Page 84 of Rejected By the Winter Wolf

One minute I was washing my hands, and the next, a woman walked in, raised her hand, and I lost consciousness before I could fight back. Magic, of course.

I wake up miles away from the rest stop, with no sign of Kian.

And honestly, I’ve been trying not to have a panic attack.

I’m in the backseat of a truck, and two male shifters sit in front of me.

I don’t know what to do. And that goes for all fronts. Kian, this wolf shifter, my mother, the demons, the coven that attacked me. Burying my head in the sand isn’t an option, although I wish it could be.

The truck moves too fast to jump out. Too fast for Kian to catch up to us in his wolf form. And that lead me down another rabbit hole—do I want Kian to find me? To save me?

And my mother’s warning… You need to help him. In return, he’ll help you.

What’s to say she was even talking about Kian? Mate bond be damned.

Suddenly, everything is uncertain. Even my mother’s words, which float in my mind with an ethereal quality. Stuck there by magic, maybe, or grief.

The shifters that transport me say nothing the entire journey. And it takes a while. Hours. The whole way, I stew. I think I’d rather be unconscious. Instead, I rest with my forehead on the glass, considering my meager options.

My one attempt at conversation is met with a snarl, so I stay quiet.

At some point, we pass an invisible line. They both relax, tension bleeding away. They smile at each other.

Other wolves appear along the road to watch us pass. Their howls send tingling fear down my spine.

I can’t tell if they’re upset or happy. It all sounds the same. They could be mournful or excited, angry or elated.

A mansion rises out of the forest. We crest a hill, and I get a good look at the front of it. It’s made of dark logs and a thousand windows. Something moves in one of them, a quick blur of shadow, and my skin crawls with apprehension. My mind could be playing tricks on me.

As soon as the truck is thrown into park, there are men at my door. They open it and drag me out, binding my wrists with leather cord. I stretch my meager magic out, trying to sense the danger ahead. It snaps back at me tenfold, a knife plunging into my mind, and I almost black out. Only their grip on my arms keeps me upright. They hurry me toward the house, and my feet slide on the ground. My fight doesn’t matter. They easily outmuscle me.

I am deposited into a formal living room, where a man sits stretched out on one of two couches. He points to the other, and I slink over. I perch on the edge, trying to ignore the discomfort in my shoulders.

He brushes his finger along the barrel of the gun in his lap, then smiles at me.

I don’t know why he needs a gun. He smells like the forest. My mom would sometimes, too, from long days spent collecting herbs and plants. This is different. This scent is wilder, something dark and feral.

He’s a wolf, just like the ones that took me. Took instead of killed.

The entire known history of wolves versus witches has always ended in witches’ deaths. Every story whispered from the witches who came to stay in our cottage, spoken softly over crackling fires and with wide-eyed glances at my mother, was the same. Small covens wiped out, wolf packs raging out of control.

There are consequences for those actions. Consequences wolf shifters know nothing about. They probably don’t even consider it. I saw the way they handled the coven in Utah. It was with disregard–and probably disgust.

I press my lips together. If I become one of the countless fallen witches in the wolf shifters’ path to wipe us out, I’ll be just another consequence.

It’s not comforting. The witches who told such stories meant for it to be soothing, and maybe to some, it is.

Those stories haunted me at night. And if anything, they spurred my will to live.

When they try to kill me, I need to be ready. I need to fight back with everything I can and survive. Especially now. My mother is counting on me. I feel the small stream of magic inside me, resisting the urge to slip into it.

“You’re trembling, witch. But you’re not nearly as afraid as the first time I saw you.”

“Kian will come for me.” I lift my chin with some sort of false bravado.

“My cousin will certainly try,” he agrees.

Cousin.