Table of Contents

Part 2: Chased

Author's Note

Chapter 1 ~ Reeve

Chapter 2 ~ Bettina

Chapter 3 ~ Reeve

Chapter 4 ~ Bettina

Chapter 5 ~ Reeve

Chapter 6 ~ Bettina

About the Author

Sneak Peek at Part 3

~ Bettina ~

The vicious rogue werewolf who bit me is on the hunt, and my only chance to escape him is with the sexy, brooding alpha male who’s done much more than bite me. I never liked to run—I'm built for baking, not bolting—but being on the run with Reeve isn't so bad. Especially when he takes me to his mountain hideaway to show me the pleasures of the werewolf I'll become... If I survive the night fever.

~ Reeve ~

We aren't out of the woods yet, no matter how deep we go. The vicious rogue pack is on our tail, wanting to claim Bettina for their own, and her lush, curvy body burns with the rising of the moon. The only way out is through, and I'll be the one to take her there.

HEART OF THE PACK is a paranormal shapeshifter BBW romance serial in seven parts. The stories contain adult language and graphic sexual situations. Rated M for mature and W for wild readers only.

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Copyright © 2015 by Elsa Jade

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as factual. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be scanned, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

Author’s Note:

I uploaded Heart of the Pack ~ Part 1: Bitten just as the first official wolf pack was designated in southwestern Oregon since wolves disappeared from this state. The new Rogue Pack includes Wolf OR-7—Oregon’s “wandering wolf” who moved from northeastern Oregon where there were several established wolf packs down to California and then back to Oregon. Now, as I’m getting ready to upload Part 2: Chased, I just read that a new wolf has been spotted in the Rogue Pack’s area! OR-7 wears a tracking collar which is why we know so much about him. The new wolf is naked. ;) Wildlife biologists found a pawprint and set up a trail cam that caught a picture of the new wolf, although the blurry image showed only the body, not the head. It’s obviously an alpha werewolf male! Just check the covers of all the shapeshifter romance novels with heroes shown from the neck down. :) I wish him—okay, maybe it’s a her—luck and long life.

~ Elsa

Chapter 1 ~ Reeve

I jerked the car door closed—as closed as it would go with its werewolf-sized dent, never taking my lead foot off the gas pedal. “So much for the resale value,” I grumbled. “This is—was—a first-generation Z4 in mint condition, not a sardine can to be peeled open and slurped clean. Fucking scavengers.”

I glanced over at Bettina, who was half kneeling in the seat beside me to look out the back. Obviously she was still having some doubts that I had snatched her ass right out of Lysander’s jaws.

“Put your seat belt on, Bets,” I said. I had to raise my voice over the rush of wind through the bent doorframe, but maybe a touch of normalcy would delay the inevitable freak-out.

She gave me an astonished look as she straightened around. “I really think click-it-or-ticket is the least of my worries tonight.”

Since she wasn’t wrong, I didn’t reply.

She continued, “And no offense, but I’d rather be free to bail out if necessary.”

That I did need to answer. “You can’t run again. Lysander has your scent. He’ll find you wherever you go. And believe me, you want me there to stop him.”

She speared her fingers through her hair over her ears, as if she wanted to block out my words. But then she flattened her hands over her thighs, her knuckles whitened as if she could hold onto the reality she had known. Reluctance vibrated in her tone, when she asked, “Lysander? That’s the golden wolf?”

I nodded. “He is alpha prime of his pack of killers.” According to rumor, it was a pack of thirteen. Rumor only, though. Hard intel was in scant supply since Lysander rarely left anyone behind to talk about him. Even the paw prints and bite marks were inconclusive. I wondered where the other ten were.

Maybe it was all rampant speculation. Werewolf packs were never that large. Not anymore. Between the centuries of wolf hunts and the inherent perils of werewolf life, we couldn’t afford to congregate in such numbers. But if Lysander had found a way, he was even more of a menace than we already feared.

No sense borrowing trouble, though. I’d been lucky against him and his two followers. If I had to face all thirteen at once, even I wasn’t arrogant enough to think I could win.

Never slacking the coupe off ninety mph, I pulled out my phone and texted off a warning to my crew.

Bettina narrowed her dark eyes. “You like to live dangerously, don’t you?”

“No.” I shoved the phone back in my pocket. “I like to live quietly, doing what I want, with no one the wiser. But that wasn’t an option tonight.”

And maybe never again. I’d been so determined to hold my Rogue Mountain boys against the volatility inherent in a pack of alpha werewolves, never exposing them to the vulnerability of a female. Females were always smaller, weaker, a liability in our brutal world. Yet every pack longed for one, even if losing her would rip out their beating hearts. Not that it mattered either way; I couldn’t abandon Bettina to Lysander. I’d kill her myself rather than leave her to that miserable fate.

Some of that violence must have been in my sidelong glance, because she bit her lip, inciting a flush of blood. To the seething morass of resentment and possessiveness in my gut, I added a pang of regret that she was so clearly hesitant to trust me.

As I stared at her mouth, another twinge—lower down and completely wrong for the circumstances—made it clear she shouldn’t trust me. Damn those animal instincts.

Her jaw tightened. “Why did Lysander bite me?”

I jerked my gaze back to the road. “Why you? I don’t know. Wrong place, wrong time, maybe.” But I knew that wasn’t the real question. “As for why he attacked at all…” I turned off the Rogue Pass residential street onto a county road. The car skittered a little on the deteriorating surface, but I corrected easily. “Since he didn’t leave you dead, it wasn’t for money or thrills. Which are the reasons he usually kills.”

“I couldn’t have stopped him if he’d wanted me dead.” She touched her arm. “The bite was…calculated. Not deep and no place too susceptible to damage. I’ve cut myself worse chopping hazelnuts.”

I nodded. “He didn’t want a dead body. He wanted a live one. A slave.”

