The Wild Wolf’s Rejected Mate (The Five Packs Book 5)
The Wild Wolf’s Rejected Mate: Chapter 7

I’m trapped between my sleeping mate and a wall of dirt, but my wolf isn’t panicking. I’m petrified, cowering in a corner of our psyche, but she’s wriggling up against his back and snuffling at his neck.

I can’t believe her. She nuzzles the skin behind his ear, rubbing her chin on his shoulder, scent marking him. I don’t know how he hasn’t woken yet.

There’s drool.

Don’t wake him. Don’t touch him. Be still. Don’t breathe.

The voice bellows commands while I moan and rock. My wolf ignores us both. She wants to bite her mate. Gnaw on him like a drumstick. Desperate to discourage her, I toss pictures of the headless squirrel into her brain. She freezes, mouth open, midway to a nibble.

Thank goodness she’s squeamish. Quarry Pack males and their mates hunt and eat in their fur during full moon hunts, but I never have, since I’ve never gone on a run. The meat I eat comes wrapped in brown paper.

Her stomach rumbles at the thought, the memory of the squirrel swiftly losing its ick factor as she stretches her jaw and gently locks it around Justus’s muscular upper arm. His bicep flexes, almost imperceptibly, while his breath remains slow and even. He’s pretending to be asleep.

It’s a trap!

I focus with all my power on dragging my wolf away, but she’s in full control, and she’s lost all sense of self-preservation. There’s meat in her mouth, and she’s not letting go. She slowly sinks her teeth down, but not enough to puncture his flesh. She’s just—playing. She knows he’s awake.

My wolf doesn’t play. She never has, not even when we were very little. She stays quiet and keeps her head down.

But now she’s closing her jaw on Justus’s arm, slowly shaking her head back and forth, gnawing his bicep like a marrow bone. Suddenly, with a growl, he flips to face us. She drops his arm and scurries backward, but there’s no space, so she ends up plastered against the curved dirt wall with her paws braced on his rock-solid chest.

He grins, his fangs flashing bright white in his thick beard. He snaps them, playfully, pretending to bite my snout.

My wolf yelps.

I scream.

Fight! Run!

Immediately, a fog of fear swamps the small space, and I have a close up of his face as it contorts in horror and disgust. If he was wearing a shirt, he’d tug it up over his face like the males at Moon Lake Academy did when someone passed gas. My wolf screws her eyes shut and shoves her snout into the dirt as if that will get us out of this.

I smell awful.

Usually, for me, embarrassment is an aftereffect, and panic is the main reaction, but for some reason, even though the pecking voice is wailing in the background somewhere about how I need to claw my way out through the dirt, I’m not drowning in terror.

The reflexive fear is there, but for the first time, it’s being drowned out by a desperate, terminal mortification. I stunk the place up. I can taste it in my mouth. That means he can taste it in his mouth, too.

“Sweetling,” he says, low and cajoling. “Open your eyes, sweetling.”

He doesn’t sound totally disgusted. Actually, his voice is oddly nasal. I peek.

He’s pinching his nose closed. My wolf moans like she’s the most miserable creature alive. He grins again, flashing those long, wickedly sharp canines, but this time, I don’t panic, and I don’t look away. I can’t. His teeth are so clean and pointy. His soft lips are so mysteriously curved as they disappear into his beard. I want to trace them with my fingers to see if they’re as soft as they seem. Or if his beard is as scratchy.

“I’m not a danger to you. No need to smoke me out,” he says, chuckling, and bobs forward to drop a quick kiss on my nose before he wriggles backward, out of our alcove. “Come on now before that stink settles into your fur. If I walk into camp with you reeking like this, the females will beat me with their brooms.”

He’s teasing. Females would never do something like that to a male his size. He’s still grinning while he walks a few steps and pauses to stretch, arching his back and folding his arms behind his head.

His abs are taut. There is a smattering of hair peeking above the waistband of his low hanging sweatpants.

Run. Now. It’s your chance.

The voice is so faint, like it’s coming from under a bucket.

My wolf ignores her completely and pads over to stand next to him. She lifts her rump and lowers her forepaws to stretch her own back, cracking her spine, breathing through her mouth while her fur airs out.

It’s very early. The gray light is only now turning mellow gold and every new green leaf is still wet with dew.

The voice is right. Now is our best chance to escape. I could trot off to the bushes. Pretend to need privacy to relieve myself. Get a head start.

Which he’d close in seconds.

He’s fast and strong and somehow familiar with the terrain, even though it’s not his territory. The area we’ve been passing through isn’t marked by any pack. There are some signs of humans, the wrappers, cigarette butts, and bottles that follow their passage like the wake of a boat, but none of it is fresh. There’s no one out here now except us.

If I ran, and for some reason he let me go, I’d be alone. It’d take a day to get home—if I could find my way. I can track as well as most, but he carried me for miles while I slept, and he doesn’t leave signs. I noticed that early on.

