The Wild Wolf’s Rejected Mate (The Five Packs Book 5)
The Wild Wolf’s Rejected Mate: Chapter 16

Run! Run! Run!

I squat as low as I can in the wildflowers and tear off my clothes.

A few yards away, Killian and Justus are murdering each other. Tye, Ivo, and the rest are just watching, and no matter how much I scream, no matter what I say, their wolves don’t listen.

And the Salt Mountain wolves are up to something. They’re edging away from the fight toward the trail to camp. Quarry Pack is so intent on the fight, they either don’t notice or don’t care.

I have to get to Khalil, and my wolf is faster.

Run into the woods! The woods!

I huddle in the tall grass and summon my wolf. For the first time in my life, she’s ahead of me, bursting through our skin before I’m ready, assuming form like she’s surfacing from water rather than tearing herself free from bone and muscle.

She runs away from the woods, toward the trail. The Salt Mountain wolves have gotten ahead of her, so she hangs back, keeping low and downwind.

Turn around! Now!

What are they doing? They can’t think to attack Last Pack. They’ll be vastly outnumbered. By old Rodric and timid Elis and Tarquin the cook and sweet Max and—

They aren’t fighters. Not like Quarry Pack and Salt Mountain. These skulking males who reek of aggression are going to spill into camp, and if our males are at the bonfire, maybe Alroy and Khalil and the others can head them off, but if the Salt Mountain wolves head straight for the sycamore, they can get to the females and pups before anyone has the chance to stop them.

My heart sticks in my throat. I need Justus. I need to get him to help. I’m not big or strong enough on my own, never, never strong enough. I scream and scream, and it’s like my voice is the crickets chirping.

Hide! Hide!

Get Khalil.

The Salt Mountain wolves pace so stealthily, and every second I’m watching them, Killian might have killed Justus. My mate might have killed my alpha.

Turn around!

If I turn around, what can I do? I can’t stop them. I’m too small, too weak.

Hide!

The voice throws up a memory, the underside of an old leather couch, the warped slats, the dust cover ripped at the seam. My stomach revolts. My wolf swallows the puke down. No time for this. No time.

The Salt Mountain wolves have reached the crest of the hill and are gathering at the narrow entrance to camp. They exchange greedy, sly glances. Their rancid eagerness wafts behind them, singeing my wolf’s nose, searing her eyes.

What do I do?

What can I do?

I’ve got no witch, no knife. I’m small and weak and alone. Again, again, again.

Go back. Hide. The voice is whispering now. Cajoling.

On some silent signal, the Salt Mountain wolves burst into motion, streaming through the gap in the rocks, howling a rally cry that echoes off the hills and freezes the blood in my veins.

Turn around and run!

In the distance, a pup screams.

I run.

My wolf pumps her legs so fast that she skitters and stumbles and then staggers forward until she regains her balance, and then she sprints into camp, straight for the sycamore.

At the bonfire and smokehouse and work sites and tents, Last Pack males shift, their wolves racing for the pups and females, too, but they’re coming from every direction toward a single place, in essence, funneling themselves, and the Salt Mountain wolves anticipate it.

Every Salt Mountain wolf but one forms a line to lasso the Last Pack males, their two strongest quickly engaging Khalil and Alroy’s wolves while the others outflank our males to the left and right.

Salt Mountain’s line can’t possibly hold against our numbers, but it’s holding for now, and their lone wolf, a supernaturally large beast, is loping unchallenged for the sycamore tree. For the pups. Efa.

Run!

I race for the females’ fire.

Faster!

My wolf’s lungs and legs burn. The air rings with guttural growls and screams and howls.

On your left!

I dodge right, narrowly missing a Salt Mountain male. Two of ours were on his tail, and they tackle him, rolling together in a ball of fur and fangs.

My wolf’s paws eat up the yards to the sycamore, but the lone wolf is already there, herding the females and pups together under the canopy. He bays and snarls, pacing and darting until our people are huddled together.

Diantha, Nessa, and Elspeth have shifted into their wolves and stand shoulder to shoulder, blocking a dozen pups behind them. Lilliwen cradles two babes, crouching to shield Auggie, Efa, and Leon with her body. A grizzled wolf that must be Mabli’s stands with her front on an overturned rocker, howling, baring her toothless black gums.

The lone wolf lifts his massive head and lets out a bloodthirsty, mad roar. The female wolves snarl back while the females in human form do their best to block the pups with their bodies, but there are too many little ones to hide them all. The babes wail, the pups in fur whimper, and the pups who can speak, cry for their mothers and fathers.

Kill him. For the first time in my life, the pecking voice is perfectly calm.

My wolf skids to a halt several feet away and then slinks forward, keeping the fire between her and the Salt Mountain wolf, letting the smoke block her scent. When she’s too close to dare creep closer, she huddles close to the ground, staring up and up at his tremendous mud-caked haunches. She’s a miniature in comparison. All the females are, and we all stare, powerless, as the wolf’s bones crack and a strapping man rises from the hulk of his beast.