“A... What?” The streetlights were farther apart here, but the dashboard lights were bright enough to show her stricken expression.

Fighting the wolf’s urge to rub against her, offering solace and protection, I scraped one hand down my face. There would be no safety found for her tonight. But how much did I need to tell her? Just enough to stop her from running from me. Not so much to make her crazy enough to punch me in the nose again.

“Most werewolves are male,” I said. “The virus—”

She stiffened. “Virus?”

“If you keep interrupting, this is going to take all night.” I knew I was being curt, but she might not have all night. What was left of it, anyway.

She clamped her mouth shut, the pretty bow of her lips straight and sharp as a dart.

I continued, “Lupoviridae infects more males than females. Of the females that are exposed, some can fight off the effects.” I stared straight ahead. “Many of the rest—both male and female—die in the mid stages of metathesis, when the virus swaps bonds between molecules, which allows for the change. But for some reason, females are especially vulnerable. We think the Y chromosome offers some protection against the violence of the change.”

“Viruses, molecules, and chromosomes? That doesn’t sound like magic.”

“It’s not,” I said. “Lupoviridae is rare, but viruses like it have been with us forever. There’s a reason every culture on Earth has shapeshifting somewhere in its mythology.”

“This is insane,” she said.

“Most of the stories are exaggerations,” I agreed. “And the movies are even worse.”

She shot me a vicious glance. “You are insane.”

“I wish I was, for your sake. But you’ve already felt the first stirrings of the transformation, haven’t you?” I knew I was right when her gaze skewed out her window, unwilling to face me, face the terrible truth I was giving her.

Her question bounced off the glass back to me. “If it’s a disease, is there a cure?”

I hesitated, reluctant to destroy the thread of hope I heard in her voice. I’d always known what I was, and I’d been eager for the transformation, never considering the repercussions. But I’d had the advantage of being a young, stupid male. Bettina had experienced only the animal brutality.

My fingers itched to soothe over her hair, to show her the gentleness within the beast. But compassion wouldn’t save her any more than it had saved my natal pack. She had to learn there was no way out but through.

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, and the coupe shimmied in protest. “If there is a cure, or even a way to slow or control the metathesis, to improve survival rates, we haven’t found it.”

Her voice was soft, barely reaching me over the sound of the wind through the cracked door despite my keen hearing. “So it was intended as a kill bite.”

“No,” I said. “Lysander is hoping you are one of the few females who can make it through the change.”

“Why would he even bother if the odds are so slight?” She fisted one hand on her thigh. “But I suppose a guy who kills for thrills doesn’t care about the odds.”

“Actually, he does care. Deeply.” I took a shallow breath, trying not to notice the sweet and spicy perfume of her skin. The wolf was peeved that it couldn’t find our scent on her. Had she wanted to wash away all trace of our encounter? “Because only the strongest survive metathesis, most werewolves are male, and worse, alpha male. A pack of all alpha males is rowdy, to say the least. But wolves need a pack to survive. So every pack of alpha males is desperate to find a female to be the center, the balance.”

“And if it can’t find a center?”

I finally slowed the car. The wail of the wind through the bent door softened to a moan. But a ghostly moan, not the lovely kind she’d made when I was buried balls-deep in her core.

My voice hoarse, I said, “Without a female, a pack will eventually tear itself apart. Many alpha primes lose hope and kill their pack and then themselves. The few who escape such a purge usually shift to wolf and never change back. Likely they’ll be killed by loneliness, human hunters, or other werewolves who can’t afford to let our secret be discovered. The very, very few who come out of a broken pack are broken themselves.”

In the beat of silence, her pulse was too quick and shallow. “You are an alpha prime.” Her tone was certain.

I nodded once.

This time, she hesitated. “Did you ever—?”

I heard the first stirrings of pity in her tone, and it struck me down to the deepest bones in my body. I cut her off before she could ask. “My pack is strong.” For the moment. “But I can’t have Lysander marauding in my territory. It puts us all at risk.”

Her chin went up. “Mostly me.”

Once again she was right. I turned off the county road onto another local road. Here, the cone of the headlights was the only illumination, showing the trees crowding closer and the edges of the pavement crumbling into the loam.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” I said, just loud enough for her to hear. “Lysander isn’t merely desperate and destructive, he’s deranged. When his last pack broke, he was the only one left standing. But he left behind whatever remained of his humanity.”

She shivered, and I turned up the heated seat as high as it would go, cursing myself for not doing it earlier. She was probably in shock, and I could do nothing but make it worse.

“He’ll do anything to get you back,” I told her. “And once he has you, he’ll never let you go.”

She pulled her knees up to her chest, one arm—the bitten one—tucked to her belly. The wolf in me howled to go to her, now, but I gripped the wheel until my knuckles cracked. We had to put miles between us and Lysander’s vicious pack.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Someplace he won’t find you.” At least not tonight.

She twisted her head to stare at me. In the dashboard light, her features were drawn, shadows circling her eyes. “So how are you different than him?”

The wolf froze at the fear in her voice, whining in dismay.

But what could I say? I wasn’t really that different at all.

“I didn’t bite you and leave you,” I said at last, my tone touched with the frost of her rejection. “I won’t make you face it alone.”

“Will that make a difference?”

I wished I hadn’t promised myself to tell her the truth. A lie would be preferable right now.

So I said nothing.

The road narrowed another degree.

“If there’s anyone you want to call, do it now,” I told her. When she stiffened, I couldn’t hold back an angry stare. What, she thought I was going to murder her right here when I could’ve done it already? “We’re about to lose the signal.”

She sniffed. “I don’t have my cell.”

I clicked on the dome light and hooked my thumb over my shoulder. “Your stuff is in back.”

She reached between the seats and dragged her backpack up. From the side pocket, she pulled her phone.

