escape. Again.

I sighed as Dom came to stand near me. “I’ll give her this,” I said, listening to the crunch of branches underfoot and smelling her sweet scent on the wind, “she’s resilient.” And stubborn.

Dom chuckled. “She’s a spitfire, for sure. Should we send someone for her?”

“Not yet. Let’s let her run for a little while longer just to tire herself out.”

“Understood.”

I continued to feign disinterest around Dom and my people, but I never stopped listening to her footsteps. I heard when she stumbled and when she coughed. She’d made it a decent distance away despite the rough terrain and her oversized clothes—almost two miles from the sound of it—but when her pace began to slow, I had Dom bring her back.

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