His blond hair shines through the dirt. I’ve seen him. Leith Munroe. The new Salt Mountain alpha.

He rests his hands on his hips as if there isn’t chaos all around him as his wolves play a game of distraction, breaking after our slower, smaller, or older males and mauling them until our strong males are forced to turn back, away from us, to rescue them.

Leith takes no notice of our wolves, even when they get close, or me, skulking behind the fire. Why would he? I’m no threat—skinny and small and stinking of fear.

Instead, he’s intent on someone behind the line of female wolves.

“Lilliwen Boyle, is that you?” he says. “Imagine finding you here. Are those pups all yours?” Lilliwen shifts to hide Auggie, and Leith cranes his neck to see around her. Auggie doesn’t help by poking his snout out and growling. “Oh, that one’s yours for sure. And his sire’s a Munroe, too, if I’m not mistaken?”

Leith squats and reaches out a sculpted arm, wiggling his long fingers. “Come say hello to your uncle, pup.”

Lilliwen snarls. The female wolves press tighter together, lowering their haunches, readying themselves to attack.

“L-leave us alone,” Lilliwen stammers, shoving Auggie behind her. Efa peeks out her other side. My heart lodges in my throat.

“Ah, but your new pack won’t leave us alone, will they? Always thieving our females. Pissing on our territory and running away.” Leith rises back to his full height and spits in the grass. “I think turnabout is fair play, don’t you? Don’t worry. If you want to stay here, Lilliwen, you can. We don’t have much use for a—used—female.” He makes a show of peering past her. “But this pack of dogs can’t keep stealing our good females with impunity. I think you’ll understand if we help ourselves to a few of these pups to balance things out. Seems a fair trade. Don’t worry, we’ll raise them right.” He winks.

Our females break into a ferocious snarling and howling that raises my fur.

Leith is unconcerned. There’s no tension in his stance, no shred of anxiety in his scent. He knows, as we all do, that we’re no match for him.

His back is turned toward you.

He flashes the female wolves his eerie fake smile and coos to Efa’s wolf where she pokes out her head. “Come out, come out, little lady. Don’t make me come through your dams to get you.”

Nessa’s wolf snarls and glances over her shoulder, gauging the distance between her and her pup, weighing the danger of breaking the line to protect her.

Leith snarls back, louder, longer, with all the force of an alpha at the height of his powers.

Efa’s wolf whimpers and hides her muzzle in Lilliwen’s skirt.

That won’t save her.

Efa’s terrified, shivering, her fur bristling.

She did nothing to deserve this.

She’s going to remember this forever.

She’s going to wear this fear, from this moment, like a second skin. It’s going to burrow into her brain and torment her, dogging her steps, stealing her peace, tainting every good thing that will ever happen to her until she runs away from hope. From love. From life.

And this male doesn’t care. He’s smirking. He wants her to be afraid.

For all of us to be afraid.

He snaps his fingers. “Send the pup to me now, or I’ll come get her myself.”

He’s a male, and we are nothing to him. Nothing.

No.

Not again.

Never again.

The needles. By the chair.

I see them, the two medium needles I absentmindedly left stuck in a ball of orange yarn the day before my heat. They’re sticking out of a burlap bag beside the place the rocking chair had been before it became a barricade.

I can’t. I’m too scared.

Yes, you can. You can run.

“Now!” Leith barks.

Now!

I shift. No bones break. No muscles tear. I lift my paw and my bare foot hits the ground. I blink and the grays and browns of the sycamore turn bright, spring green. It’s not a shift; it’s a flip. Like a flip of a switch.

I stumble, but I don’t lose momentum. The voice is right. I can run.

The females notice me, see where I’m heading, and they break into a single-throated cry of deafening howls that shakes the ground. They lunge forward and scramble back, distracting him. Nessa dashes for Efa, throwing her body of top of her pup.

I’m close. So close.

My fingers wrap around the needles, one in each hand, and I whirl, setting my sights on the enemy. He still has his back to me.

I’m small. Weak. Not a threat.

Aim for his throat.

I break into a sprint, and when I’m just close enough, I leap, my wolf powering my legs, and I drive a needle into the place where his shoulder meets his neck, sinking it all the way to the acorn carved on the top.

He spins, blinking in surprise.

I raise the other needle.

Stick it right in his eye.

A male roars behind me. Bloody arms wrap around me like a vise, the scent of earth and copper surrounding me.

Justus.

Other howls ring out, other scents descending from all directions, mixing with the smoke from the dwindling fire.

Killian. And Tye, Ivo, Gael. Khalil, Alroy, Max.

Justus shoves me behind his body, the other Last Pack males rushing to stand at his left and right, blocking me from the Salt Mountain alpha swaying on his feet.

He didn’t even go down.

He bares his fangs, yanks the needle from his neck, and blinks at it, bemused.

“Did you stab me with a fucking knitting needle?” He holds it up. Blood oozes from the wound, dripping down his bare chest. I didn’t even hit an artery.

