I’m sure they’d think I was caught up in some terrible shit, like drugs or human trafficking or even the Mafia. The truth was far stranger… a war being shifter clans. Werewolves. Alphas.
Yeah… no one would ever believe any of that. They’d think I was on drugs, for sure.
I stood and began to walk around inside the circular clearing my energetic boom had made in the forest. Realizing I had no clothes and that I’d have even more explaining to do if someone found me like this, I shifted back to my wolf.
In this form, I felt instantly stronger, more confident, and powerful… before, my wolf form had scared me. I had no idea how to control her yet and I had a real hang-up about the fact that I had not been born a wolf and didn’t know as much as the rest of them about shifting or being a wolf.
But now… now I was fully in my power and I could sense that I was only just now beginning to see what it was really all about and what I could truly do.
And that was when Finley approached me. I couldn’t see him well enough through the trees to make out who it was, but I could sense him and I knew his scent. In that moment, it was comforting to me. I wanted to run to him, to fall into his arms and feel his embrace, because I felt like I was falling apart.
Instead, I yelled to him in my mind, “What the fuck do you want?”
“I’m not here to fight,” he thought back to me.
“Maybe I am,” I replied.
“Yes, but I am not the enemy. I do know who is, however…”
After that last thought, I allowed him to approach me.
“We’ve all been looking for you. So have the guys from the Woodland Pack.”
“I know,” I replied sharply, but part of me regretted it. I didn’t want to be alone out here after everything that happened. Seeing his friendly familiar face brought me comfort. Seeing it wince at my biting tone made me feel a bit guilty.
“Roman and I split up to follow two different directions we were tracking you. I got to your parent’s house just after…” His voice trailed off and I realized that he must know what had happened to my mother. “I tried to find you, but you were already gone.”
I looked around the clearing, wondering for a moment if he had seen what had happened here, but there was no way he had. For one, I don’t think he’d be standing here and secondly, he would have asked me about it already.
“Are you… a-are you o-okay?” he sputtered, and when I looked in his eyes, I saw the sympathy and the empathy. He’d just lost someone very close to him as well.
“No.” I replied.
And as he came closer to me, I didn’t back away.
Chapter 6
I felt a funny spinning inside my body, and then a tingle that ran up my spine and down to the pads of my feet, and then I felt my eyes roll back in my head. Something was happening to me… my wolf was… slipping.
I didn’t know how or what but…
And the very next thing I remembered, I woke in his arms. I was there, in my human form, naked as a jaybird, and he was holding me, cradling my head in his lap. He was also shifted back to his human form. While I recognized him in that form, it was definitely the first time I’d seen him completely naked in such an intimate way.
For the most part, wolves aren’t shy about nudity. It was pretty pointless to be. We only had to be careful in front of the humans.
“Always the humans and their silly rules,” Ryder had muttered when I first met them.
Here, lying in Finley’s arms, I felt safe and warm. I opened my eyes slowly, and looked up at his chiseled face. His deep blue eyes looked back at me and he smiled with his plump, kissable lips.
Ah, even now I could not overlook how sexy he was. He was one of the most beautiful men I had ever seen in my life. And here he was holding me, naked, cradling me much like a lover would.
As soon as the thought entered my mind, I blushed and tried to push it away, just remembering that he could read my thoughts if he wanted to.
“Welcome back,” I heard him whisper and his voice sounded just like that day at the bistro when I had first met him, friendly but low and sultry.
“H-hi,” I managed, but my voice was a bit weak.
“Don’t try to speak yet, beautiful. I’ve got you. Everything’s fine. Just relax.”
There was something about his reassuring tone, his sexy blue eyes, and the fact that I could feel his slight arousal underneath me as I laid on top of him naked that awoken something in me… some primal need that was there, waiting to be met.
As I looked up at him, I sent him the clearest message I could think of, through our telepathic link: I need you.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Positive.” My reply was all he needed for the go-ahead. Finley leaned in and placed his lush lips on mine and he tasted like… peace, home, warm apple pies… all good things that I knew in my life, all rolled into one.
And if there was one thing I was more sure of than ever in my life, it was that I wanted to fuck Finley right now. Right here on the forest floor, like untamed beasts, as the stars above provided a whimsical backdrop to our union.
As he kissed me, his large hands roamed over the bare skin of my back. As I kissed him back, biting his lower lip gently between my teeth, his right hand slid under my buttocks, guiding me into a sitting position.
Now my own hands were free to explore his body as our tongues danced in each other’s mouths.
His hands were softer than I expected and he was ever-so-gentle with me as he kissed and caressed me all over. After weeks on the run, the trauma of finding my mother dead, and whatever the hell had just happened in the woods before he arrived, this felt amazing. I needed the comfort. My hands explored his back and I could feel his strong muscles even there, and then one hand moved up to his hair as we kissed, tongues entwined, breathing fast, and I began to grind into his body more, with my legs around his waist.
