Page 2 of Pregnant Wolf's Mate

“Sorry, princess, but walking isn’t really an option right now,” Ray said, glowering at her, and the way he called her left her more than a little flustered.

Maybe if she wasn’t predisposed to automatically hate him thanks to their family rivalry, she might have actually found Ray McCormack good-looking. Six foot two with dark-blond shaggy hair, chocolate brown eyes, and facial hair, he was definitely one of the more attractive wolves in the pack. He was muscular, broad-shouldered, and looked like he might have been able to pick her up and chuck her right into the backseat if he really wanted to.

And somehow, all of that only infuriated Macie more. Whenever she looked at him, she felt frustration clawing at her insides. On the one hand, she always felt the need to lash out at him for being a McCormack but on the other, well, that didn’t bear thinking about either.

If not for the fact she had been unable to make a connection with it, Macie might have blamed her conflicting feelings on her inner wolf. After all, wolf shifters were well known for their high metabolisms and even higher libidos. Finding a rival within the pack attractive wasn’t exactly the end of the world. But when that rival was Ray, the guy who always acted as though he was the big bad wolf, it was more than a little infuriating.

“Are you going to stand there staring at me all day, princess, or are you going to get in?” Ray hissed under his breath, the sound grating against Macie’s eardrums. “I can give you a hand if you like.”

The thought of Ray putting even a finger upon her made her skin shiver, though she couldn’t have said whether that was a good or a bad thing, and so she quickly shoved her bag and water bottle into the backseat ahead of her.

“I call shotgun,” Lottie called even though that was a given. And Macie rolled her eyes as her sister flitted around the back of the pickup to come up the other side and throw herself into the passenger side seat.

“Watch yourself, princess,” Ray warned as soon as she had slumped down into the backseat. He slammed the door shut behind her before she could even attempt to yell at him to stop calling her that. Just because she was a Silverdale, practically seen as royalty in Silverdale, didn’t mean that she liked the idea.

It was even more vexing when it came along with a tone such as the one that Ray was giving her. He most definitely wasn’t using the nickname as an endearing term.

Without bothering to put on her seatbelt, Macie crossed her arms over her chest and huffed a deep breath as Ray climbed into the driver’s seat and shoved the key into the ignition.

“That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” he smirked in the rearview mirror at her before kicking the pickup into reverse.

Getting into the pickup wasn’t hard at all but what came next, Macie was certain it would be the hardest thing she had ever done in her life.

Chapter 2 - Ray

As if all the extra guard and patrol shifts he had been getting since the old alpha passed weren’t enough, Ray absolutely loathed finding himself on babysitting duty. He had far better things to be doing than chasing after the cousins of the alpha all because they were so damn privileged they couldn’t keep to their responsibilities. In fact, he would have been happier doing just about anything else, including guarding the demon wolves that still found themselves locked in the cells beneath Silverdale Manor, and that job was the shittiest job he’d had in a while, boring and lonely and stinking of brimstone.

Stoically silent, Ray drove them all back to the manor from the university, his teeth gritted so tightly that it caused his jaw to ache. And though he kept his eyes upon the road ahead for the most part, whenever he glanced in the rearview mirror, he couldn’t help but catch sight of Macie’s face in the backseat.

She was sitting slumped in her seat with her arms folded across her chest, glaring out at the world that quickly passed them by. Ray had never really been one for driving slowly. But he was pretty certain it wasn’t the speed or anything to do with his driving that was causing the painfully thoughtful look upon the young she-wolf’s pale, freckled face.

It’s none of my business, he told himself firmly. Whatever was going on inside her mind, it was for her to deal with. All he had to do was get them back to the manor on time before Dash flayed him.

And yet, the more he tried not to look in the rearview mirror, the more he found himself doing just that. By the time they arrived at the gates of the manor, he felt as though he had almost crashed the pickup several times due to the stupid distraction upon the backseat. He told himself it was the tension he could feel coming off her in waves, the tension his wolf could feel as though it were needles sticking into his pelt.

But deep down it was something more than that. He decided it was better not to even think about it as he killed the engine the moment he parked the pickup in the forecourt of the manor.

He had barely removed the key from the ignition before he was throwing himself out of the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind him before he yanked open the backseat door for Macie.

And it was as she slipped leisurely out, just as if she were taking her time about it to annoy him, that Ray finally noticed something. Macie wasn’t a little girl anymore. Though he had been fourteen when her mother had pupped her and he remembered the little pink squeaking baby she had been all too well, she now stood before him a woman. With her raven-black locks, her caramel freckled skin and her charcoal-black eyes, she was more than a little attractive. Not to mention the athletic yet curvaceous figure that had been gifted to her in the last couple of years.

And after tonight, she would be a fully-fledged wolf shifter with every opportunity to find herself a mate thanks to her position in the pack.

Growling to himself, he thought, Don’t even think about it. Though a fourteen-year age gap was nothing between wolf shifters when they could live into their hundreds, there was no way in hell he was going to allow himself to get involved with a Silverdale, especially not Macie Silverdale, the most sour-faced and moody she-wolf in the pack.

At the very last moment, right as she leaned over to grab her bag, Macie stumbled from the pickup, and instinctively Ray rushed to grab hold of her. And that's when he felt her womanly body pressed against his own, an instinctual growl erupting from his throat.

As if she sensed what it meant and the thought disgusted her almost as much as it did him, she yanked herself free of his arms, glowering at him as though he had no right to lay hands on her.

Yet the moment that their eyes connected, Ray felt the urge to grab hold of her again, to shake her until the look drained from her face. It was more than a little annoying. He had no control over the feelings of his wolf, but he could sure as hell control his human self.

It's just been a while since I had a good fuck, he told himself, taking a firm step away from her. He reached for the door to shut it the moment she stepped out of the way.

"You better get inside before your parents come out here and tear me a new one for not delivering you on time," he said, urging her inside with a wave of his hand.

Even out of the corner of his eye, he saw her glowering at him. "I'm a person, not a package."

Her fiery nature and willingness to keep him on his toes set something alight inside him, something he knew he needed to quench as soon as possible. He was a McCormack. She was a Silverdale. There was no way…

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