My stomach tightens, fear that she may not want me shredding through my insides. Clearing my throat, I answer, “My queen.”
“Oh,” she murmurs, leaning back so now our faces are so close I can feel her uneven breaths against my lips. “And what’s wolf in Spanish?”
“Lobo,” I reply, my voice low and soft.
I’ve never been a religious person, difficult to be in my world, but sitting here with Callie in the back of my Tahoe surrounded by the forested night feels almost holy.
She keeps one hand to my chest and the other reaches to hold the side of my face. Her hauntingly beautiful grey eyes that can see into a person’s very soul slowly caress my features, following the planes of my brow, the slope of my nose, the jut of my cheekbones and chin, finally resting on my mouth.
Her thumb brushes my bottom lip, and in her rich, husky voice, she whispers, “Mi lobo.”
“Always,” I vow, turning my head and placing a kiss on the inside of her wrist.
From within me doubt and fear are washed away, and I feel clean and whole. No longer am I fighting against something-- simply trying to survive. Now my purpose is to protect, to nurture, and to thrive by her side. Even though I’ve bound my life to her, for the first time, I feel free.
As if he has a sixth sense for crushing new found hope, a familiar voice sneers from the darkness, “Disgusting. My strongest son willfully a witch’s lapdog.”
Adrenaline shoots through my veins, and my wolf presses hard beneath my skin. I shove Callie further inside, jump out of the Tahoe and close the hatchback door behind me, muffling her squawk of surprise.
Quickly, I kick off my boots, rip the t-shirt over my head, and I’m about to unzip my pants, when the Alpha walks out into the open. Lightning cracks across the sky, highlighting him in sharp relief… as well as the gun in his hand.
“What do you want?” I growl, hunched over and blood starting to drip between my fingers as my claws dig into my fisted hands.
“The girl,” he snarls, the hand with the gun in it shaking.
The Alpha looks half-deranged. His clothes are ripped and covered in dirt, dried blood caked around open cuts along his body, and his eyes are nothing but circles of amber surrounded by black.
“You can’t have her,” I declare, the words warped by my teeth shifting to my wolf’s that are better at tearing through flesh.
“Give her to me,” he commands with all the might of an Alpha, but I feel nothing now that even those tenuous threads have been cut.
“No,” I growl, pushing my jeans off and fully shifting to my wolf.
I never wanted this, and unlike all the times in the ring, there’s a strong chance I won’t make it out of this alive. As I start to pack away my heart, readying for battle, sorrow slips through my body. The Alpha may make a liar out of me tonight.But if I die, I’m taking him with me.
Surprise sparks across his face as he realizes I’m no longer his to control, followed by an ugly glare. He spits at the ground in front of me. “You chose a witch over your entire pack?”
I expect him to shift and fight me, wolf to wolf, but instead he shakes his head, like he’s trying to clear a nightmare that won’t let go. “Not me,” he mutters, pointing the gun at me. “She won’t get her claws into me, and if I have to go through you to stop her, I will.”
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Callie shouts, hopping to the ground from the back passenger side and stalking over next to me. She must have climbed over the back seat to get out.
Now as my wolf, I can smell the increasing volume of magic she’s calling into herself, like the burnt scent of torched sky mixed with the tingling chills of electricity. Dark laughter rides the growing winds followed by a powerful boom of thunder.
In a voice so cold I expect frost to start crawling from beneath my feet, she taunts, “You want to kill me? Go ahead and try. Stronger men than you have tried and failed, but leave Connor out of this.”
Shit.She’s a warrior used to fighting her own battles. I don’t know why I thought she’d stay cowered in the damn car.If I live, I need to remind her thatI’msupposed to be the guardian.
The Alpha’s attention zeros in on Callie and the shaking spreads from his arm to his whole body. Pricks of his claws break through the tips of his boots and grow from his fingers, but for reasons I can’t understand, he fights the shift.
“You won’t control me,” he shouts, hunched over and his breathing labored. “The pack ismine!”
“I don’t want you or your pack,” she answers, standing as regal as the queen I know her to be.
Expressions I’ve never seen before wash across the Alpha’s face. Loss. Vulnerability. Soul crushing pain over her rejection that nearly drops him to his knees, and that’s when I understand.The Call. He’s trying to fight it.
“You bitch,” he grinds out, taking the gun with both hands.
When he lifts the gun toward Callie, I leap and tackle him to the ground, one shot going off with his fall. The pop is so loud that for a second I’m disoriented, all sound gone except for a high pitched ring.
