Oz
Her family.I did a double take because it couldn’t be true what she had said. I could feel the eyes of my troop on me, their faces screwing up as they tried to work out why I hadn’t sensed what she was. They were doubting my abilities. Hell, I was doubting them. But I was still certain that Laura was human. Nothing about her, from her scent to the way she carried herself, said shifter. Not even a dire wolf, which I had thought were long extinct.
Except… My eyebrows knitted together as the memory flashed before my eyes. She had bitten me, claimed me just like a she-wolf would. She hadn’t meant to do it. It had been in the heat of the moment. Or so I had thought. Now I wasn’t so sure.
Had Laura known what she was doing all along? Had she purposely made the first mark in some vague hope that I would let her family off? What I felt for Laura couldn’t be described as love. Love didn’t even come close to my feelings, but the pack on this mountain needed to be stopped before they hurt any other women.
“Please, Oz.” Her pleading voice brought me back to myself with a start, and I turned my eyes to her with a frown. “Please don’t hurt them. They are just trying to survive.”
“Tell that to their victims, Laura.” God, I hated being angry with her. We were newly mated. This should have been a time of happiness, of coming together and cementing our bond. Her face fell. She shook her head over and over again as I started to talk. Telling her everything I knew. How women had been going missing on this mountain for decades. How they were found later, some alive and traumatised. Some were never found, or their bones were.
The creatures on this mountain weren’t shifters. Shifters protected those that were weaker than themselves, and they sure as hell didn’t rape women. These were monsters and it was our job to rid the world of monsters.
I snarled at the thought, and it was only a hand on my arm that warned me to control myself. I glanced behind me to where Ace was standing. One hand covering what needed to be covered and the other hand on my arm, easing me down from the anger that was threatening to take over me. Instantly, I could see why. Laura had shrunk back, her head ducked into her chest like she was shielding herself from a blow.
She was afraid of me. Scared that I was going to hurt her.
My mate, the woman I had tied myself to for life, was afraid of me. It was like someone had kicked me in the stomach. The air rushed out of my lungs as the reality of what I had just found out hit me.
“Laura?” Ace’s voice was quiet, soothing. But she didn’t lift her eyes. “Are you a shifter?”
She shook her head mutely.
“Your mother? Is she up on the mountain?” He was pumping her for information and I didn’t know why. We already had all the intelligence we needed.
“No, she died.”
My head snapped up at the pain in her voice. But I couldn’t say anything to comfort her. Not yet. Not until I knew everything.
“There are no females in the pack. There never has been. At least not that I can ever remember. Just me.” She shrugged. A barely there movement of her shoulders. “That’s why I have to look after them. That’s my job. It’s the only thing I can do to be of any use to the pack, well, until…”
“Look after them…what do you mean by that, Laura?” Ace’s voice was sharp.
Mine was sharper. “Until you can do what?” I had a sneaking suspicion that I didn’t want to know the answer to that.
“You know, bringing them food. Most stay in their animal form now, but some prefer to be human, so I make sure they have the necessities. Especially in the winter.”
It all made sense. Why she had been trudging down the mountain the morning I had first seen her. The way she lived in absolute poverty when she had a full-time job. Every penny she had went to looking after creatures who didn’t deserve it. And she did it because she felt obligated to. That she was honour bound to.
“You said something about that was your part until...until what?” Ace asked and I could tell by the strain on his face that he was thinking exactly what I was.
Laura ducked her head lower, trying to hide behind her hair as her cheeks flamed.
“Easy, Oz,” Ace murmured, but he couldn’t hide his own anger. “Until you were ready to breed?” His eyes scanned her. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-five,” she admitted. “But I am too valuable to take yet. Soon…” Her eyes turned wild. “You bit me.” She turned to face me. “Does that mean…?”
“You are claimed, Laura. Now and forever. If anyone in your old pack wants to challenge me, then I will rip him apart. But you are mine, have no doubts about that.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt, Oz, but they will want me back. I am the only female in the pack and that…”
Her words sliced into me. “They? They were going to share you around, weren’t they? You weren’t going to be claimed and adored. You were going to be used as a broodmare.”
“It is our way. It has always been that way. It is my duty.”
Three steps was all it took for me to get to her. Closing my arms around her, I pulled her into my chest and kissed the top of her head. I would have kissed her everywhere if I hadn’t had my men watching my every move.
She really believed that. She believed that her pack, her family, were doing this because it had always been done that way. She had grown up as a child thinking that was the way shifters worked. She had believed it was her duty to give her body to them.