Would my wolf even let me go?

No. I don’t even need to ask her. She’s fascinated by him. Even now, she’s mimicking his side stretches, even though it doesn’t work at all with her sausage-shaped body. If I want to run, I have to take back our skin, and then I’ll be naked and slow. I won’t get far if he comes after me.

Maybe he wouldn’t. He seems fond of my wolf, but he hates me. His contempt burned in his eyes at the river. He didn’t try to hide it. He wanted me to know how he felt. I don’t need to dig the bond out of the deep hole I buried it in to confirm it and feel his hatred in my insides.

I don’t care. It’s good that he hates me. I don’t want any of this. I want my morning tea, my toast and jam, and my bathroom. I’m so dirty. My fur is stiff, and I do not want to know what’s in it.

I don’t want to go to the Last Pack. Everyone says they live in dens like our ancestors, like animals, with no laws but strength and no justice except claws and fangs. At least that’s what the instructors said at Moon Lake Academy. The Last Pack chapter in the textbook was short and mostly about how they steal pups and females.

Justus stole me. But why, if he loathes me?

To make you suffer. To kill you. Run now while you have the chance. Before it’s too late.

The voice keeps up her ranting, but somehow, it feels almost…obligatory. Like even she wants to know what happens next.

If I were in my skin, there’s no way I’d be going along with this without a fight. I’d be curled in a ball or tearing through the undergrowth.

But I’m not me. I’m my wolf, and whatever they say, the man and the beast definitely aren’t one and the same. My wolf is a hundred times braver than me.

“Ready, sweetling?” Justus asks, cracking his neck to finish his morning warm-up. “I’ll catch you something to eat along the way. How about a fresh fish?”

My wolf wrinkles her nose. She’s not a fan of fish.

“I tell you what—in a few hours, we’ll pass a supply cache. There should be flint. If you can hold out that long, I’ll roast you a bird.”

My wolf rumbles happily.

“Or a snake. Whatever comes to hand.” He smiles.

My wolf’s rumble turns displeased. His smile widens. “All right, then. I’ll catch you a plump, juicy bird.”

She rewards him with a yip, and excited by the prospect, she confidently takes off southward.

He whistles before he scoops her up, so she isn’t startled. “Not that way, pip. We’re headed north.”

She yaps at him for awhile so that he knows she knew that, but he should have told her before she set off half-cocked anyway, and she’s hungry, and she doesn’t need him to carry her, but she’ll let him for now.

Every so often, he murmurs soothingly. “All right then, pip. Just as you say. Not long now. We’re making good time.”

He’s so different than he was when we mated, but what did I know about him, really? All I had to judge by are those horrible moments beside the river that I’ve tried so hard to scrub from my memory.

At Moon Lake Academy, we learned in science that a memory forms when your thoughts travel a particular neural pathway over and over again. I figured if I didn’t let my brain do that, I could cut the thread, and all the bad things that happened in the past would float off into oblivion, but it didn’t work. I’m so careful not to remember, but the bad memories loiter right at the edge of my awareness as if they’re locked in orbit by the gravity of what happened.

I don’t want to relive my mating. I refuse. But was he like this at all back then?

He was almost feral, wasn’t he? Rough and cruel and single-minded. He hurt me. Took what he wanted.

My head aches, and my wolf squirms.

“Restless, eh?” he says and sets her gently on her feet.

She dashes ahead. The landscape is changing. We’re following a deer path through meadows dotted with clusters of scraggly pines that rise from sprawling thickets.

She darts around a bush and hides, peeking behind to watch Justus. He hikes past, unconcerned, ignoring her and continuing northward. She lets him get a few yards and then races after him.

He strolls on, glancing down at her, bemused. “You’ve got a lot of energy for a wolf who slept rough,” he says approvingly.

Does that mean he isn’t accustomed to sleeping in a dirt dugout? Doesn’t the Last Pack live in dens?

The question spurs a dozen others. The textbooks made it sound like Last Pack spends most of their time as wolves, but Justus hasn’t shifted yet, except for his ears and fangs. Why is that?

And how does he keep his ears pointy? The low-ranking kids at Moon Lake would do that, too, wearing a tail or claws or chest fur while in human form. It was frowned upon, but I think the powers-that-be kind of liked it, too, since it gave them another reason to sneer at the ones they called “scavengers.”

And why is it that Moon Lake pretty much forces its low-ranking pups to go to the Academy, as well as pups from Moon Lake, Salt Mountain, and North Border, but they leave the Last Pack alone?

Are they really as uneducated as everyone says? When we played “Last Pack” as pups, we’d always grunt and speak in monosyllables. Where did we get that idea? Justus is just as articulate as any Quarry Pack male. Maybe more so, honestly. We were probably imitating our own males with the grunts.

I’m still terrified—about ferals and his pack and what if something happens to him and I’m left alone—but for the first time in maybe forever, I’m also curious.

