Page 44 of Rejected By the Winter Wolf

Her smile falters. She knows what I mean without saying it.

Outside, Matteo stomps the dust off his boots. The door opens, and he enters his home.

He’s huge, and larger yet as a light-brown wolf. He was one of my uncle’s sigmas. A loner type, only in the pack by choice. He’s composed of giant muscles and a gruff smile under a thick, graying beard that would make a mountain dwarf jealous.

Unfortunately, dwarves are in the make-believe category, along with fairies and Santa Claus.

Anyway, they fell for each other hard and fast, the mate bond singing between them.

It’s funny how I used to think the mate bond was some foolish, invented or exaggerated thing. How could you feel another person echoing inside you? How could fate put your perfect match on this earth for you to find—and then make it a challenge?

As they like to tell the story, Erin made the first move. She snuck up on him and attacked, and their fate was sealed.

He fell rather quickly, too. Why wouldn’t they? Only an idiot would fight destiny…

“Alpha,” Matteo greets me. “What brings you by?”

“Woman trouble,” Erin tells him.

She might be the only elder who can raise a blush to my cheeks. I’m suddenly thrust back into adolescence, running to them after my father tried to pair me with another woman in our pack. I didn’t understand, at the tender age of fourteen, what he expected of me until she took her shirt and bra off. The nudity itself wasn’t shocking. I expected her to burst into her wolf form. But she left her skirt on and… touched herself. Cupped her breasts and pushed them up like they were an offering to me.

Then it clicked—and I bolted straight for Erin and Matteo.

They found the situation somewhere firmly between horror and amusement, trying to stifle their laughter at the predicament I found myself in, while also mortified that my father was trying to pair me up so young.

“This ought to be good.” Matteo chuckles. He sits beside his mate, running his hand up and down her back. “Who’s the lucky woman?”

“A witch,” Erin supplies. She leans into his touch. “Who else for our Kian?”

“No need to sound so gleeful.” I roll my eyes. “And it’s not good. She’s impossible.”

Matteo hums. “You know, it’s been a hundred years, give or take, since an alpha wolf fell in love with a witch. Look how that ended.”

Ouch.

“Are you trying to dissuade me? Because I don’t need the pep talk. My wolf does.”

“No, no.” The older man holds up his hands in surrender. “Not dissuade. But perhaps…”

“Perhaps what?” I stare at him. “You think I should even entertain it? I thought you’d agree with me that she’s dangerous. I’d rather kill her and damn myself than take on another curse. I can’t repeat my ancestors’ mistakes.”

Matteo glowers at me. “You take everything so seriously, Kian.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “My wolf wants her, but the mate bond would be impossible to complete. Even if both of us want it, it would make us linger in some almost-bond.” I let my gaze drift to the ceiling. “And trust me, neither of us are entertaining this.”

“So she knows?” Erin asks.

“No.” I frown. “I don’t think so.”

She smiles, but I can’t even consider that future.

The last witch-wolf relationship ended with a fucking curse on both our species. Well, mainly on ours. But it turned us into the monster that lurks behind the witches, the nightmares that live in their heads, and that seems like a punishment on them, too.

“You could change things.” Matteo takes Erin’s mug into the kitchen.

I sit back and sip my tea, discontented. I was hoping they’d make me feel better. They’d tell me to get rid of her, and that would make it easier to follow through.

“Why did you bring her here?” Matteo asks when he returns.