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Jackson stepped out of the way. “Best get him out on the roads. Pulls at the bit something fierce.”
Aiden ran a hand down the horse’s neck, and he immediately quieted. Their main stables had rejected the horse for a heap of bad habits, but Aiden didn’t want to break them and break the horse, too. “He does fine.”
He walked the horse out and put a heavy hand on Jackson’s shoulder in silent thanks and apology. He swung into the saddle and let Bonanza find his way out of the building.
“Pity,” he thought he heard his cousin say, but ignored him.
He wound through the forest and onto pack lands, normally the best part of any trip, but every nerve was on high alert. The scent of blood had not faded. His wolf was riled, and Bonanza was picking up on his paranoia, dancing over the trail and tossing his head with every step.
When he got near his house, he slid off and dropped the reins. The horse stood stock still; even his breathing seemed to quiet. Bonanza failed out of the main stables because he never behaved. He never behaved because he was smart as hell and bored. At the first hint of a real challenge, the horse transformed.
Aiden stood still, senses straining. The forest was silent except for a few mice and birds. When his beast caught the scent of a wolf, he was shifting before he could stop to think.
“It’s him!” a boy yelled.
They’re kin. Stop it!he told his wolf desperately.
“Don’t shift. He’ll kill you!” another shouted.
“Don’t run, neither!”
One idiot didn’t listen, and by the time Aiden had enough control to understand what was happening, his beast had his teeth around the throat of a huge white wolf.
This was the other reason he could never be alpha, and why the wards around his house worked just as well to keep him in as they did to keep everyone else out. He didn’t have control of hiswolf, not when it got like this. Nothing stopped its blind rage—not dominance, not fighting, not him.
“Don’t, Aiden, he didn’t mean no harm…”
It didn’t matter.
Aiden struck, and the others shifted to come to the defense of their cousin.
The scent of blood was coming from their fur. They’d already been in one fight today.
He could also smell something else on them, especially Buck, the ringleader. It was a tantalizing scent.
When Buck got too close, he bit down on a leg and tasted the blood of his own family—and something else.
Taste of heaven,the beast sent him, not with words but with a rush of saliva. His grip slackened.
“He let go. Run!”
For once, the beast let them.
What are you doing?He winced.Not that I’m complaining.
Two naked boys and a gaggle of wolves flowed away from him.
The wolf turned in the opposite direction toward his house, sniffing as he went.
Let me out,he begged the beast.
It ignored him.
He wouldn’t get through the door as a wolf. That was the whole point.
If dinner is in the house, you can’t get to it.
Grumbling, the beast finally let him shift, and he flowed back into his human form between one breath and the next, wincing at a sharp rock under one knee the wolf hadn’t noticed.
