Page 41 of Wolf Unseen

“Hey, dude,” I said. “How’s it going?”

He swayed on his feet, clearly confused about who I was, which was perfect.

“Yeah, um, banging.”

“Hot chicks, yeah,” I mumbled, not having a clue about how guys talked to each other.

“Smoking,” Travis agreed while leering at a female in a pair of hot pants and a glittery bikini top that barely covered her ample tits. “I’d rail her,” he grunted.

Were all guys this gross? Ugh.

“Say, I was hoping to hook up with a hot snow leopard shifter I met a couple of months back. You know the bitch?”

Travis scrubbed his jaw and frowned. “Snow leopard?”

“Yeah, pale blonde hair. Banging hot.”

“Nah, never met one of them. Aren’t they super rare and shit?”

“Dunno, dude, but she was a real smoke show.” I cringed internally at having to talk this way, but it was obvious such misogyny was the only language a wolf like Travis understood.

Spotting Travis’s friends heading back our way, I mumbled something about needing to take a piss and melted back into the shadows.

Once I was well away from the rest of the shifters, I pulled my phone out and fired off a message to Felix.

Me: Travis is a no.

We’d already discounted the lesser shifters, so that left six wolves and felines, one of whom was the candy-cane wolf sandwiched between two gorgeous female wolves wearing nothing but denim cut-offs.

I glared in his direction, but he was too busy letting the females rub their tits all over his chest to notice. Deciding I didn’t need to watch him get his freak on, I spun around and moved away.

The further away from the fire I got, the colder it became. It was lucky I had shifter blood in my veins, or I’d have frozen to death by now. Howls echoed through the trees as people started to shift and let their animals run free under the seductive light of the full moon.

Honestly, I was a little envious. If only my wolf wasn’t so fucking lazy and I didn’t have to worry about outing myself as a female, this would be a fun night.

The few times I’d shifted had been unpleasant, to say the least, although not as traumatic as my first time, which had happened unexpectedly after a row with my drunk mom. I’d seen shifters go full fur in seconds. One minute they were human, and the next an animal.

It had never been like that for me. My wolf resisted the shift, which meant the process was invariably painful and slow. For that reason, I rarely bothered unless she showed enthusiasm for it, which she almost never did.

Perhaps I had a defective wolf, I mused. She lifted her head and growled softly.

It sure feels like it, I huffed. Don’t you want to run under a full moon?

Her only response to my question was a loud sniff before she closed her eyes.

I followed a trail through the trees, skirting the edge of the party. A faint moan drifted over from a thicket, so I moved away to avoid the prospect of catching a dude I sat next to in class with his pants down. Eww.

Music from the party quietened. When I reached a rocky outcrop, I turned to head back toward the party, not keen on being targeted by over-excited wolves high on adrenaline. Before I got more than a few feet, I heard a female sobbing in distress, followed by an amused masculine chuckle.

My instincts went into high alert.

“Go ahead, scream all you want,” the male taunted as the female pleaded with him to let her go. “I’ll enjoy it more if you scream.”

My lips curved up in a grim smile as I picked up a thick branch from the side of the trail. That fucking honey badger shifter was about to get what he deserved.

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