Page 3 of Claimed By the Feral Wolf

She looked around for a stick or anything to fight with when a streak of something hit the man that held her. Sage fell to the ground and tried to wipe the sweat, tears, and blood off her face to see what was happening. All she heard were screams, thrashing, and horrible growls.

She pushed her back up against a tree. The first thing she saw was horrifying. A few feet away, one of the men lay with his eyes open and staring sightlessly upward. But it was the fact he had no neck left that had her scrambling to her feet.

Several yards away, the black thing was tearing the other man apart. She had known she had a slim chance of getting away from the men, but there was no chance with the wolf.

The wolf turned to her. The killing look in its eyes and the blood dripping from his mouth were enough to have black spots in her vision.

No, she couldn’t faint like some damsel in distress. She was tougher than that. She turned and started to climb the tree … because wolves didn’t climb, did they?

The growling stopped, but she didn’t take the time to see why. She was only a few feet off the ground when she felt a human body against her back. She screamed. She thought the thing had killed the men. There was no way they could have survived the vicious attack.

“Easy, mate.”

She cried out and tried harder to get further off the ground, but her bloody hands, terror, and lack of strength made it impossible.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the man said.

The words he said didn’t penetrate.

She tried to slap him when he pulled her off the tree and into his arms.

“Enough,” the man growled.

Every bit of strength she had left vanished when she looked up into the wild brown eyes of a man she’d never seen before. The final straw was how his face contorted into the wolf for a second and then back to the man.

The world around her faded, and she closed her eyes. There was nothing left to fight for. She’d finally lost her mind. Maybe it would make dying easier?

She was jolted awake for a brief moment as the man took her clothes off. He lowered them both into a warm water pool, holding her tightly against his naked chest.

Was this when the rape happened? “Oh, God. No.” she tried pushing away from him, but it was like moving a boulder.

“Easy, mate. No one will ever hurt you again.”

For some inexplicable reason, she believed him or was so desperate for a chance to survive that she’d take any sort of hope she could get. She nodded. “Okay.” Then she fell into a deep sleep.

She was in and out of consciousness as she felt her back against silky sheets, and then a warm blanket surrounded her.

Her last thought was that she had finally found the place she’d always been looking for.

Chapter Three

Jacob was relaxing in the hot spring pool when several scents hit him at the same time. He almost thought he’d lost it but then heard a woman crying.

He changed into his wolf as he ran over the ground. The closer he came to her, the madder he got. For some reason, her scent made him feel things he had never felt before. He didn’t try to analyze it then because he could also feel and smell the pain and terror the woman was going through.

When he got to the edge of the clearing, he saw one man hitting a woman and another standing off to the side. His first victim was the man touching his mate. He almost froze in his tracks. Fuck, where did that come from? He wanted to think more about it but needed to finish the men who dared touch her.

The first man screamed when Jacob grabbed onto his leg and pulled him away from the woman and onto the ground. It stopped suddenly when Jacob tore out his throat. He didn’t stop to check if he was dead. He already knew. No one could live when the only thing holding his head to his body was a spine and a bit of skin.

The other man took off but only got a few feet before Jacob tore into him. When he finished with the man, he turned to see the woman fight to stand and then try to climb the tree to escape him. Jacob understood her fear, but it still angered him that she would run from him. He didn’t try to contemplate his craziness. It was instinct, and he couldn’t fight it.

He turned back into his human and walked toward her. She flinched and cried out when he touched her back.

“Easy, mate.” He tried to soothe her the best way he could, but he’d never had to deal with a female before. The fact he knew in his soul that this was the woman the universe gave to him made him feel like a new man, like he’d been reborn.

He was almost glad when she passed out. He hated the fear, pain, and confusion he knew she was dealing with, and he could do nothing about it.

He got them back to the spring he’d been bathing at and took off her torn, dirty, bloody clothes, gritting his teeth because of the urge to howl and tear the men apart again when he saw all the cuts and bruises all over her. After bathing her, he wrapped her in the towel he’d brought. He took her to his cave and laid her on the bed.

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