I clamped my hand over hers. “Before you call, consider who you want facing off against Lysander’s pack: some friend who thinks you’ve been kidnapped, or me.”

She jerked away from me and hit the first speed dial. “Hey, mija.” Her chirpy tone didn’t fool me or the wolf, but humans weren’t as discerning. “I know you’re working so I’ll just leave a quick message. I wanted to tell you…” Her hesitation was barely noticeable. “Tomorrow’s my day off, and I decided to have someone take a look at that bite. I’ll text you when I get a minute. Okay, love you. Bye.”

Bettina powered down the phone and shoved the pack between her feet just as I turned off the pavement onto gravel. She clutched the armrest on the door as we bumped over a rough patch. “Where are we?”

“Logging road.”

“I’ve lived here my whole life, so I know this area pretty well, and there hasn’t been logging out this way for a long time.”

“Old logging road,” I amended. “I have a place out here where you’ll be safe for awhile.” Not from the virus, of course.

“What’s the next stage?”

“Pavement to gravel. Gravel to dirt. Dirt to two-track.” My poor Z4.

She glared at me. “Of the metathesis.”

She stumbled a little over the word. Most people knew metastasis, the spread of a disease. But metathesis was about transposition; all the pieces stayed, they just got rearranged and put back in a different order.

I didn’t think she was in the mood to appreciate the subtleties.

“The virus is already spreading. You’ve probably felt stronger, faster, more in control of your body. But also more aggressive”—I rubbed my nose to remind her of the punch—“and less civilized.”

She made a strangled sound that might have been half a laugh.

“That’s the virus preparing your cells for the change,” I said. “You’ll go through waves of that until the final transformation.”

“And how long will that be?”

I shrugged. “Can’t predict. Sometimes the wolf rises immediately. Sometimes it waits. In some, it never appears.”

She straightened. “So there’s still a chance I’ll be…?”

Normal? Human? The same? I wondered which words she was shuffling in her head. I settled for, “Blissfully ignorant?”

She glared at me. But I preferred her sizzling glare to the cold fear.

I returned her challenging stare. “After what you’ve seen, you think you can still go back?”

She seethed out an impatient breath. “What have I seen? Some big dogs, some hot guy who tells me I’m special? Sure.”

Hot guy, huh? I wasn’t a sucker for warm fuzzies like the wolf, but when a kickass girl with sexy curves said I was hot, the least I could do was listen. “That ‘dog’ almost ripped the door off my car. Would’ve ripped me apart too. How many more teeth do you need to see before you’re convinced?”

She pursed her lips, plumping that X-rated mouth, and my imagination went to bad places.

“…you do it,” she was saying.

I shook my head. “Sorry, what?”

“I’ll believe it, no question, when I see you do it,” she repeated more slowly. “The change.”

She already didn’t trust me. How much worse would it be after she’d seen the beast within? There was a reason shifters were mere mythology to most humans; we kept it that way because we scared the shit out of them. “Not a good idea while I’m driving.”

“Where are we going?”

The road had climbed steadily while we talked, getting narrower and rougher all the way. It wasn’t even a logging road anymore, barely a two-track. The light, alloy wheels, so much fun on the winding mountain roads—the paved ones—were squirrely on the mix of gravel and mud.

“There’s an old hunting cabin up here,” I said. “It’s off the grid, not on any maps. No one knows about it except my pack.”

Her throat moved as she swallowed hard. “And now me.”

And now her. “Yeah. Let’s just say I’m trusting you. You might do the same with me.”

Despite the late—well, early hour and even though she’d been through a lot, she sat stiffly in her seat, her gaze shuttling from the windshield to the passenger window and back again, with an occasional darting sideways glance at me. Unlike most viruses that were programmed to spread as widely as possible, lupoviridae drove those it infected to lonely places, seeking its own kind. Sometimes I thought it was a miracle we hadn’t gone extinct millennia ago.

Sometimes I thought it was a curse.

Trees began to crowd the trail, dark green branches screeching against the sides of the coupe like skeleton fingers. Suddenly, an old giant of a Douglas fir loomed in the headlights.

I’d downshifted to the lowest gear some time ago, but Bettina still worked the phantom brake pedal on the passenger side. So much for trusting me.

I steered into the deepest shadows next to the fir and stopped the car. “End of the road,” I said into the ticking silence. “From here, we walk.”

The moment I’d turned off the engine, the night chill seeped through my crushed door. Bettina clutched at the door handle beside her, as if she thought I was going to drag her out bodily.

I would, if it came to that.

“I should have gone to the hospital,” she said, her voice thready. “If I’d asked you to take me—”

“I wouldn’t have.” No sense letting her play the what-if game. But it bothered me that the virus’s preference for solitude had even allowed her to speculate. Did that mean lupoviridae wasn’t taking hold as strongly as necessary to get her through metathesis? “No doctor could have helped you. Most likely you would’ve died with them having no clue what happened to you. At worst, you might’ve accidentally killed someone if the wolf emerged there.”

Bettina glowered at me. “You just don’t want your secret getting out.”

“Believe me, you don’t want it getting out either.”

Because worse yet, if she’d changed in a hospital setting, she might’ve been whisked away to some military industrial complex black site, never to be heard from again. No one could confirm that such black sites existed, but it was one rumor I was willing to believe.

I let out a slow breath, struggling for patience even as the wolf wanted to grab her and run.

“It’s too late now,” I said at last. “But if morning comes and you still want to go back, I’ll take you.”

While we’d been driving, the sky had cleared. Even though the forest rose mighty on all sides, a full moon shone down between the high spears, glinting off the wet pine needles, the few patches of deep snow, and bits of dented chrome so that we could see each other well enough.

She stared at me, searching my eyes, weighing my words.

I met her gaze steadily, unblinking. I was telling the truth, such as it was. By tomorrow morning, she’d be changed and she’d understand in her bones—in her new wolfen bones—that she could never truly go back.

