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“Aiden, no!”
This wasn’t Aiden. This was Aiden’s wolf, three hundred pounds of predator bent on defending her.
He lunged for Nathan’s throat.
14
Minutes Earlier
Aiden pounded on Buck’s door.
He’d tried to write for a solid hour. Three hundred words later, he’d finally abandoned his imaginary world. His wolf kept prodding him that something was wrong. His beast wasn’t known for being rational or careful, so he tried to ignore it. But what if it was right, and he was just sitting here?
He had to risk the wolf.
Nothing moved in Buck’s house, and he pounded on the door again.
Something rustled in the woods fifty feet behind to his left. The beast turned them without his order. He tried to wrestle back control. He didn’t know for sure, but it felt like his control was getting worse whenever he was away from Goldie.
She’s with your mother and the horses.Nowhere was safer.
The wolf zeroed his eyes on a tree.
“Come on out.”
A boy, Carter, peeked his head around the tree, saw Aiden, and tried to lean casually against it.
The wolf’s hackles rose.
He’s seventeen,he reminded the beast as he started toward him.A child.
The wolf sent him an image of Carter’s wolf, a gigantic beast with pure white fur. The wolf was right; he was not a child.
He’s not legally an adult, he tried again, but the beast didn’t understand the concept of tomorrow let alone the concept of law. To it, laws meant it could not rip someone’s throat out but had to wait for an elder without a wolf to judge whether the party had done something worthy of getting their throat ripped out. Worse, then they received a punishment that was not getting their throat ripped out.
Carter had been there during the kidnapping, and while he technically hadn’t harmed Goldie, he hadn’t stopped Buck. Aiden reminded himself, human and wolf, that Carter was less dominant than Buck, and there was very little the boy could have done. Not everyone had his wolf’s ability to defy hierarchy and inflict violence on whoever they wanted.
“Where’s Buck?” he asked when he reached the boy.
Carter shrugged, still trying to look nonchalant and failing miserably.
“Where is he?” Aiden repeated. He took one step forward and stumbled when he stepped on the edge of the path and lost his balance. It happened when the wolf was close.
He still wasn’t anywhere near shifting, but Carter jumped back as if he’d attacked. He showed his throat like Aiden was a dominant wolf. “Your mom came and got him. Said she found his horse.”
“What did you say?” His mother had fetched Buck? “When?”
Carter shrugged uneasily. “Thirty minutes ago, maybe?”
“My mother? Was Goldie here?”
“Who?”
Rage choked him for a second, but fortunately, it was human rage. Carter had taken her from her home, and he didn’t even know her name. His wolf didn’t know anyone’s name, so to it, this didn’t count as an insult.
“The witch. The witch you kidnapped. Her name is Goldie Abbott.”
“Ms. Abbott wasn’t with your mother.”