It’s a good feeling. Different. But good.

At noon, like he promised, we reach a Last Pack supply cache. I was expecting at least a shed, but it’s not much more than a lean-to made of stripped branches and woven vines, built against the side of a deep gulch.

Inside, there’s a barrel packed tight with tools, clothes, and other supplies, including matches wrapped in oil cloth. Justus builds a fire, and my wolf naps beside it as he hunts down the plump, juicy bird he also promised. He plucks its feathers—and plucks off its head—before he returns, so my wolf is happy to snarf it down after a cursory browning over the flames. Apparently, she’s not too fussy about whether her meat is cooked through.

She shows no concern that she’s leaving none for Justus, but it makes me deeply uneasy. At the lodge, we serve the males first. They cause less trouble when their mouths and hands are full.

Justus doesn’t seem to mind that my wolf is saving none for him. He watches her eat, arms folded, mouth lazily curved as he sits, resting against a tree trunk.

My wolf is pleased to let him watch her eat. I don’t understand that at all. I can’t eat if someone is watching me.

After the meal, my wolf lets Justus carry her again, and she snoozes in the mid-day sunshine. By the time she wakes up, yipping to be let down, the landscape has changed again. The meadows have disappeared, and the fields have turned into rolling hillocks, mossy and deep green. By late afternoon, we’re hiking strictly upward, winding between rocky outcroppings and evergreens at least three stories tall.

The trees cast shadows, and my wolf’s steps slow. She can smell his pack now. We’re on his territory.

No one will find your body. Not out here.

The pecking voice, ever helpful, has found her second wind.

He’ll throw you from one of those outcroppings. Break all your bones. The moss will cover you. No one will ever know what became of you.

Justus must sense my growing wariness. His wolf rumbles at mine to stop, and he squats so we’re closer to eye level.

“All right, pip?” he asks, wiping his brow. It’s not hot, but we have been walking all day, and he did carry my wolf for quite a bit of it.

My wolf yips dramatically and plops on her rump, panting like she’s also carried a grown female wolf for hours and hunted a partridge and went without lunch.

She’s actually more or less fine, but I’m not all right. The stronger the scent of other wolves gets, the tighter my nerves stretch. I want to go home. This has been enough adventure. I want a cup of tea. My room with its locking door. The tire iron that I snuck from Liam’s garage that I keep under my bed.

“I think—” He pauses like he’s searching for words. His expression seems deliberately mild. “I think you should shift to two legs to meet the pack.”

No.

There is no way.

Not ever.

No way.

No how.

I jam myself in a far corner of my psyche. My wolf physically backs away from him.

He blows out a long breath, raising his palms. “They’ll want to talk to you, get to know you, find out how you came to be here. You’ll want to talk to them, right?”

No.

I won’t.

I only ever want to talk to Una, Mari, Kennedy, Old Noreen, and Abertha when she’s in a good mood. There are literally no other people on earth I want to talk to.

And they’ll want to know how I came to be here? I was kidnapped.

Well, I was. I’m not sure about my wolf anymore. I feel like she went rogue somewhere along the line and decided she wanted to see the world, but I’m a hostage.

I could’ve fought her harder, though. I could have run, even if I didn’t have much of a chance.

Why didn’t I?

And what does “find out how you came to be here” mean? Do I need to say the right thing or else? Or what?

Is my wolf really going to strut into the midst of another pack? The Last Pack?

They’ll tear you apart.

She’s beginning to see the issue. A high-pitched whine rises from her throat, and she continues to creep backward, her belly dragging in the dirt, a fresh wave of fear perfuming the air. Justus squeezes his eyes shut, the tip of his nose flushing red as if the scent burns. It kind of does if you’re not used to it.

They’ll rend you limb from limb. Eat your flesh. Suck the marrow from your bones.

The pecking voice is back in her full glory, a tinge of vindication in her tone.

Your mate hates you. He’ll hand you over to his pack and leave.

She flashes a picture in my head that I didn’t even know existed in my mind—Justus walking away from my nest by the river, his back stiff, his muscles tensed, his hands balled in fists. Like he’d been hurt, and he was hiding it. I’ve seen plenty of males walk away like that when Killian has the males spar after dinner in the lodge. The ones who lose.

What do I do? I’m petrified, crouched low and shaking, terrified, with every reason to be, while this male waits for me, his palms raised, like I’ve lost my mind yet again.

How would he like to stroll into the Quarry Pack commons naked and uninvited?

My wolf whines. It’s a question. Do I want our skin? Upon consideration, she doesn’t want to walk into this, either.

There is no way in hell. I huddle in my corner, and she huffs a sigh.

At the same time, Justus seems to make a call. He huffs, too, scoops up my wolf, and tucks her under his arm like a football again.

“Never the easy way with you, eh?” he grumbles, more in resignation than complaint.

Little does he know how right he is—it is never, ever the easy way for me.