Justus snarls, squaring his shoulders and bending his knees, readying himself to attack. Every inch of his body is covered in mud and blood, gashes and purpling bruises. White bone shows through a jagged slash on his forearm.

A male coughs, clearing his throat. “Can we just take a beat?” Killian raises his hands, raw flesh where his nails should be.

I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he’s as battered as Justus, and he seems to be favoring his left leg, like his right can’t hold weight. Our males spar constantly. I’ve seen all of them beat up at some point, but I’ve never seen any of them mangled this bad. I can’t believe either he or Justus are still upright.

“That bitch stabbed me.” Leith points at me with the knitting needle.

Justus howls and steps toward him. Khalil and Alroy grab his arms. He shakes them off like flies.

I dart forward and snatch his hand. He glances over his shoulder at me, his wolf blazing gold in his eyes. A snarl rattles his chest, but he stays put.

“That’s Annie Murphy,” Killian says to Leith. There’s a note of exhaustion in his voice that I’ve never heard before.

“The female we’re stealing back?” Leith’s lip quirks. He’s amused.

My wolf growls. The Quarry Pack males gape at me in surprise. The Last Pack wolves add their growls to mine.

“Can I ask what you were doing?” Killian asks Leith.

“Taking the opportunity to get a little of our own back.”

“Efa isn’t yours!” I shout. I have to be loud in order to be heard over the female wolves howling their own objection.

Justus tightens his hold on my hand, and I realize I’ve stepped forward, lifting the needle still clasped in my fist. He lifts his chin and growls at Leith in a register I’ve never heard before from any male, any alpha. It’s wolf and man, a resonance that’s both and neither and something else besides, a rumble that’s more thunder than voice. I catch a whiff of singed air.

And I realize that while we were speaking, the Last Pack wolves have been stalking closer and closer. All of them. Griff and Elis and Rodric and dozens of others, old and young, big and small. Somehow, Leon snuck from behind Lilliwen and circled around everyone so that he’s now approaching our rear with the others. The Quarry Pack and Salt Mountain males are outnumbered easily twenty to one.

And when my eyes dart to Killian’s face, I see that he realizes it, too. His gaze meets mine, and for the first time in my life, I hold it without flinching.

“You’re not stolen, are you, Annie?” he asks.

I shake my head.

He blows out a long breath before turning his attention to the female wolves still bristling in a line, defending the pups huddled under the sycamore.

“None of you were stolen, were you?” he says to them.

They bare their fangs and snarl at him low in their throats.

Killian looks to Justus. “She’s your mate?”

Justus growls in the affirmative.

“I can’t believe I’m the one talking shit out,” Killian groans. Tye snorts, but he shuts up real quick when Killian glares at him.

“Look,” Killian says to Justus. “What are we going to do here? Because if I kill Annie’s mate, my mate is going to cut off my balls. And unless I’m seriously mistaken, if you kill me, Annie isn’t going to be happy either.”

Justus narrows his eyes, like he’s weighing the idea anyway. “My mate won’t mind if I kill him,” Justus says, jerking his chin at Leith. “Will yours?”

“You can try,” Leith says, squaring up as he drops his hand from where he was pressing it to his neck like a tourniquet.

Justus’s wolf replies to Leith with a desultory snarl, but Justus’s attention stays on Killian. Leith is a huge, strong male, an alpha from a long line of alphas, but the balance of power is clear. Every single wolf gathered in this clearing is looking at Killian—and Justus.

I’m used to everyone deferring to Killian—he’d accept nothing else—but I’d never understood until this moment that Justus is as dangerous, as strong, as pure born alpha as Killian. Justus may not carry himself that way, or avail himself of the privileges, or even call himself Alpha, but wolves know the best among them, they look to that wolf when push comes to shove, and right now, every Last Pack eye is on my mate.

And my thoughtful, judicious, even-tempered mate is looking at Leith Munroe like he’s going to rip out his beating heart and eat it.

If he does it, the Salt Mountain wolves will fight back. It’ll be a bloodbath. I can’t let this happen.

This is my pack. This is happening because of me. It’s up to me to defuse the situation.

Me, Annie Murphy.

Shit.

I take a step forward, clear my throat, straighten my spine, and open my mouth.

Run!

“You have to leave,” I say to Killian.

Hide!

“And take them with you.” I jerk my head toward the Salt Mountain wolves.

In my head, everyone holds their breath. Annie spoke to the alpha. She told him what to do. The world must surely end.

In reality, the Last Pack wolves rumble, backing me up.

“Are you sure, Annie?” Killian says.

Justus snarls. It’s my turn to squeeze his hand.

“Yes. I belong here.” The crackling scent thickens in the air, and I know the words are more than true. They’re a stake, a claim, a kind of magic. I wasn’t stolen. I was stolen from, but I can take things back. My peace, my place, my power.

My voice.

“This is my home,” I say. “This is my mate.”

I twine my fingers with Justus’s, and his mouth widens in a gap-toothed, bloody smile.

In all my life, I’ve never seen a male so happy.