Or she’d be dead.

Chapter 2 ~ Bettina

I was dying.

When Reeve said we needed to walk the rest of the way to the cabin, I didn’t know we’d be hiking the rest of the damn way over Rogue Pass. I huffed and puffed and was so, so glad I was wearing sneakers and not my cute heeled Mary Janes.

I stared daggers at the broad back ahead of me. Reeve had given me his suit jacket to pull on over my hoodie. He hadn’t even bothered rolling down the sleeves of his shirt, as if the cold couldn’t touch him, and the white linen—looking a little wrinkled now—was like a beacon in the darkness. While I welcomed the warmth of the jacket, I was forced to inhale the subtle scent of him sunk into the fabric. It reminded me of our quickie outside the bar. My lips felt soft and sensitive when I clamped my mouth shut, trying not to breathe, and my swollen nipples rubbed inside my clothes. Like they wanted out.

I released the breath on an exasperated wheeze got another mouthful of him. Nothing so obvious as cologne. It smelled like the forest around us, but with an added musk, something earthy and spicy. The wolf, I guessed.

Werewolf. Oh man.

Reeve hadn’t exactly convinced me his was the only way, but I didn’t have any other bright ideas; it was past three in the morning, after all. So I’d gotten out of the car and started following him. That seemed like an hour ago, although it probably wasn’t that long at all. I thought becoming a werewolf was supposed to make me stronger, but instead I felt like the same old me only grumpier. He was just lucky he wasn’t carrying me.

At the thought of him hoisting me into his strong arms again, I got a little wobbly and my ankle twisted. I gasped and stumbled.

I swear I didn’t do that on purpose—

Reeve’s hand was instantly at my elbow, holding me up from a nasty spill into the patches of crusty snow. His touch was unyielding, as if gravity itself wasn’t allowed to tell him no. “Watch it, Bets. The metathesizing virus has your body all confused.”

I had been watching him. Too closely. And with his long fingers wrapped around my arm, the backs of his knuckles rubbing the side of my breast, suddenly the silvery wool jacket he’d given me was much too hot and heavy.

My body wasn’t confused; it knew exactly what it wanted.

I hadn’t been with anyone since Tommy. For awhile, I’d thought maybe my ex had broken my libido as badly as he’d broken my wrist. Even after my vibrator had proven me wrong, that I wasn’t frigid, I hadn’t gone looking for encounters with actual human beings. I just couldn’t stomach the thought of running into another bad guy.

Instead I’d run into three bad guys, who apparently weren’t human at all.

And one guy who made me want to be very, very bad.

“How much farther?” I couldn’t keep the edge out of my voice. I didn’t want to be bitchy, but he had me so on edge. “I thought Rogue Pass was the middle of nowhere, and yet somehow you managed to find the ass-end of nowhere.”

After setting me back on my feet, he ran his hand slowly down from my arm to my elbow and tangled his long fingers through mine. Then he tugged me into place beside him and kept walking. “It’s far because it’s a hunting cabin,” he reminded me, “and we aren’t hunting with bows or rifles.”

The mental image of long white teeth flashed through my brain. Just a memory and yet piercing still. I would have stumbled again except for his touch. I couldn’t stop myself from leaning into that heat and strength.

“Is the rest of your…pack there?”

“No. This is just one of our smaller hideaways. I sent them all to the far edges of our territory, tracking Lysander.”

“Lucky you, you found him.”

He glanced down at me. “And I found you.”

In the intermittent moonlight, his eyes glittered, icier than usual. And yet the intensity there heated me even more than his big hand engulfing mine.

I’d never felt so fragile. Even when Tommy had been escalating, I’d always thought I could handle it. By the time I realized how much damage he’d caused me, physically and mentally, he was already gone and I could tell myself I was past the worst of it.

But tonight, with the attack, with my insane behavior in the alley, with the mysteries I knew Reeve hadn’t fully revealed still ahead, I wasn’t the same Bettina Tanzer who’d contemplated hosing the dumpster on her day off.

And when I put it like that, no matter what else happened, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d regret tonight.

Maybe shamelessness was another side effect of the werewolf virus.

While I’d been mulling my fate, we’d still been walking, but Reeve pulled me to a halt.

I glanced around. “Are we here?” There was no here here—the forest was just as dark and dense as it had been for the last thousands of steps—so I really hoped not.

“Wait here.” He pitched his voice low. “I want to do a quick walk-through.”

“Pitching the dirty socks?”

“And any rogues in my space.” Now his voice was a growl like threatening thunder.

When he dropped my hand, my arms went around my belly, holding myself together. “You aren’t going to…”

The rest of the question caught in my throat.

He spun on his heel to face me straight on. “I won’t leave you.”

That’s what they all said when they were looking right at you. And sometimes it was scarier when they meant it.

He closed the distance between us in one stride and plunged his hands into my hood, framing my face. My breath caught in my throat, full of the wild, musky taste of him, and I swayed into his hands.

He stared down at me. “I. Will not. Leave you.”

I couldn’t be this needy. I just couldn’t. Because if he let me down hard, I’d shatter, and this time, I wasn’t sure I could pick up the pieces again. I tried to shrug one shoulder. “If you say—”

He didn’t let me finish blowing him off. He raked his fingers deeper into my hair and swooped down to slant his mouth over mine, a brutal kiss, a sensual punishment for doubting him.

I clamped my fingers around the muscles in his bared forearms, clinging to him to hold myself upright as the kiss sucked the common sense right out of me. The swirl of his tongue across the seam of my lips echoed the taut wetness between my legs as my panties dampened.

My panties. Ah, dammit, the granny panties I’d donned after the shower where I’d sworn I was washing him away for good.

Welp, that’s what he’d get for abducting me from a wolf attack.