The last leg of the journey to the Last Pack is only about a half mile, so the voice doesn’t have much time to predict our imminent demise, but she makes up for it with imagination.

They’ll skin you, wear your fur, chew on your flesh until you’re almost dead, then let you heal, and then do it again, night after night.

Her warnings come louder and faster as Justus climbs a steep, pebbled path that winds between craggy outcroppings and emerges on a kind of tableland.

My breath catches. This can’t be real.

I’ve never seen any place like this before. We emerge from a narrow choke point between two sheer rocks, and all of a sudden, a sprawling glade and entire shifter camp is spread in front of us. Slabs of white rock rise like a natural amphitheater around it, dotted with deep green patches of tall hemlock, cedar, and cypress, and beyond and above the terraced rock, other ridges and spires tower to the north and west. Water burbles somewhere, but I can’t see the source.

I don’t see how it could possibly be man-made, but I also don’t see how nature could make a place so clearly designed as shelter. It’s a place out of time. Even the colors are enchanted. Every brown and green and white is bold—the brownest brown, the greenest green.

As my gaze darts around the clearing, searching for threats and escape routes, I pick out at least a dozen low, sloped entranceways among the rocks. Those must be the dens. Glowing almond-shaped eyes blink from the shadows, visible from hundreds of yards away.

Closer, and more terrifying, dozens of males have risen to their feet, looming beside rough-hewn stools, wooden crates, and overturned rusted buckets, glaring at me in spiky silence, poised to attack. I know that stance. I’ve seen it a hundred times in front of Killian’s dais after dinner when he calls the males to fight.

Don’t move. Don’t breathe.

My wolf presses closer to Justus’s side, searching for the feel of his low rumble. It soothes her. She trusts him to protect her.

I don’t.

I cram myself in the furthest corner of the limbo where I exist, sliding down to scrunch myself into the smallest space possible, hugging my knees to my chest. I wish I’d run when I had the chance. I should have never taken a different way home. I should never have left my room in my cabin where I was safe.

Safe, but scared all the time, anyway.

My wolf peeks under Justus’s arm at the males stalking toward us. Some are in full fur on four legs, but most have arrested themselves mid-shift, pointy-eared and fanged with various degrees of shag. None are in their skin alone.

When we arrived, two males were fighting, but they separated the instant we emerged in the glade. Now, they stalk toward us side by side, chests heaving. The skinnier one’s ear is torn and bloody, half perked, the other half drooping like a leaf with a snapped stem.

Most of the males were clustered by the huge fire pit in the center of the clearing when we arrived. Now they approach us, carrying whatever they were working with. One elder carries a fiddle and bow at his side. Another holds a knife in one hand and a rabbit skin in the other.

They hold themselves the same way, and wear the same type of worn, low slung pants, but based on looks, they could have come from a half dozen different packs. Some are Black, some are brown-skinned, some are pale and ruddy. They’re all tall, cut, and have the same natural confidence that Justus does.

They all have tattoos like Justus, too, the same intricate maze of lines and spirals that wind around the simple outlines of boats or trees or fish, draped over their right shoulder, arm, and torso like a shawl. The older the male, the further their tattoos stretch down their right sides to their thighs. Some have tattoos all the way down the tops of their right foot. Even the oldest males seem willing and able to shred an interloper to pieces.

There are so many cocks nestled in such thick pelts.

Where are the females? The pups?

The brawling males reach us first, pausing a few feet away the instant Justus’s rumble takes on a note of warning. Like Justus, both of these males are in their twenties and wear their hair and beards long, but that’s where their similarities end.

The taller one is brown skinned, and there’s a glint in his dark eyes. He’s smirking, his canines denting his lips. The only wolves I’ve seen with his exact coloring were some of the males from North Border who came to Quarry Pack to train with Killian.

North Border wolves don’t have a single look, but they all carry themselves in a certain way so you can recognize them from a distance—like they’ll attack first, without provocation. This male doesn’t carry himself that way, though. He gives off assurance, maybe even cockiness, but not aggression.

The other brawler—the one with the injured ear—is pasty, red-headed, and freckled. He’d fit in fine at Quarry Pack. He has the confidence of a young, B-roster fighter, the kind of arrogance that reads as distemper and smells like bravado.

Both of the brawlers’ expressions are suspicious, and their posture is almost hostile, but they toe the line Justus set with his rumbling. They clearly want to get into our space, but they stay back, pacing that invisible limit, nostrils flaring, tails whipping.

The other males gather closer, too, circling behind us, blocking the way out. My heart pounds faster.

They’re cutting off your escape. Fight. Fight!

My wolf’s fur bristles. She’s with the pecking voice.

“This is my mate, Annie,” Justus says calmly and sets me on the ground like he’s presenting me to them as a gift.

He does it so quickly that there’s nothing I can do. One moment, my wolf is cradled in his arms. The next she’s standing on her own four, wobbly feet on the plush, mossy ground, mere feet from the prowling males, surrounded on all sides, frozen in terror.