I could feel his hardness just below me, slighting tickling my outer lips as we were both naked, and I felt myself grow wetter. I was ready for him now, but allowing him to set the pace.
He groaned, a feral, wild sound and I knew he was having a hard time holding back, so I broke our frantic mouths apart to whisper, “take me”.
That was all the invitation he needed. His strong arms grabbed my waist and lifted me, ever so slightly, enough that he could enter me.
I was so wet, he glided right in, smooth as butter, as if our parts were built for one another.
A soft moan escaped my lips, and he leaned in to nibble on my bottom lip first, and then my top, his tongue parting them and exploring inside as his member parted me below. Once he had found a rhythm, he picked up the pace, his strong arms around my back, my legs wrapped around his.
I was straddling him, on his lap, and this allowed him to penetrate me deeply in ways I had never experienced before. We looked deep into one another’s eyes and while we said nothing out loud but grunts and moans, we spoke to each other inside our minds.
And as we continued like that, with me rocking on his lap, my mind’s eye could see our wolves, running together, through the forest, in step together, the wind at our backs, and then I felt him… inside me of me on a soul level as well as a physical level.
This was a sensation that was difficult to describe because there was not human concept of it, as far as I knew.
We continued until we were both spent, and then I collapsed in his arms and he held me oh, so tight and kissed the top of my head.
* * *
“I just can’t believe it,” he said finally, breaking the silence between us. “I’ve wanted to mate you since the first day I saw you in that bistro.”
While I wanted to jump his bones, too, there was something else… something Finley didn’t know yet and I didn’t know how to tell him.
“What?” he asked, looking at me with concern. “You don’t feel I’m your mate after all of that?” He looked a bit offended, and I felt instantly guilty.
“I do be
lieve we’ve mated. It’s just that…” I hesitated, almost afraid to tell him. Wolves could be very territorial and if he thought I was mated to someone else, I couldn’t be sure how he could react.
“It’s just what, Zoe?” He urged, his eyes filled with concern.
“It’s that I am mated with someone else, too,” I finally blurted out.
“But that’s not possible! There’s only ever one mate for a wolf,” Finley said. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” I asked, wondering now what had caused him to pause and think, rather than rage and freak out.
“We have a legend in our pack,” he began. “It’s passed down from generation to generation and told to little wolves as a bedtime story. In this legend, there is a Chosen One. She’s a special wolf who comes to the Pack in a most unusual way. The Chosen One is rare, and comes only once every 1,000 years. She is a matriarch, a mother, a healer, and a goddess to the Pack. She ahs the ability to mate with more than one wolf before it is her gift she gives to the Pack.”
As he was speaking, this was all starting to sound very similar to the Prophecy from the Woodland Pack, with just a few small differences.
“And this Chosen One… does she have anything else special about her?” I asked, bracing myself for an answer my gut was already telling me was coming.
“Yeah, she can do magic.”
Chapter 7
His words hung in the air for a few long, silent moments, before I cleared my throat and attempted a reply.
“So… you think I might be this…?” I couldn’t make myself say the words Chosen One, though. It was just too weird.
“You might be,” he said with a shrug. “But I can tell you who would know. Roman is the true expert on these things. If you let me reach out to him about it…”
“No,” I exclaimed at first, pulling back from my position still cradled in his arms.
“Shhh, okay, okay,” he soothed me, pulling me back into his lap. “What if I reach out but I promise not to tell him we are together? I’ll just tell him I’m hot on your trail but I haven’t been able to catch you yet.”
I thought about it for a minute, still wanting to protest, but finally relented, “Okay, but do not tell him you are with me. Can you lie to your cousin without him sensing it?”
“Of course I can,” he said with an almost-gleeful smile, as if he had done so before. I wasn’t going to ask any questions. I trusted him. I just hoped that wouldn’t turn out to be a mistake…
Shortly after that, he contacted Roman, and as promised, did not tell him we were together.
“He promised to do some more research into it,” Finley told me, pulling me in for a kiss. “There are some old books and records on a storage trunk back at camp. Our Alpha always kept it in his tent. Roman believes it might have some answers.”
“Okay,” I sighed. “In the meantime, what are we doing to find the bastard who killed my mother?”
* * *
It turns out, he had a plan for that. He had seen the human form of the wolf who killed my mother and then very carefully tracked his scent to an old storage building on what looked like abandoned property in our town. Using one of those fancy potions they had, he hid his own scent and went in for closer inspection.
When the guy turned, he realized it was that same wolf that had attacked me in the woods.
“And here’s the thing, Zoe,” he continued. “In his human form, I recognized him.”
“Yeah? From where?”
“When we were tracking who we think killed our Alpha, we followed a scent trail to this guy. But when we got close, there were a bunch of other people around him and we could not be certain which guy was the wolf.”