Then all thought of my unflattering underthings incinerated as I opened my mouth to him. Hot breath mingled with cold air. He backed off, tongue retreating, teasing me into following him into a wanton dance. I moaned softly, leaning into his chest. What I wouldn’t give to have this all to myself, all the time, his strength and certainty.

Was that what it meant to be a werewolf?

After forever, he lifted his head. “So I say, so I mean,” he whispered. “You taste my vow, yes?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Good. Now stay here. And don’t move.”

He didn’t wait for me to answer. Between one breath and the next, he vanished into the dark.

“Fuck,” I said. Fucked. That’s what I was.

And that’s what I wanted.

What moonlight there was only seemed to make more shadows, and I pulled Reeve’s jacket tight around me. No matter how I squinted, I couldn’t see farther than the second layer of tree trunks. If there was a cabin that way, I’d never find it on my own. Maybe in the daylight. But I’d probably freeze to death before then. Without Reeve’s imposing bulk by my side, the night seemed much colder.

There was no way the golden wolf, Lysander, and his henchwolves could have gotten here before us. But I didn’t know what other dangers Reeve faced. I knew he wasn’t telling me everything, and there had to be a reason besides his happy hunting grounds that his pack chose to be so isolated.

I’d only taken half a step in the direction he’d gone when a blackness loomed out of the shadows.

I swallowed back a startled eep.

“What terrible stories were you making up in your head?” Reeve asked.

“I was thinking you might need help,” I said between gritted teeth. “It was a comedy. With a laugh track.”

His teeth flashed in a smile, much nicer than the flashing teeth I’d been thinking of earlier. “The cabin is secure. No one’s been here since the last time I visited, and I’ve disarmed the traps that might get you into trouble.”

Great. Psycho survivalist werewolves. I started to make a comment to that effect, but then I thought maybe it went without saying. How else did creatures like that survive in an age of cell phone cameras and shrinking wilderness?

I fell into step behind him, and in just a couple minutes, we finally emerged from between the pines into a small meadow.

On a sunny summer day, the quaint log cabin would have been adorable. In the middle of the night in the middle of winter, it looked like…well, it looked better than freezing to death.

“It’s not much,” Reeve said, though I blanked my expression as quickly as exhaustion would let me. “I turned on the solar panels, but this time of year, they’re only good for a couple hours of electricity after dark. We don’t keep gasoline or kerosene out here; don’t want to risk a joy torching if someone does stumble on it. So it’ll be cold water and candles for tonight.”

“It’s fine,” I said quickly. “It has a roof, right?”

“Tin. Very picturesque.”

“Then we’re good. I ate at work. And I showered earlier.”

“I know.” He sounded even more disgruntled than when he was defending his cabin, although I wasn’t quite sure why. Nobody wanted a day-old baker in his bed.

Wait. I shouldn’t be thinking of sharing a bed. Just because the cabin was small…

I followed him up the three stairs to the covered porch that fronted the cabin. A small drift of dried leaves blocked the front door which Reeve pushed open.

“Unlocked?”

“If anybody finds this place, either they’re in trouble or they are trouble.” He glanced back at me. “But I’m bigger trouble.”

He might not be telling me everything, but I thought he hadn’t lied to me yet. And he was definitely telling the truth about being trouble. So even though following a stranger into a remote cabin in the woods never ended well for fat girls in the movies, I crossed the threshold after him.

Since the meager moonlight didn’t penetrate through the small, shuttered windows, the interior was pitch black. Still, I sensed Reeve moving through the space with the ease of familiarity. After a moment, a small orange light bloomed in the darkness. Reeve set the candle on top of the huge potbelly stove. By its tiny illumination, I stripped out of my ripped coat, which I’d retrieved from my backpack when we’d left the Beemer, and prowled around the room while he did manly things with the guts of the stove.

It was basically one kitchen-dining-living room, everything made of wood or stone or metal. A hyper-masculine space without a single softening touch. Even the five chairs pulled up neatly at the table were wooden and not cushioned. A steep stairway—more of a ladder, really—slanted up one wall to what I assumed was a sleeping loft, though the light didn’t reach that far.

A clang from the stove made me turn back from my nosy exploration. Reeve straightened. Behind the cast-iron grate, cheery flames danced. The light danced around the edges of his body, and already I could feel the damp chill retreating.

I moved closer, spreading my hands to the warmth. “My grandmother told stories about learning to bake on a stove like this.”

“Did she pass the tricks on to you? The only non-burnt thing we’ve ever managed is cornbread in a Dutch oven.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “Werewolves eat cornbread?”

“Even raw venison needs sides sometimes.” His lips quirked, although in the shadows his gaze was too intense for humor. “You know, to be civilized.”

That was the closest thing to a lie he’d told me yet.

Oh, he had the nice suit and the sports car, and he’d come to my rescue like a true gentleman, but he wasn’t civilized at all.

Yet I sensed a yearning in him. Not for civilization exactly—with the firelight on his black hair, he looked perfectly attuned to this place, at one with the raw elemental finishes. But that was another one of Oma’s favorite topics: how basically every cluster of humans on the planet ended up making bread eventually. Something in us longed for the permanency and the security to grow, harvest, and prepare grains, for the time, resources, and skills to make the fire to bake. Bread represented a step out of the wilderness.

Of course, it seemed the very next thing humans had done was ferment their grains into booze, and civilization went right out the window.

But still, bread meant home.

And apparently even werewolves with a vast territory needed a place to call home.

I was mesmerized by the idea that this powerful male wanted something I had. I sold cupcakes to delighted children all day long, so I knew the alchemy of baking was its own sort of everyday magic. But to have six-plus feet of riveted masculine regard fixed on me like I was the cupcake was something else entirely.

I’d let him lick my frosting any time.

