by Ava Williams
Titus started off in the direction of where the intruder had been spotted. As he walked, he shifted into his wolf form. It was always an odd sensation. No matter how many times he transformed, he still felt a rush of adrenaline as his bones and skin reshaped and the wolf inside him came to the surface. It felt free—free from human standards, free from politics and relationships and anything. It was just a wolf and nature, as real and as raw as it came.
As he left the compound and bounded into the dark forest, he breathed in the scent of the forest, relished the thump of his paws as they struck the soft earth beneath him. This was what he was made for. Freedom, pure and simple. He could be an executive and manage bullshit pack politics later. For now, he ran as the wild animal that always twitched under his skin.
He glanced behind him and saw Seth’s blond wolf form following him. Eli would be on the other side. He didn’t care to check. Maybe this was what it was all about. This was why he did it, why he busted his ass day after day to grow the business—so that so long as he was alpha, not a single member of his pack would ever worry about the future. They could feel this and never fear losing it.
He picked up the intruder’s scent a hundred yards out. Vanilla. He followed it, silently moving through the forest and slowing his pace as he approached. He slowed to a walk as he came to the crest of a hill that overlooked the grove. Still in his wolf form, he looked over the ledge to see what they were—
Wow.
He’d done this a hundred times to a hundred different intruders. People who lived wild, couples locked in amorous embraces, lost hikers, corporate spies, other wolves, roaming artists. All kinds.
Not this, though.
His breath caught in his throat and his wolf’s heart thundered in his chest. He blinked, hard, at what he was looking at.
A woman.
A gorgeous woman.
She moved like she was trying to sneak out of the forest, glancing behind her and keeping her hands close to her sides. Her long, dark hair flowed down her back, and she carried a backpack, of all things. Her casual clothes revealed a hint of her feminine curves, and she moved with grace and confidence.
Titus grinned. This would be fun.
When she looked back again, he caught a glimpse of her eyes, which were a deep, rich gold. There was something striking about her, something about her eyes, that caught him off guard. She moved with a grace and a strength that was hard to explain. For the first time in decades, he felt like a young man who’d just had his first crush. He took a cautious sniff and smelled magic on her. She’d cast a spell recently. A witch, probably.
She didn’t see them.
Instead, while she was looking back, she tripped over something and caught herself.
“Motherfucker,” she hissed as she straightened and looked around for more obstacles.
Titus paused. On the one hand, she was obviously intruding. But on the other hand, he was curious what she was doing here. They’d never had a witch trespass on the grounds. He gestured to Eli and Seth to keep their distance as they quietly followed her in wolf form.
“Do a true love spell, Molly,” the woman muttered under her breath, limping from something—a twisted ankle, he guessed, judging by the way she paused to gently rotate a foot. “This is going to get me fucking killed.”
Standard procedure would be to step in and approach her, but he stayed back as his companions lingered behind him. There was just something entirely too compelling about her to confront her yet, and he couldn’t help but be curious about her. Why did she seem so . . . familiar? He was certain that he would recognize her if he’d ever seen her before, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d known her his whole life.
His eyes narrowed. It had to be magic. Something was strange here. None of it lined up. He didn’t know her, and none of his emotions made sense. The only logical explanation was that she was a witch and using some kind of magic. As a werewolf, he should be immune, but maybe . . .
He paused.
Just a little longer.
Just to see what was going on.
And then he’d step in.
4
Molly wanted to know what in the hell was wrong with her.
The spell had gone exactly as she’d feared.
She was—well, kind of confident when she found an unsecured patch of forest and went in. She felt good at first, but her confidence failed as she walked. She told herself that all she had to do was make it to the grove, do it quickly, and leave—and she’d be better for having taken the risk.
She was completely unprepared for how creepy the forest would be, and everywhere she walked, she felt like something watched her. The longer she walked, the less sense it made that she’d come in the first place. She’d felt thirsty for some excitement, and she’d just wandered into wolf territory alone? Even if she didn’t get caught by the wolves, there might be all kinds of very hungry animals out here that would love a tasty witch snack. She was just feeling impulsive! She should have gotten a tiny tattoo or something, but instead, she’d risked her life and walked into the spooky woods in the dark, alone.
Brilliant.
Just brilliant.
She’d made it to the site, and right off the bat, she’d felt the ambient power. Maybe, with this boost, she could actually hold up her end. But had she? Of course not. She’d done everything right. She’d gotten all the materials, prepared everything exactly like she was supposed to, and recited everything perfectly.
And.
Failed.
It had started so well that she’d let herself dream for a second that it would actually work and that she could harness what she needed to. She’d felt strong, stronger than she ever had before, and everything felt right.
And then everything had started to go wrong. Right when she’d least expected it, everything fell apart. Like a house of cards collapsing, she’d tried to catch it, but she hadn’t stood a chance.