See. You can’t trust anyone.

My fear explodes.

The redhead’s face instantly contorts like he’s sucking lemons. “What did you do to her?” he asks as he tries to wave the smell away from his face.

Justus sighs. “She just smells like that sometimes. You get used to it.”

“The females won’t like it,” the redhead says.

Justus doesn’t reply, and I can’t read his face. I’m paralyzed, staring at the pack as they circle us, gathering closer and closer. How many are behind me now? How close? I still don’t see any females.

What have they done with the females?

Panic claws up my throat.

The redhead pinches his nose and asks, “Did you trade Kelly for her?”

“No trade. She’s my mate.”

The other brawler snorts. “You stole her.”

“She’s my mate, Khalil,” Justus repeats more firmly. “I didn’t steal her.”

The redhead’s pacing becomes more agitated. The gathered males mutter to each other, glowering in our direction. They look like the illustrations of ferals in the Moon Lake Academy textbooks—long, wild hair, lengthened fangs that dent their lower lips, furry chests, and wolfish ears and tails.

In the illustrations, ferals are always slavering or lunging or swiping at a cowering female with their claws. These males aren’t acting like that at all, but they definitely aren’t like Quarry Pack or Moon Lake males, either. I don’t know quite how to describe it except that they don’t stand like a pack at all.

Back home, when the males gather, they face the leader, usually Killian, and stand according to rank, higher in the front, lower in the back. This group is all over the place.

One lanky male is eating a drumstick. Toward the back, two younger males bump into each other, riling up the others nearby, trying to egg someone into a fight. A few elders have crouched to watch the proceedings from under the shade of an elm. Periodically, they bark when the others block their view.

There is a great deal of scratching among the furrier ones. A few who are fully shifted have padded to the front and plopped on their sides to watch. This pack isn’t waiting for orders; they’re waiting to be entertained.

“Well, did you take out Killian Kelly before you took her?” the redhead asks.

I turn to see Justus’s reaction, and my heart jumps into my throat. The crowd behind me is five deep. I am well and truly surrounded.

Justus shrugs like the idea of taking Killian Kelly out isn’t ridiculous—or out of the question—and says, “It wasn’t exactly planned.”

The one called Khalil snorts again.

“Well, what are you going to do, Alpha?” the redhead’s voice rises, color creeping up his neck from his pale chest. “He’ll come after her, mate or not.”

“I’m not the alpha,” Justus replies. He says it offhandedly, as if by rote. Isn’t he, though? He seemed to be during the Byrnes fiasco. “And I laid a false trail.”

“And how long will that delay the inevitable?” Khalil asks.

“Long enough,” Justus answers. They share a speaking look and then Khalil shakes his head and backs off.

The redhead keeps pressing. “We don’t need the trouble. She’s favored by Kelly’s mate. You saw that. We all did.” The redhead’s face has flushed almost as bright as his hair. “Can’t you just mount her somewhere else?”

The murmuring, muttering, scratching pack instantly falls silent. The redhead takes a huge step back, knocking the males behind him aside, and bares his neck.

“Apologies, Justus,” he says. He’s able to hold his tongue for about two seconds before he mumbles, “But what’s wrong with high valley camp?”

“Black bears,” the male with the drumstick calls out. “Can’t fuck there until you clear out the bears.”

Khalil snorts.

The redhead glares and continues muttering, “Why not take her to the red clay camp then? Killian Kelly isn’t as stupid as he looks; he won’t fall for a false trail for long. If we steal a female, we have to hold her at another camp until we’re sure we got away clean. But I guess the rules don’t apply to alphas.”

He goes on and on, but he keeps his head bent, and the pack’s attention is drifting away from him. There’s movement coming from the caves in the terraces. Figures emerge and join together in a train that makes their way down a switchback path to the clearing. As they pass a tent near a tall sycamore tree, several more join them.

When they reach the gathering, the crowd shifts to make a path. My wolf’s pulse picks up. Whoever is coming, they make the males nervous. There’s a general shuffling of feet. The younger males posture, puffing their chests and throwing their shoulders back. The pitch of the entire crowd’s muttering drops an octave.

The males gathered closest to us part, revealing a phalanx of females led by a black she-wolf, a gray-haired female in her skin, and another female, maybe in her late thirties or early forties, who is somehow both furry and all woman at the same time. She looks like the NSFW character art that Kennedy downloads on her phone—so much butt and boobs and hips.

My wolf draws herself up. She cowered like a pup in front of the males, but for some reason, she doesn’t want to show these females her neck. She’s trembling visibly, but she’s holding her head high.

The voice is too freaked out to make any coherent warnings. All she can do is screech the kind of wordless, elongated, high-pitched “ahh” a person makes when they knock something over and it rocks back and forth, and back and forth, right on the verge of tipping. She’s panicking, but I’m not.

Why aren’t I?