His lips parted and his nostrils flared, and I knew—knew—that he was aware of the restless turn of my thoughts, reading not my mind, maybe, but my body. The sharp focus of his gaze on me made my hackles prickle: I was his prey.

Something inside me roused and stretched as his desire lapped over me like hot water or a slow tongue, filling every crevice. When I’d faced the fence, I’d felt the same, as if my nerves and muscles and bones had taken over and knew what to do even if I didn’t.

As if something instinctive and feral was struggling to emerge.

“So what’s next?” My voice sounded a little husky to my own ears.

Reeve paced across the room and braced both his hands on the back of one of the chairs, the one at the head of the table. “We wait until morning.”

Despite the distance he put between us, his gaze stayed locked on me. His irises shimmered from blue to silver and back again, like ice melting then crystallizing. The muscles in his bare forearms bunched, visible through the holes in his shirt where Lysander must have bitten him too. A wound he’d taken while rescuing me. His knuckles were white against the dark wood of the chair, as if he was holding himself back.

Holding himself back from what?

From me.

A strange surge of power zinged through me. “Whatever will we do to pass the time?” Okay, that wasn’t just a little slutty; that was a straight-up come-on, with the emphasis on the come.

A log popped in the stove, and I broke off our staring contest to glance at the fire barely contained by the black metal. The room was getting warm—or maybe that was just me—so I stripped out of my hoodie, his suit jacket still draped around the outside. Our clothes were spooning, how cute.

In my batik camisole, I turned to hang the layers over another kitchen chair, smoothing my hands across the shoulders of his jacket. So wide. My XL sweatshirt would never be petite, not even in comparison, but the silvery wool still managed to dominate, just like Reeve had taken control in the alley. My skin flushed with the memory, and the heat pooled in my core. I peeked up through my lashes.

He had straightened while I was looking at the fire, and now his fingertips barely clung to the chair he was hiding behind. His nostrils flared, and the buttons across the front of his shirt strained as he took a deep breath.

Certainty—and a primitive, bone-deep satisfaction—swept through me, hotter than the flames. I took a step toward him.

Under the white linen, his shoulders tensed, corded flesh rippling. “Would you…?” He cleared his throat. “Would you like me to show you the bedroom? It’s late. Early.”

“It is late,” I murmured as I shook the still-damp strands of my hair back from my face. “So I think the kitchen table will be fine.”

He took a step away from the chair. Probably forced back by the bulge behind the fly of his trousers which instantly captured my attention. I touched the tip of my tongue to my upper lip, remembering how he’d filled me. I wanted that pleasure and that power again.

He let out a low, rumbling growl as my gaze swept down his body. “Bettina, the hunger you’re feeling, it’s the lupoviridae. Not you.”

I brought my eyes back to his with a snap. “Don’t tell me about my hunger.”

His jaw flexed. “I brought you here to keep you safe while you change. Safe from blundering humans, safe from Lysander. I’m not going to take advantage of your vulnerability.”

Vulnerable? I’d never felt so strong. I could jump him like I’d jumped the fence, with two hands and a twist of my hips.

Part of me knew he was right. It had to be the virus because this wasn’t me, this wasn’t the way I was. I could laugh and love with the best of them, but I’d never done pure lust, a sensation that was just for me.

But another part of me disagreed and felt this wild part of me—how many versions of me were there, anyway?—had been there all along, hidden maybe. Or should I say chained?

Well, that bite had severed the chain. And banging Reeve against the alley wall had set that trailing end of the chain on fire, and now that fire was burning toward me out of control. When it hit…

At the thought of the coming explosion, my pussy tightened and wrung a soft moan from my lips.

“Bets.” He strode toward me, his hands rising to grip my bare elbows. “What’s wrong? Are you—?”

I didn’t know what he was going to ask. Was I okay? Sure? Crazy? I didn’t know the answer to anything he might have asked me, so all I could do was shut him up.

I lunged up onto my tiptoes to kiss him.

I was too short, the angle was bad, the timing off, but the instant our mouths connected, none of that mattered.

He crushed me to his chest, his hands skimming up my bare arms to bury in my hair and tilt my head just so, bringing lips and breath into perfect alignment. Perfect because it was him. My heart thrilled at the contact.

Oh, I didn’t believe in soul mates. As much as I loved Oma’s fairy tales, the concept of one true love was something I’d always found more depressing than romantic. What if you didn’t find your one?

Of course, my disbelief had led me to settle for Tommy, so maybe I needed to rethink the soul-mate idea.

But for now, I didn’t care about souls or fairy tales or past bad choices. I only wanted here, now, with this man.

His teeth clicked against mine, aggressive and insistent. Bad boy. So I bit him.

Not hard, just a nip on the tongue. I tasted a hint of coppery blood, and my pulse hammered with excitement. Apparently being bad was infectious, because I wanted to bite him again.

But he stiff-armed me back a step, and our lips parted with a juicy smack.

As strong as he was, his chest heaved, as if he was fighting himself. “Wait.” His usually seductive voice was a menacing rumble, like an avalanche far up in the mountains. “Bets, no, you’re out of control. You’re making me lose control. That can’t happen.”

Why the fuck not? Did he think he got a pass from the crazy parts of life just because he was a big, bad werewolf? I pushed forward into his restraining hands, forcing him to lock his elbows and to stare me right in the eye. “You said this might kill me,” I reminded him savagely. “You said we’re waiting until morning, I’m guessing because you think I might be dead by then. Are you imagining digging a hole for my body come sunrise? It’s gonna have to be deep and wide, so maybe you need your beauty sleep.”

His chest heaved as if he was gasping for breath, but no sound came from him.

With a harsh sound, half laugh, half sob, I spun away from him.

But he grabbed my arms and jerked me back into his embrace. From behind, he buried his face in my hair.