Right at the end of the spell, right after the last word of the incantation, the spell suddenly demanded more power—a lot more power. And she’d tried to give it, she really did, but she’d run out of juice and the spell had broken. The magic energy had fizzled out and she’d lost her touch on it, leaving her standing there with a half-finished spell. On the group message, one by one, each of her sisters confirmed that their part had gone through. They’d done their job. Of course they had. No surprise there. They were always better at spellwork than she was—by a long shot.
But she refused to let it be like that again. Instead of giving up, she decided she couldn’t give up. So she’d set up everything again using all the spare materials that she had brought—just in case.
She’d tried again.
And failed again.
And again. And again.
By the end of her third try, she was spent. She felt like she’d just went for a four-mile sprint. Her muscles ached and a throbbing headache formed in the back of her head. Her tongue felt dry, and her fingers kept shocking things with leftover static from the spell. Every part of her body was sore, and she just wanted to sleep for ten hours.
She’d known.
She’d known it wouldn’t work, and she’d lied to herself and tried to talk herself into believing otherwise.
The bitter shame of failure hurt, hurt her to her core. All she’d wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep and forget how bad she was compared to her sisters. She was the oldest sister, the smart one, for crying out loud. She could do some spells here and then, but like always, as soon as something needed any real power . . . she was useless. And now, she couldn’t even use the excuse of not having a good enough power source. Any witch worth anything could have pulled that off.
The sun had long since gone down behind the trees, so she was trying to walk out of the forest with next to no idea where she was going. She was adventuring based purely off her memory, and since her brain was basically fried for the time being from the spells, she wasn’t about to trust that. Everything looke
d the same to her tired brain. Every vine, every rock, and every tree looked exactly like the last one.
She also got to learn a crucial life lesson: forests were very scary at night.
Owl calls echoed through the dark canopy of trees and she felt the eyes of the forest on her with every step she took. She looked back constantly, peering through the darkness to see if any wolves followed her, but so far, she only saw bunnies and field mice in the quiet, ominous trees.
But that didn’t mean that there weren’t scarier things hiding in the shadows—things she couldn’t see. She couldn’t see anything, and her phone light was doing a shittier job than she could have possibly anticipated.
In her left hand, she held her phone aloft, and stepped forward carefully in the path that the dim glow illuminated ahead of her. In her right, she curled her fist around her keys, the jagged edges sticking out between her fingers, like makeshift brass knuckles. As if she’d even have time to react if wolves were out here.
It felt wrong to be here. This wasn’t exciting anymore—it was just plain fucking scary. Even if a wolf didn’t catch her, there were feral creatures out here, or maybe just regular human bad people. And what did she know about self-defense? She’d left her rape whistle at work by accident—not that anyone would come to help her out here. Her best bet was to stab something with a damn Post Office key, and that was hardly anything. Something rustled in the bushes and she whirled to face the source of the sound, sucking in a scared yelp. She cast the terrible light from her phone onto the vegetation, swallowing her fear and making her way around it.
A lonely, cold breeze drifted through the forest, chilling her to her bone and causing the vegetation to sway. It had probably just been the wind . . . right?
This was an awful idea, and when she got home, she was never going to get talked into something like this again.
She looked down at her phone. Zero bars. Of course.
Molly was alone. Perfectly, completely alone with nobody to call and nobody coming to guide her out. She sucked it up, turning her back on the brushes. She was tough, dammit, and—
And that was a fucking wolf.
It stood in front of her, in the center of her path.
It was big—a lot bigger than she expected one to be. It looked like a small bear more than a wolf, but it was indistinguishable even in the moonlight darkness. It stared right at her, but it didn’t attack. Human intelligence glowed behind chocolate-brown eyes, and thick, dark brown fur reflected the light of the full moon that streamed through the treetops.
Her courage fled as she stared at the advancing wolf. Her eyes widened and her heart started to race inside of her chest. She was caught, and she had no one to blame but herself. Even before she came out here, she knew it was a mistake, and now she was caught flat-footed, with just some keys to defend herself from a notoriously territorial pack. She wished she could run, but fear paralyzed her legs, leaving her well and truly stuck in place as the wolf drew closer.
“I’m just leaving.” She held her hands up in a gesture of surrender, and a nervous laugh escaped her throat as she took one step back away from it. The wolf cocked its head and watched her as she willed her leaden body to turn around. “No harm done.”
As she turned, she saw two more wolves—one a light brown and the other night-dark, black enough that it was barely distinguishable from the forest itself. Both bared their fangs with warning growls, and she felt all her remaining courage melt away. She wanted to keep backing up, but there was nowhere left to go—they’d pinned her.
Her eyes widened and her heart rate jumped, even as she forced a weak smile on her lips. She kept trying to keep an eye on all of them, but the biggest one, the first one, drew her attention more and more as it advanced slowly.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, those teeth looked perfect for sinking into her flesh. She was surrounded in every way—she looked back at the alpha wolf in front of her as the other two fanned out and made it pretty obvious that she wouldn’t make it more than a couple feet if she tried to run. For now, they stayed back, but she got the impression that they were ready to pounce if she made a move for anything.