By all rights, my wolf should be panicking, too. These females have the numbers, and most of them have a size advantage as well. Her best move is submission, and my wolf understands that, but she has no intention of giving an inch.

She’s defending Justus.

But not because he’s vulnerable.

Because he’s hers.

“What’s her name?” the gray-haired female interrupts my mental meltdown. I leap on the distraction, inspecting her as closely as she’s inspecting me.

She has a North Border accent, and unlike the males, she’s dressed. A skirt is wrapped around her waist and draped over her bare shoulder, somewhat like a sari or sarong. The blue fabric is clearly homespun and hand-dyed, but it looks as fine and soft as machine-made.

“Annie,” Justus answers, lowering his voice respectfully like he’s been called to speak at an elders’ meeting. “Annie, this is Elspeth.”

My wolf inclines her head. It’s an acknowledgment, not a show of submission.

The black she-wolf prowls forward, leaving a good distance as she anxiously sniffs in my direction. My wolf tenses, but she doesn’t blink.

“This is Nessa,” Justus says. “Annie’s from Quarry Pack,” he tells her.

She seems reassured by this and melts back into the gathering, tucking herself against the flank of a huge gray wolf. Three little wolf pups appear as if by magic between their legs. They gape at me, wide-eyed, their tiny tails thwapping the ground.

Instantly, my heart melts like cotton candy in water. Where did they come from?

They’re shifter pups, but they’re in their fur. How is that possible? Males don’t shift until puberty, and females don’t shift until they recognize their mates.

Except that’s not always true, is it? Killian Kelly shifted when he was still a pup to save Una and Mari. Were these pups attacked? They can’t be more than a year old.

My wolf growls and glares at Justus, displeased at the thought that he might’ve let them be hurt. His brow wrinkles.

Can the pups shift back and forth to human babies, or are they stuck as wolves until puberty? Somehow my curiosity allows me to relax enough to venture a little closer to the boundary between my wolf and me. The pups don’t seem traumatized. One lies on her side, dozing off. Her belly is pure white. It looks so soft.

Another pup snuffles around the feet and legs of the males around him, yipping and nipping and head-butting at random until he gets a pat on his flank or a scratch behind his ears.

The third pup—the littlest one, a mix of her mother’s black and her father’s gray—seems as captivated by me as I am by her. She keeps padding toward me. The first few times, her dam yipped at her to come back, but when she just kept approaching, her dam gave a rumble, warning her to behave, and let her come.

She trots straight to me. Inside my wolf, I reach for her. It’s a reflex. I’ve done it before I realize what I’m doing, and as soon as it registers, I drop my arms to my sides.

I don’t get close to new people, not even the cutest little ball of fluff I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Her paws are no bigger than walnuts, and her nose is a black jelly bean. The others smile down fondly as she pads between their legs.

She keeps coming closer until she gets to the invisible line around Justus and me that no one is passing, and then she plunks herself onto her tiny rump and begins to groom her coat as she watches me.

An unsettling ache throbs in my chest. She is so small. So trusting. So defenseless. And there are so many males here, and so few females. They—we—are outnumbered ten to one. They could do whatever they want to us. They have the power.

You’re trapped. You and the pups. There’s no way out.

The furry, curvaceous female’s snout wrinkles. “Justus, she shouldn’t smell like that. Something’s wrong.”

I can’t settle on where to look at her. The draped fabric serving as her dress is rigged so it only covers her nipples, and it doesn’t cover her furry hips or thighs at all. It covers her privates, but every time she moves, the skirt swishes left or right, or bunches up in the middle, and somehow that makes her look more naked than if she wasn’t wearing anything at all.

I don’t want her to come any closer. Neither does my wolf, but she doesn’t want to growl and disturb the pup. I don’t want my wolf to growl and anger a Last Pack female who outweighs me by fifty pounds.

I force my gaze to settle above her neck because I was raised not to gawk, but her face is as arresting as her body. She has whiskey-gold human eyes with a wolf’s muzzle, long whiskers, and lush human lips that are pillowy on top because of the snout.

In a way, she reminds me of the small band of human females who come to the farmers’ market sometimes wearing fake tails, headband ears, and shirts that show off their breasts. Human males are all over them—and Quarry Pack males would be as well—but these Last Pack males keep their distance from her. She has an invisible fence around her, too, like Justus and I do.

The males closest to her are all standing at attention, their chests as puffed as possible and their stances so wide it looks like they’re about to do the calisthenics that Quarry Pack males do before they go on patrol.

My wolf eyes Justus. He’s not puffing anything, and his gaze is well above the female’s neck, but my wolf isn’t happy. She wants to bare her teeth, but the pup is watching.

“Annie, this is Diantha,” he says. “Diantha, there’s nothing wrong. Annie’s just—she’s quick to alarm.”

“She’s alarmed? I’m alarmed,” the redhead mumbles. “Wait ’til Killian Kelly gets here. Everyone will wish they were more alarmed then.” Despite the incessant smack talk, his head is still bent, and his neck is bared.