I was aware that tracking wolf scent in a large crowd was difficult. It was one way I had played crowds to my advantage the past three weeks on the run. When I felt them getting close to my trail, I’d run through a large city or some other populated area to throw off the scent.
“We thought he was with the Woodland,” Finley continued, “because they were the only other known pack in the area.”
“But now you know that isn’t true,” I added.
“Yes, of course. So, what I discovered is there is another pack that has encroached our area.”
Another pack actually made a lot of sense, but why hadn’t we seen more of them? And why were they breaking Wolf Code and not notifying the other packs they were in the area?
“Who are they?”
“Well now,” he said with a crooked smile, “It’s funny you should ask. Because I think I now have an idea.”
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Why did I have to choose anyway? If I was this “chosen one”, the wolf princess, or whatever they wanted to call it, why couldn’t I forge my own destiny? If I was, in fact, the true princess, then that meant I made the rules.
Instead of choosing a mate and therefore, a pack, what if I chose them all? What if I picked all four men, thus uniting our two packs as one?
Sneak Peek of The Pack: Call of the Wolf Book 3
Try as I might to run, I knew they were on my heels. I could smell them. I could hear them and I could sense them in my mind. They would find me and they would either kill me, or force me to mate with their leader.
I had to get away.
Until I could find some answers to why I was being Hunted, I had to stay on the move.
Purchase Hunted: Call of the Wolf Book 2
Sneak Peek: Full Moon Rising
This was the hardest breakup of my life. True, it was the only breakup of my life, and maybe that’s why it was hitting harder, but all I knew was… it sucked. I was supposed to be training for the most important competition of my life, but all I could do was think about him.
I wondered where he was, who he was with, what he was doing… if he was thinking of me like I was thinking of him, and if he was sorry that we had broken up.
Most of the time, it felt like an anvil was sitting on my chest and the rest of the time, it felt like I was floating outside my body, watching this broken husk of a person from above, wondering how that lifeless shell continued to move around when it had lost everything that mattered to it.
Ah, heartbreak… it’s fun, isn’t it?
I could get some of that aggression out with my combat training sessions, and I loved to go for a long run every other day, at least, to keep my stamina up, but none of that stopped the pain or the endless thoughts of him.
It was like getting a song stuck in your head. You know how it just keeps replaying itself over and over, pieces of it even when you’re not trying, a bit here and there when you’re falling asleep, or in the back of your mind working its way to the front as you do daily chores. That’s what his memory was doing to me.
How long was this supposed to last anyway? People told me I needed to just date someone else to get over him. A) I didn’t want to date someone else. B) I already tried that, and it didn’t work.
In fact, I had dated someone else for more than six months, but I still didn’t feel any different. My best friend, Roxy, said that I didn’t give it my best effort, but I disagree. At first, I was super into the new guy, Dre. He was fun and exciting, and everything that Brent wasn’t in some ways.
In other ways, he was everything I missed about Brent. And if I’m being honest, it was great to have someone text me good morning and good night, and to say sweet things to me throughout the day. I had really missed that attention. Just knowing that someone else out there is thinking of you can really brighten your whole mood.
On our second date, we kissed for the first time. It wasn’t hot and passionate like it had been with Brent, but I blamed it partly on him being ner
vous. I expected things to get better on our next date and beyond.
Only… they didn’t.
I actually spent the night at his house – twice – but nothing happened between us. Weird for a 20-something man, right? I mean, it was a relief not to have someone trying to get into my pants two seconds after we met, but also kind of odd how reserved he was being.
Who invites you to sleep over after you’re dating for weeks and then doesn’t try to even kiss you?
We were like middle school girls on a sleepover. We watched movies, ate snacks, talked all night, and then passed out sometime in the wee hours of the morning. It was nice, but not what I would call romantic or erotic.
It was the most platonic adult date I’d ever had. In fact, I’d hung out with non-romantic girlfriends who were more affectionate. And if that wasn’t odd enough, the next morning he asked me to be exclusive, which seemed to come out of nowhere, but I figured what the hell did I have to lose at this point, so I said okay.
Of course, Roxy had said it was “totally weird” and that I should drop him because there was “obviously no spark”, but I was no quitter and that attitude carried over in my dating life, as well. So, being the stubborn girl that I was, I kept trying and hoping it would get better.
The more time I spent with Dre, the more it made me miss Brent, so I finally decided the nicest thing I could do was break it off. He didn’t seem too bent out of shape about it either, so I think the feelings were mutual. If he didn’t like me, why didn’t he say so? Or maybe he had felt a spark in the beginning and then lost it? Again, why not just say something? He carried on like everything was fine and when I broke up with him, he said, “Okay, well thanks.”
Hunted: Call of the Wolf : Reverse Harem Werewolf Shifter Series Page 3