“I, uh, I . . .” She tried to think of something to say. Maybe give them a good excuse—not that she expected mercy from a pack of wolf shifters.
As she stammered and tried to talk her way out of it somehow, her eyes landed back on the first wolf as he nailed her with an unblinking stare.
He was beautiful, she thought.
No, not beautiful.
Terrifying.
Absolutely terrifying. His fur looked thick and soft, but she couldn’t pull her attention away from his exposed fangs, gleaming in the moonlight from his long snout. Maybe if they were friends, she’d want to curl up to that plush fur and cuddle during a cold winter night, but all she wanted right now was to get as far away as possible. He growled in a warning tone when she looked like she was about to bolt for it. Oh, who was she kidding anyway? She couldn’t outrun them, not three wolves in their own damn territory.
Abruptly, the wolf began to shift into human form before her eyes. She’d heard about shifting before, of course, but to see one in person was incredible. For a second, she almost forgot to be afraid as her scientific curiosity kicked in to stare with awe as one creature became another. She stared in stunned silence as his body changed—slowly at first, the very edges of his fur blurring. His features soon followed, becoming indistinguishable as he reared back on his hind legs. A warm, soft glow cocooned around his form with beautiful tendrils of magic coiling around him. When the glow faded, the wolf was gone, and a man stood in its place.
And holy shit, what a man.
He was tall, proud, and muscular. His broad shoulders fit snugly in with a smooth, crimson silk dress shirt that tapered into some attractive slacks. The shirt was rolled up halfway up his forearms, revealing muscular forearms and tattoos that swirled across his skin like a canvas. He looked like a god—a perfect, gorgeous god with sinful blue eyes and more structure in his cheeks than most people had in their lives. He radiated power and authority—wore it like the wolf concealed inside his human form. Just looking at him for the first time, she felt like she was looking at the man in charge. The alpha.
She knew who he was the moment she saw him.
Titus Carston.
The richest wolf alpha in the world—and the world’s most eligible bachelor.
Even if she wanted to, this was a man she couldn’t imagine disobeying. In a second, with a single look from him, she lost all desire to run. It felt wrong to test someone like him. Men like him commanded authority, and though she’d never seen him before in her life, she couldn’t resist the instinct to follow him. She froze like a gazelle before a lion. Never in a million years did she think she would meet him in the middle of the night.
He looked her up and down with an unreadable expression. “Out for a late-night stroll?”
His deep, rich voice rocketed through her skull and down her spine, and she felt something unfurl inside of her. Arousal. She hesitated for a second as she tried to make sense of her reaction.
Well, if Titus Carston was her flavor, no wonder Carl didn’t do shit for her.
She tried to shake it off. This wasn’t the time to fall over herself for a powerful alpha. Sexy, powerful, and wealthy he might be, but that didn’t mean he was intending to show her any mercy or that any part of this was okay. She was still trapped with three strangers, strangers who were justifiably angry at her for trespassing.
“I-I was out doing a spell,” she managed as she took a step back. Behind her, the two other wolves growled. “I’m sorry, I was just leaving.”
“You were trespassing.”
The way he said it stopped her in her tracks. There was no way around it—she had been trespassing. Before she could respond, he kept going.
“You don’t look like most people who come out here. You’ve got magic in you, and you went to the grove. You came here for a purpose.” His eyes narro
wed as he stared at her. “I need to know what that is.”
She bit her lip. Well, this had been stupid in her mind, but it was somehow a thousand times more embarrassing declaring this out loud to a billionaire and his friends. “I was doing a fated mates spell with my sisters. I wasn’t followed here, I swear. Nobody knows I’m here.”
The arousal curdled in her belly as she squirmed with embarrassment. She’d known it was going to feel stupid saying that out loud. She had not been prepared for exactly how dumb she’d feel coming out and declaring it. It was the magical equivalent of I broke in so I could play with my toy cars on the fun dirt. Fated mates existed, but fated mate spells were a bunch of bullshit—and someone like Titus would know that. Why did she care what this guy thought about her?
She could understand why she needed to seem like she wasn’t a threat to the pack, but why did it matter if he thought of her as an idiot or not? Wasn’t that a good thing, if she seemed totally harmless?
As soon as she said the words fated mates spell, his eyebrow cocked up and just the slightest hint of a smirk formed on his lips. “You mean to tell me that you trespassed into heavily guarded territory just to do play magic?”
“She’s lying!” a cold voice said behind her. She wheeled around to see that the other wolves had shifted. One was tall and kind of cute in a Tom Sawyer sort of way, but the other one—the one who talked, if she had to guess—had unsettling, pale blue eyes that chilled her to the bone.
“She’s a spy, and she can’t be allowed to escape,” he said. Definitely him, and the malice in his tone was unmistakable.
Maybe it wasn’t the best response to the situation, but apparently, her body wasn’t responding like normal today. So, instead of being frightened, she snorted with amusement automatically, trying to fake a bravado she didn’t feel. “You can’t be serious.”
He glared back. “I am. What’s in the bag?”