Justus growls a warning, not very loud and no longer than a second or two, but the redhead snaps his mouth shut right quick. My wolf and the pup startle. The pup whines. My wolf snaps her teeth at Justus.

He raises his palms and smiles at my wolf as he says to the redhead out of the corner of his mouth, “Weren’t you the one who traded all our pelts and steaks for three Quarry Pack females just last year? That was you, wasn’t it, Alroy?”

“He tried to,” the male with the drumstick calls out, helpfully. “Wouldn’t call it a trade, though, when y’all came back with nothing but your tails between your legs.”

“I learned my lesson,” the redhead—Alroy—mutters. “More than I can say for some. And it was Khalil’s idea, too.”

“Don’t bring my name into it,” Khalil says quickly.

“I don’t think she should smell that way,” Diantha says to Justus as if neither of the pack males have spoken. “You need to do something about it.”

The other females murmur in agreement. It’s strange—as the males manspread, they also made more room for the band of females in their center. The females are fanning out now, and I can make out more pups among them, in both skins and furs. They must shift then. My mind is boggled.

“What do you suggest I do, Diantha?” Justus asks, his voice dry, but not so dry that it’s blatantly disrespectful.

Diantha props her hands on the lavish mounds of her hips. “I don’t know. You’re the alpha. Make her smell better.”

“I’m not the alpha,” Justus grumbles.

Diantha smirks. “Then we’ll take her with us. Since you don’t have any say. Since you’re not the alpha.”

She’s baiting him—the male she calls alpha.

He’s getting annoyed.

She better shut up. Someone will get hurt. The pup is right there.

“I’m her mate,” he says. “She stays with me.”

Diantha rolls her eyes. “That’s not your call, is it?”

It is his call, though, right? Males decide where their females can go and what they can do. Even now that Una and Killian are mated, the males allow us to sell our wares in Chapel Bell.

“Do you want to come with us, Annie? We won’t let any of them near you.” Diantha turns her nose up at the males who have been subtly gathering closer to her. Immediately, they cast each other accusatory looks, projecting as much innocence as long-haired, tattooed, half-shifted males can.

“She’s his mate.” Alroy straightens, lifting his chest and hiking his chin so he can glower at Diantha. Standing tall, he almost seems like a different male. “You stay out of it.”

Diantha’s face gets shrewd and bloodthirsty, like a raccoon about to steal a dog’s dinner.

“Where’s my granddam’s black bear pelt, eh, Alroy?” she asks in a singsong, projecting her voice so even the folks at the back can hear. “Oh yes, I remember. You traded it to Quarry Pack for three unmated females. Where are the females then, Alroy? Eh? Eh? Where are they?”

Alroy flushes beet red from his pasty chest up to the tip of his ears. The redder he gets, the more his muscles tense. Neither my wolf nor I clocked him as a big threat, but now, we both eye him warily.

“Don’t try to be slick, Diantha,” he sneers. “You want to take his mate so you can get him back.”

Get him back? My wolf rumbles.

Justus is flushing now, too, under his beard. “Enough, Alroy,” he says.

“That’s right, Alroy,” Diantha jumps right in to say. “Now show neck and shut up like a good boy.” Her attention is trained on Alroy.

Justus’s face darkens, his scent souring by the second, and Diantha is so intent on riling Alroy, she doesn’t notice at all.

Be quiet! Danger! Make her be quiet!

My wolf edges closer to the little pup who’s watching wide-eyed like the rest of the pack.

Why aren’t they bending their heads? At the first hint of Killian’s displeasure, everyone in Quarry Pack bows their head like it’s time to give thanks at a full moon feast.

None of the females seem concerned that there are two males growing angrier and angrier. It almost seems like entertainment to them. The male with the drumstick is sucking the bones while his gaze ping-pongs from packmate to packmate.

“You’re not the alpha female, Diantha,” Alroy sneers. “No matter how many times you’ve sniffed Justus’s ass.”

She snorts. “You wish a female would even sniff in the direction of yours, but for that to happen, you’d have to wash it, Alroy, more than once a season.”

“I said enough,” Justus growls through gritted teeth.

He’s angry. No one move.

The little pup rolls onto her side, stretching her legs and splaying her tiny toe beans. Exposing her belly. My wolf’s muscles bunch, her heart in her throat. How does the pup not sense the danger?

When males fight, they don’t care what breaks or who they trample. Where the hell is her dam?

“Next time, you should try trading for human females, Alroy.” Diantha smirks as if Justus isn’t even there, his wolf rattling his ribs. “They don’t have much of a sense of smell.”

A sharp snarl bursts from Alroy’s chest.

The pup lets out a surprised yelp.

No!

My wolf leaps on top of her, rolling her away from the angry males and into the crowd. Packmates stumble back.