“I don’t want you to die,” he whispered. “I am alpha prime. I’ve held my pack together through dark times. But there’s nothing,” the whisper turned vicious, “nothing I can do to save you from this. And it’s killing me.”

I wanted to rail at him that he didn’t really mean it, he wouldn’t actually be dead, unlike I might be, but I felt him shuddering against my spine.

It was the first moment of weakness I’d sensed in him.

His admission should have made me feel worse about my chances, but instead I turned within the circle of his arms to face him.

I cupped my hand under the hard edge of his jaw. “Don’t count me out yet. I might surprise you.”

He tilted his head into my touch, and his shaggy black hair brushed the backs of my knuckles. “You already have, about a dozen times.”

“Then let’s make it a baker’s dozen.” I tangled my fingers in his hair and pulled him down for a soft, lingering kiss. I brushed my mouth gently over his lower lip, just a fleeting caress. His breath caught and his lips parted, seeking more.

But I pulled back. “Maybe we don’t have control,” I told him, “but we have this.”

He groaned, low in his throat, and clutched my ass, snugging our hips together. “I swear I did not bring you here to fuck you.”

His mouth was telling the truth, but his cock had ulterior motives.

I rested my hands on his waistband, feeling the heave of his flanks as he struggled to control his breath. “I believe you,” I said. “And I don’t think it matters.”

“It matters to me. We’re not just animals, controlled by the virus. We’re more than that.”

He was growling when he said it, though I thought maybe he wouldn’t appreciate me pointing that out.

I skimmed my hands around his taut waist to the fly of his trousers and glanced up at him hesitantly, giving him the chance to walk away.

With another groan, he lifted me in his arms, spun around, and set my ass on the kitchen table.

I guess he believed me too.

Chapter 3 ~ Reeve

For all my talk of control, I couldn’t resist her any more than my wolf would give up chasing prey that broke right beneath my nose.

Except she was the predator now.

It was part of what intrigued me about her. She had suffered so many shocks in the last few hours—not just discovering that werewolves existed, but getting bitten and chased by one, not to mention getting fucked by another—and yet she wasn’t broken. My pack would love her spirit. I imagined their toothy grins—in both shapes—when they crowded around her. They would press tight against her, almost as tight as the feeling in my chest.

A tortured breath burst from me as her fingers made short work of my fly, and then my cock was in her smooth, stroking palms, the tiny pads of her calluses an exquisite contrast. I thrust helplessly into her grip. She was everything: soft and strong, bravely facing the unknown, beauty to the beast.

I wanted her so badly, it was true when I’d told her I felt it was me who might die tonight. And for the first time, I understood why a pack would risk dissolution to bring a female into its heart.

Tomorrow might never come, but for tonight I’d bury myself in her soft flesh, taste her sweetness. And I would dream.

Could I stoke the virus high enough that it would overwhelm the resistance of her cells before she went into shock? Could I bring out the wolf in her before the night was through so that it might save her even if I couldn’t?

I’d willingly kill or die to give her this chance, vanishingly small though it was.

Instead, I got to fuck her.

The wolf howled in victory and the flames crackling behind me as I tugged aside the thick strap of her tank top to set my teeth at her throat. The wolf wanted her like blood, like moon, like singing in a circle.

The pulse in her carotid rammed against my tongue as I sucked at her flesh. Yes, I’d leave a damn mark, and this time I wouldn’t even bother blaming the wolf.

It was me, just me. I wanted her.

I forced myself to lift my head so I could skim the tank top inside out over her arms. The snug fabric clung to her for a heartbeat, and I contemplated leaving her with the shirt binding her, all her curves laid out for me. But she wriggled and shook her head, and the tank popped free. The fire-touched waves of her brown hair bounced around her shoulders.

That wasn’t all that was bouncing. I feasted my gaze on the fullness of her breasts, which were half bared by the stretchy orange fabric of her bra. I hadn’t gotten this treat in the alley since we’d both been mostly clothed. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. She’d be naked under me this time.

Her gaze shifted sideways, and one arm angled to cover herself. “There’s a lot, I know.”

I grabbed her wrist, dragging her hand to my chest so she could feel the frantic racing of my heart. “Don’t you dare.”

Her narrowed gaze shot back to me, challenging. “I’ve been my own boss for a long time now. You really think you can tell me what to do?”

I saw her pupils expand, a pool of sensual darkness. “Yeah. And I even think you might like it.”

She tossed her head again but let out a shuddering breath that told me I wasn’t wrong.

Slowly, I extended her hand out to the side, exposing her. Her lashes fluttered down over her whiskey eyes while I stared at her. Her pale skin flushed rosy under my regard, blood and firelight turning her into a primitive goddess, some lunar deity maybe.

I traced a fingertip in a half circle around the celestial tattoo I’d glimpsed at our last encounter. The crescent moon curved over her plump breast, the smattering of stars leading up to her collarbone and down her cleavage. She trembled, her body shifting under my touch, both toward me and away, as if she wanted and feared at the same time.

I knew how that felt.

I traced the tattoo upward again, a faint rasp under my finger. “A scar,” I murmured. It wasn’t visible under the delicate line of ink, but I felt it following the inner arc of the crescent.

“It’s ugly,” she said. “I got the tattoo to cover it.”

“What happened?”

“My grandmother said I fell and cut myself. I was just a baby and don’t remember.”

The scar was too fine to be “ugly” as she claimed, but I didn’t doubt a girl had a different relationship with scars, especially so sensitively—and in her case, prominently—displayed.

I tilted my head to kiss the tattoo, tracing the scar with my tongue. “That which does not kill us…” I whispered.

She feathered her fingers through my hair, holding my head to her breast. “You make me weak.”

“Good.” With a hook of my finger, I slid the bra strap down her arm, peeling the orange fabric away from her breast and jacking up the mound toward my mouth.

