Page 19 of The Awakened Wolf

Evan’s arms tightened around me, bulging with muscles beyond anything his old life at the gym could have granted. “I think there’s stale ice cream in the fridge…”

Kiana cleared her throat. “You know I could just bite him anyway.”

“No!” I cried, spinning so that I was between her and Evan, which is when I realized she’d just been trying to break up our display. “We’ll just have to ask one of the other new shifters if they’d like to give it a try.”

“Which of these zombies do you think is going to believe I’m not trying to kill them?” She shook her head and sighed. “I’d better just pick one and give it a try.”

I let go of Evan and grabbed Kiana’s arm as she took a step toward the nearest group of shifters. “You can’t, Kiana. They have to consent.”

Consent is sexy these days.

That’s your only coherent thought? Parroting Sebastian…

I remembered what had happened after my mate said this and every molecule of my skin heated with a blush. Whoever Kiana picked out for me at the end of the week, I was glad I’d given myself to Sebastian first. The memory was better than any movie.

“I don’t recall you asking for their consent when you bit them,” Kiana sneered.

I shook away my bittersweet thought. “But they were going to die. It’s not the—”

“I’ll do it.”

The quiet voice drifted from the play area with the animal statuettes. The room I’d thought was empty. When the speaker didn’t rise to show himself, the three of us filed in and surrounded him. He was sitting against the top half of a great white shark, the open jaws framing him like a novelty photo from Sea World. It was the young male with a hoodie pulled over his face. Given what happened to human faces during the transformation, I hadn’t blamed him. Now that they’d all settled back into their fully human forms though, it seemed odd he was still wearing it that way.

“Do you understand what you’re agreeing to?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice throaty and warm. “That one can maybe undo what you did to me. Without consent.”

I shrank back, coloring again. “I’m sorry. I was only trying to save your life.”

At the same time, Kiana snarled, “That one? This nobody thinks he can call me ‘that one?’ Who the hell do you think you are, human?”

Evan put his hand on Kiana’s arm. “Kiana, he’s not human anymore. Thanks to all of us. Give him a little leeway.”

Instead of backhanding Evan across the room, which I was certain was her first instinct, she merely shook her head, stretching her neck and jaw. “It’s a good thing for all of you that I’ve been working on patience as part of my leadership.”

“Look, I’m not trying to start trouble,” the young male said. “But my, uh, boss is going to kill me if anyone finds out, so please, I volunteer. Get this thing out of me.”

“Gladly,” Kiana grinned, fangs appearing.

She shifted, and the figure in the hoodie drew back, momentarily.

“Wow,” he breathed. “We’ve been getting that really wrong.”

“This is just an experiment,” I said. “You know it might not work, right? The bite will heal, but I can’t guarantee anything else.”

He nodded. “I was gonna die anyway, I guess, so whatever happens at this point happens.”

“Alright,” Kiana thought at him. “Take off the hoodie so I can get the right spot.”

He startled. “What the fu—”

“Language, pup!” Kiana roared, sounding eerily like our father.

“We can communicate this way when we’re in wolf form,” I added. Small comfort, I was sure, to know that hearing my sister’s bitchy commands inside his skull was normal. “Just do what she wants.”

“Ha. If only I could get you to do the same.” This was directed at me before she turned back to her target. “Now, strip.”

Hoodie Man hesitated, his shadowed eyes shifting to me. “She bit me with it on.”

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