My wolf pops to her feet and crouches over the pup, hiding her, growling and snapping until the circle around her clears. She catches sight of Alroy’s flaming tomato face, and she lets out a snarl so furious that it scrapes her throat.

He frightened the pup. He’s the threat.

Kill him.

I can’t. He’s too big. My wolf looks to Justus expectantly. His eyes are dark with rage, his body tensed and menacing, but my wolf doesn’t flinch. She yaps at him. He’s bigger. He needs to handle this male. She can’t do everything herself.

Justus growls. He’s clearly threatening Alroy, not my wolf, but still, the sound has the force of an alpha’s growl, no matter what he says, and it strikes terror in my human heart.

Shut up, wolf.

Oh, please, shut your mouth.

My wolf ignores us both and yaps at Justus even louder.

Pockets of smothered laughter bubble up from the crowd as if one by one, they can’t hold it in anymore.

Justus steps to Alroy, his aggravation blaring like an air raid siren. Inside my wolf, I scurry back to my corner, huddle, and moan. My wolf bares her teeth at Alroy and rumbles in anticipation.

Alroy doesn’t even notice. He’s steaming mad, glaring daggers at Diantha, screwing up his mouth to say something else.

She smirks, waiting, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.

“We should trade you.” Alroy sneers. “Everyone’s tired of your old ass anyway.”

All laughter dies. Diantha’s jaw drops. The sharp stink of aggression rises from the females. The pup curls into a tighter ball beneath me.

My wolf lifts her muzzle and howls.

“That’s it.” Justus curses and lunges for Alroy.

In the blink of an eye, Alroy shifts and tries to leap away, but Justus is quicker. He snatches Alroy’s full-grown wolf from midair with his bare hands and spins almost exactly like we were taught in human sport class at Moon Lake Academy when we learned the discus. Then he lets go.

Alroy’s wolf goes flying. The crowd scatters, clearing a runway. He lands a good ten yards away and skids across the ground, tearing up the lush green grass. Eventually, he rolls to a stop with a sad mewl. He stays down.

Justus throws his head back, bares his fangs, and roars. His bellow echoes off the terraces rising around us. Loose pebbles skitter down the rock face. The entire pack crashes to their knees and bares their throats. Pups dart between their dams’ legs to hide. The silence is sudden and absolute.

A breeze whips down from a high peak, ruffling fur like wind across a wheat field. My wolf draws in a steadying breath, bracing for the stench of fear.

The air is clear.

Almost brisk.

The entire pack is showing neck, and they’re chastened—and wary—but they aren’t afraid.

I don’t understand.

Justus blows out his cheeks, clenches his teeth and glares beseechingly up at the sky for a moment, and then points at Alroy’s wolf and says, “You watch how you talk to females. I’ll skin you and trade your pelt to Quarry Pack. Try me. See if I won’t!” He bellows the final words.

Alroy’s wolf whines and tucks his snout into his shoulder.

Then Justus turns to Diantha. “You—” he snaps, then stops himself and starts again with a deliberately, teeth-grindingly even voice. “Mind your own business. Please.” He surveys his pack and announces, “This is Annie. She’s my mate. That’s all. No need for all of this. Go on about your day now.”

“Yes, Alpha,” the pack mutters.

He growls. “I’m not the alpha.” He strides forward, picks up my wolf and the little gray pup, and tucks one of us under each arm. “You don’t need an alpha to tell you what to do. You need common sense, so some of you are out of luck, but that doesn’t mean I need to step into the breach.”

He keeps grumbling as he marches over to the black wolf and gently sets her pup at her feet. The black wolf butts his leg and rumbles her thanks. The pup whines and props her little paws on his other leg to try and reach me. My wolf bends over Justus’s forearm and gives her a few reassuring yips that she’ll see her soon. The pup isn’t the least bit upset by the events of the past few minutes. If anything, she smells excited. Like a pup who’s going to be hard to put to bed.

I watch from the boundary between my wolf and me where I’ve crept, stealthy and uncertain, so I can memorize the pup’s twig of a tail and her downy belly fur and her tufty ears. She captivates me.

And it’s not just that she’s precious. Or that she’s the first of her kind I’ve ever seen.

She’s not afraid. She should be. She’s small. Defenseless.

It’s not that she’s particularly fearless. Her siblings don’t smell cowed, either.

Justus carries me away, and I crane my neck to see the pup join her brother and sister to tumble together and sniff and snuffle like it’s been five years, not five minutes.

She’s not afraid. Nothing’s hurt her yet, not badly.

As Justus walks through the pack to the far side of the clearing, I watch as his packmates stand, dust off their knees, and start to chat and laugh and bicker again. They duck their heads when Justus passes, giving me a once-over from the corner of their averted eyes, but they’re not afraid, either.

They’re curious.

The atmosphere feels exactly like it did in class at Moon Lake Academy after a badly behaved student got it from the instructor—that giddy release of tension and effort to look innocent and obedient.

What is going on in this pack?

And where are we going?