Page 59 of Wolf It Down, Knot Me Up

“It’s okay,” Roman murmurs, his grin widening as another howl rolls through the trees around us. “They’re with me.”

Leaves rustle nearby, followed by the unmistakable crack of a branch, and I twist around quickly, my heart in my throat.

Grayson steps out of the trees to my left, and Wolf appears on my right, as though the forest has been hiding them all along. They don’t rush me. Instead, they simply close the distance, their smiles warm but their eyes pinning me in place. They’re gleaming yellow just like Roman’s.

Every instinct I have screams at me to run, but my body betrays me. And I’m between all three of them now.

Their hands find me first, then their mouths. Roman brushes a kiss beneath my ear, Grayson’s lips skim my jaw, and Wolf finds my throat, all three of them surrounding me. I’m melting into the middle of them.

Beyond Wolf’s bare shoulder, standing just inside the trees, is Jerry.

My Jerry. The first Alpha I ever loved, the man I thought I’d spend forever with. My heart slams so hard it hurts.

For one impossible second, I can’t breathe. Then the guilt suffocates me like a knife driven straight through my chest. He’s staring at me as though he’s walked in on the worst betrayal imaginable, his face drained of color, horror written so plainly across it that I can barely stand to meet his eyes.

“No…” The word catches in my throat. I shove against the three of them, panic exploding through me. “Jerry!”

But their arms only tighten around me. Their hold is unbreakable. I reach past Wolf’s shoulder, stretching toward the trees, toward the man who’s already beginning to disappear into the darkness.

“Jerry, wait…” My voice breaks. “It’s not what it…”

He shakes his head, slow and final, and my heart cracks straight down the center because he’s my Alpha. Then he vanishes into the darkness without glancing back, and I claw at the arms holding me, desperate to reach him, when a growl rumbles low at my feet.

Pausing, I stare down, and the three men are gone. In their place stand three enormous black wolves with their heads lowered and pale yellow eyes locked on mine. They take one slow step closer, lips curling back to reveal gleaming teeth, and my scream rips free just as they lunge.

I shove myself upright in the morning light, gasping as if I’ve been held underwater. My tank top is plastered to my back with sweat, and my heart is slamming against my ribcage. For one horrible second, the yellow eyes are still there, but then the wolves dissolve and it’s just a bed in a room.

It was a freaking dream.

I press both hands over my face and drag in air until my heart climbs down out of my throat. Beside me, Roman’s dead to the world, flat on his back, his breathing deep and even, that healing crescent I gave him dark against his neck, and the house around us is silent. The sealed bond sits behind my ribs exactly where it belongs, settled, humming low and content.

Then I remember Jerry in my dream, and I feel like I’m going to throw up.

The guilt sinks through my stomach. Except, nobody did anything wrong. But my body isn’t taking arguments this morning, because the wrongness isn’t in my head; it’s deep in my gut. A sick twist that feels as though the old bond with Jerry woke up somewhere down in the dark part of me. Which is insane.

I ease out from under the blanket one careful inch at a time and find my shorts crumpled on the floor. I shimmy into them without producing a sound, then make the mistake of glancing back at Roman.

He’s sprawled out, and my chest just about caves in because I’m absolutely stupid over this man. Pulling myself away from him right now feels like peeling off a layer of my own skin. Every cell I’ve got is voting to crawl back into that bed, tuck myself under his arm, and let the bond hum me straight back to sleep.

Which is exactly why I can’t—because the dream is still right there every time I blink. Jerry’s face, the wolves, and under it that awful conviction that I’ve done something there’s no coming back from. Maybe you can’t stuff a dead bond and a live one into the same body and expect them to share nicely. Maybe I’ve broken something in myself.

“Okay,” I whisper to myself. My sneakers are by the door, which is news to me, since I have zero memory of taking them off. But then again, most of last night is a smear of pain and euphoria, so I’ll allow it. I grab my robe, put it on, and cinch it tight, then I slip out of the room. And let myself out the front door.

The morning is cold, in a good way, and I gulp it down. The sun has barely cleared the ridge, and everything’s silvered with dew while birds are chirping through the pines. God, the mountains at this hour, there’s nothing like it, and I’d be swooning over it properly if I weren’t also, inconveniently, crying. Fat, stupid tears, rolling down my face for the crime of feeling like I cheated on my dead Alpha in a dream, which I know is ridiculous.

I’m heading down the porch steps and along the path, needing distance.

“You want me to chase you as Wolf did? Is that your thing?” Grayson’s deep male voice rolls out of the trees behind me, and the very first thing my traitorous brain coughs up is Grayson last night, on his knees between my thighs, which is not remotely where I need my head right now, and I cry harder.

Boots hit the track behind me, and he’s in front of me. “Hey. Hey, whoa, what’s this?” His whole voice drops. “Did I do that? Fuck, little bird, I take it back. I’ll never chase you anywhere. I swear on my life.”

He just wraps a hand around the back of my head and pulls me into his chest, all that solid heat, and I fall apart against him. He doesn’t say a word or tell me it’s okay but just holds on, one hand stroking my hair, the other flat and steady between my shoulder blades, and lets me soak his shirt.

When the storm finally passes, and I’m just hiccuping into his sternum, he hooks two fingers under my chin and tips my face up.

“Better.” His eyes search mine, and there’s nothing soft about how closely he’s reading me, as if he means to track down whatever hurt me and destroy it. “Talk to me. Did Roman do something? Is the bond not taking?”

“No. God, no, it’s not that.” I peel back out of his arms and wrap myself up in mine. Now that I’ve got a foot of space, I actually take him in, and it doesn’t help my composure one bit. Checkered shirt open at the throat, sleeves shoved up those inked forearms, jeans gone dusty at the knee, and boots. He’s dressed and ready to go swing an axe at the mountain. Except his shoulders are hiked up somewhere around his ears, and his jaw is set hard. “It’s not the bond. It’s, ugh. It’s all of it,” I explain.