Page 10 of The Forbidden Wolf

“Because maintaining the mystery has always suited those among them who know damn well that we do.” He cringed and ducked his head. “Pardon my language.”

“What the hell has changed?” I demanded, ignoring his old-fashioned manners.

He peered up at me through his thick eyelashes, amusement dancing in his golden-brown irises. A small smile tugged at his lips. “Everything.”

Chapter Five

My alarm went off at the usual time of 6:30 a.m., completely indifferent to the later than usual night I’d had. I could still feel the Manhattan male’s fingers blazing hot trails down my spine, his teeth nipping tenderly at my shoulders, his tangled waves tickling my chin as I clung to his shoulders and—

In your dreams.

Right. In my dreams. Only in my dreams.

In reality, we had parted halfway across the Third Avenue bridge without so much as shaking hands. He had insisted on escorting me all the way to our official border and spent the entire walk shouting over the relentless wind about the anti-shifter movement that was snowballing through Manhattan and the outer boroughs. A lot of the elders in his pack blamed Alma Mater Animalis for leading people to believe shifters were amassing global armies and indoctrinating kids into our unnatural lifestyle at super-secret paranormal colleges. But my guy begged to differ.

Your guy?!

My casual acquaintance believed darker forces were at work here, pretending an insanely popular and critically acclaimed television show had made people afraid… in order to actually make people afraid. They were fanning the flames of a fire that had never been lit just so someone could come along and promise to put it out. Shifters were easy targets for this type of smear campaign, my platonic friend claimed, because of how we kept to ourselves and made sure any media got taken down. No one knew us.

It had taken only three news cycles for the KEEP U.S. HUMAN graffiti to start popping up in the subways. Soon, it boiled over onto the streets, and now people who had never given us much thought were looking over their shoulders, wondering when we were coming. My stomach had gone very sour at this point in the story—had Jayla been seeing this crap? Was that why she had finally opened up about her traumatic experience? What if she opened up to anyone else? Like, say, a news reporter?

Maybe I should tell her the truth…

Don’t you dare.

I covered my face with both hands, stretching my eyelids tight. My wolf was right, but there had to be some way of defusing Jayla’s fear of us before someone exploited her. The problem was that shifters didn’t really know each other either. I couldn’t vouch for anyone in the other packs. Maybe they did routinely eat people. No one could deny that people went missing in this city all the damn time. Hell, for all I apparently knew, the Bronx wolves might be out there eating people too.

“Ughhh.” I dragged my fingers down my face, tugging my lower lip down. It had been horribly embarrassing not knowing anything about any of this in front of the most attractive and articulate male shifter I’d ever met, but at least my ignorance had left him with the impression that I was a female of very low rank, maybe even a servant, and not the Bronx’s very own, utterly useless Alpha Spare.

Dread settled in my stomach, pinning me to my sweaty sheets as the alarm continued to blare. Our reunion at Kiana’s mateship ceremony was inevitable. Then he would know that I was actually a female of very high rank whose own father and sister hadn’t briefed her on such an important matter. Or else he would know that the Bronx Alpha and Alpha Heir weren’t paying attention to current events. Either way, our pack would look weak.

So now I had a real dilemma. Should I ask Father and Kiana if they knew about the anti-shifter movement? Just in case they didn’t? And if I did ask them, how would I explain why I knew about it? I could make something up, but if they did know about it, then they might already have information that would make my lie obvious. Would it be better to just come clean about my visit to Manhattan? Not every visit I’d ever made, of course. Just the one where I’d finally gotten caught.

Or maybe you should just mind your own business and trust that your superiors have their reasons for keeping you in the dark. Your loyalties are divided.

Yes, but they don’t know that. Do they?

She didn’t answer. Groaning, I rolled over and smacked my alarm off. Then I slid my hand under my pillow to search for my phone. A boot flashed through my mind, and the memory of pain shot through my empty fingers. I swore under my breath and withdrew my hand, holding it above my face while I gingerly flexed each finger. They had made a full recovery overnight, but my lazy ass had collapsed into bed without even bothering to wash the blood off. Gross.

I let my hand fall onto my chest and stared up at the ceiling. Charlie was no doubt freaking the fluff out over the absence of my usual ‘made it home, mom’ text. She might even call the police if my radio silence lasted past noon. That gave me about five hours to either get myself a new phone without anyone knowing or sneak back into Manhattan in broad daylight without anyone knowing.

A sharp beep cut through the early morning silence, and a moment later, the door to my suite exploded inward, slamming against the living room wall with enough force to tilt the framed portrait of my parents visible through my bedroom doorway. The lights flashed on out there, and I shot upright, tugging my sheets up to my chest to cover the Millennium Falcon flying across my sleep shirt.

“Elyse!” my sister bellowed. “Wake up!”

“Been there, done that!” I shouted back.

“Then get up!” She ordered, appearing as a dark silhouette with one hand on her hip and the other on my door frame. “We have a situation with Sebastian.”

My blood ran so cold, my heart turned into an iceberg. Sebastian was the Alpha Heir of Manhattan, my sister’s intended, and that was all that either of us knew about him. No pictures had been exchanged lest someone leak them to the media, so naturally I pictured him as a bright red, singing, dancing Caribbean crab. Normally, that image would make me smile enough to fake my way through any mind-numbing conversation with Kiana about their fairy tale future, but if she’d gotten wind of my escapades, it would be my twin who pinched my head off.

I took a deep breath. “Okay, listen, I can explain—”

“Can you?!” Kiana’s voice pitched unnaturally shrill. “Because I would love it if someone could! I was supposed to have three more weeks, and now I have less than thirty-six hours?! Make that make sense to me! I don’t even have a dress, Elyse!” She stalked into the gray light of my room. “How am I supposed to find the perfect dress, get everything waxed, and have my hair and makeup done so I don’t get mated looking like you by six o’clock tomorrow.”

We’re wolves. Why the fluff do we need to be waxed?

“Wait, what?” I blinked my eyes until some of the sleep crumbs fell away. “I think I missed something.”

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