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Iswear to the Luna, if I don’t go from skin to fur and run off some of this aggression and soon, I’m going to go feral on the first packmate that so much as looks at me funny.
And, yeah, it’s probably not the best thing to admit, especially given my recent bump in status, but I can’t help it.
To make my pissy mood worse, I’d put money down that they would just let me do it, too. As an alpha wolf, my off-the-charts dominance would have any lower-ranked shifters showing their throat in submission, but as their Alpha’s newly bonded mate? There isn’t a single wolf in Accalia that would dare lift a claw against me.
Damn it.
I know what’s got my wolf on edge, too. Even if we weren’t dealing with a monumental threat to the Mountainside Pack—a threat that I’m directly responsible for—the urge to tear off across the terrain isn’t all that unusual for my kind of supe, especially given my rank.
The moon calls to me. She’s always called to me. As a wolf shifter, the Luna is irresistible during the full moon, but even when she’s barely a sliver, like now, it’s almost impossible to escape her pull.
For the last year, I had to put on my big girl panties and figure out how to. Surprisingly, the secret turned out to be a half-gallon of Breyer’s and binging mindless TV in my pajamas. Made sense, after all. What’s the moon’s effect on a shifter but just a different type of cycle?
It shouldn’t be that bad tonight. It’s only been two weeks since the last full moon. Two weeks since I claimed Ryker Wolfson as my bonded mate, and I allowed him to mark me as his. Two weeks since I came for what was supposed to be a short stay in Accalia—a short stay that became frustratingly open-ended as soon as my birth father decided to make his daring move against us.
Just remembering his nerve has my wolf snarling, desperate to lash out at someone. And though my human side is short with everyone in Accalia lately, both me and my wolf are in agreement that there’s really only one target that I have in mind: Jack “Wicked Wolf” Walker, who not only made an informal challenge of my new mate, but who did the impossible. He made me willing to risk anything in the name of Trish freaking Danvers, even push my mate to his breaking point before he used our bond to convince me to sit tight until Ryker could figure out our next move.
That was a week ago. One week since the Wicked Wolf of the West used one of our packmates to steal another, leaving behind a taunting note for my mate.
You have my girl, Wolfson, and now I have yours.
Trish Danvers. Of all the females in the Mountainside Pack, my birth father snatched her to force me and Ryker to pay attention to him.
Of course it would be Trish. She was the one who told anyone who would listen that she would eventually end up Ryker’s chosen mate; chosen because the Luna already whispered that I was his fated mate. Her crush on Ryker made her easy pickings when Shane Loup manipulated her—and, well, me—to believe she was the one Ryker wanted for his mate.
Did Ryker’s former Beta tell the Wicked Wolf all about her after he betrayed his Alpha and traded Accalia for the Western Pack? Or did Walker have another spy in our midst?
We already discovered that one of the deltas who tended to the pack vehicles—a young wolf named Aidan Barrow—was working with Walker. He was the one who disappeared with Trish, leaving her spilled blood and the threatening note behind.
Was he the only one?
I don’t know. And the fact that I don’t has my wolf snapping at me to just go already.
I need to run. I need to break out into my fur and tear off down the mountain until my pads bleed and I’ve run past the worst of my guilt-fueled fury.
Now, I know all of the reasons why I’m not supposed to. As soon as Duke came to tell us about Trish, everything changed. My return to Muncie—to my job down at Charlie’s, and the townhouse that Ryker bought for me as a mating gift—was put on hold. As part of the Alpha couple, I was needed here.
And if you believe that, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you.
I’m an alpha. Only the second female alpha that our people have ever heard of. That means I’m worth something, and the bounty on my head is pretty freaking huge. But it also means that I can take care of myself.
Try telling that to Ryker.
He stops short of locking me in the cabin we share, but only just. When he’s not taking care of pack business, he’s up my ass, hovering over my shoulder as if he expects that he’ll blink and I’ll disappear on him.
As if. The year I believed he rejected me aside, I spent more than a decade waiting for the moment when Ryker would finally be mine. Now that I have him, I’m not going anywhere.
Except, perhaps, for a much-needed run.
He’s currently in the den of the Alpha’s cabin. After dinner, he said he needed to take care of something. He invited me to join him, but I was already halfway out the door, making my own excuses as night fell and the Luna beckoned.
I don’t ask for permission, mainly because I know that Ryker will refuse. Better to beg for forgiveness than waste my breath convincing my thick-headed, stubborn mate that the world won’t come to an end if I cross out of our immediate territory.
There’s a small grove in the trees that cover the mountains that I consider mine. It’s where I keep my baby—my beloved Jeep—and it’s so full of my scent that none of my packmates go near it. I’ve marked it as mine, and as I jog toward it, I’m already shucking off my shirt. Shoes are next, then my jeans. Underwear gets tugged off and folded, shoved in the back seat of my car until I need them later.
When all I’m wearing is Ryker’s mark on my skin and his charmed golden canine fang hanging on a chain nestled between my boobs, I tap into my inner wolf and shift. I go from a tiny blonde chick to a majestic blonde wolf in the blink of an eye.
I give my new form a few experimental stretches, bounding back and forth on my paws as I breathe in deep. The mountain air smells of pine and earth and the early autumn chill. A few fallen leaves crackle beneath my energetic pounce. Out of the corner of my eye, my tail whips behind me. Shaggy and just as pale as the rest of my fur, it stands out against the greens and browns and blacks of the woods. With a yip, I chase it, then dash out of the grove.