Her nipple was already hard, jutting toward me, long and stiff. Not from cold; the stove had chased the chill from the room. Or maybe it was just my panting breath that had done the trick.

I swirled my tongue over the pebbled flesh, drawing the nipple between my teeth when her fingers tightened in my hair. She moaned while I sucked at her until she was as glistening red as the berries that ripened on the mountains in summer.

With my free hand, I thumbed the front catch on her bra. The thing sprang apart like a bear trap in reverse, releasing all the luscious weight of her into my waiting palms. I switched my attention to her other breast while I awkwardly kicked off my boots. Her hands at my hips shoved down my pants, and she dug her fingers into my ass cheeks with an urgency that made me groan.

My cock was pulling so hard toward her, my thighs shook with the strain. I shoved her flat back on the table and grabbed her waistband. She bucked her hips up to let me skim her leggings down, popping her sneakers and socks off at the same time. Leaving her gloriously naked on my kitchen table.

I—not the wolf—wanted to howl.

“You,” she whispered. “Naked too.”

I reached over my shoulder and ripped my shirt off in one motion. Buttons flew.

She sighed and writhed her hips.

I hooked her ankle and propped it on my thigh so I could spread her before me. Her lashes fluttered down again.

“Bets,” I growled.

Her gaze riveted to mine. Mostly because she didn’t appreciate the nickname, I knew.

“Here we do not hide what we are,” I said. “Not from each other. Not from ourselves.”

Her whiskey eyes sparked. “Big, strong, sexy man. You have no idea what it’s like.”

I leaned toward her, pushing her knee upward in an enticing bend so my cock nudged her slit. “That was before. I’ll show you what it is. What you are becoming.”

The damp heat of her was so enticing, I wanted to bury myself in one thrust, forget the desperate reason we were coupling and just revel in sensation. Every part of me wanted that. I’d set her body on fire, keep every nerve alight, until the sun came up and the damn virus was sated, then she’d be safe. I butterflied her other knee, spreading her wide, then dropped to my knees on the slate floor.

“Reeve!”

“You smell like cinnamon and forest.” I nipped the inner curve of her thigh, whiter and softer than any other part of her. A secret moon place, guarded by the tight thicket of golden-brown curls over her mound. “You should smell like me.”

She stretched her hand toward me, imploring in some way I couldn’t decipher. But there was only one way out of this night: through the wolf.

Chapter 4 ~ Bettina

He stroked his tongue over my cleft, his fingers gently but relentlessly parting the folds to give him access. I was wet even before he touched me. How could I not be when he’d stripped bare at my order? He was so big and hard, that in proportion I was perfect. It wasn’t a sensation I’d ever felt before, and a spot right behind my tattoo twinged like pain. He’d sucked my tits to aching points; when I cupped my breasts, the nipples speared into my palms. I rubbed them in frantic circles, moaning.

He growled into my pussy, and the vibrations rippled across my core.

Even when the noise changed to a groan on his part, the echo reverberated through me still, like some wild cry was bouncing along my bones, setting every nerve on fire, awaiting an answer.

My throat tightened on a gasp when his tongue thrust up into me, thick and sinuous. He followed with one finger, then two, spreading my juices with abandon.

He’d avoided my clit so far, and I was whining with need, my hips moving in helpless circles. But still he teased until I growled too.

He laughed, low and almost cruel, before he flattened his tongue over that sweet spot.

He held me there on the edge—edge of the table, edge of his tongue, edge of my shattering—while my core tightened and pulsed, the need rolling in from my extremities, faster and harder as it approached my center. I squirmed, impaled on his hand and mouth.

With one flick of his tongue, he broke me. The need slammed up against pleasure, and I sucked in a shocked breath. The orgasm burst through me, spreading outward at the speed of sound.

The sound was a howl.

With both hands, I reached for him, and he clambered up on the table to kneel between my legs. He jacked my hips up and rammed his cock into me, his tight sac thrust up against my ass. Wave after wave swept over me with each of his thrusts timed to our raging heartbeats.

I heard our hearts, I heard the desperate keening in the back of his throat, I heard him gasp my name.

We exploded together, and I blacked out.

I wasn’t out long, because when I came to as he was carrying me up the steep stairs to the loft, our skin was still damp and sticky.

“Reeve,” I murmured. “Don’t drop me.”

“Have I yet?”

Well, he hadn’t, so I just snuggled my head against his shoulder.

Despite the crazy hour, I felt amazing. My body was simultaneously humming and relaxed, as if that little post-coital unconsciousness had been a two-week vacation. Maybe it was the coital part.

Although the loft was darker than the main room, heat from the stove had risen and made a cozy nest of shadows. He laid me down on the bare futon mattress and then turned to a cedar chest from which he withdrew an armful of comforter and pillows. These he bundled around me against the chill.

Hesitantly, I opened a corner of the blanket to him. He looked at me for a long moment, eyebrows arched in surprise, then tucked himself in beside me.

“Come here,” he said. As if I hadn’t been the one to invite him in.

“No other place to go,” I pointed out.

We snuggled down into the cool blankets, me in the crook of his arm, letting our bodies find the natural balance of curves and hollows. I was mostly the curves, of course.

“Tell me you didn’t notice my granny panties,” I murmured.

“Your what?”

I lifted my head to kiss the corner of his jaw. “You sure know how to make a girl feel special.”

He craned his neck to look down at me. “You are special. You know why? Because you’re still breathing.”

Right. Getting chosen by a werewolf to be bitten and infected by a lethal virus. Not the kind of special I’d meant. “So…” I wasn’t sure why I felt weird asking, as if I might sour the mood. As if he might let me go once he didn’t have to protect me anymore. “I guess this means the virus isn’t going to kill me?”

“Night’s not over.” He tightened his arm around me. “First twenty-four hours is the crucial period, but if the virus was attacking your cells instead of metathesizing, we’d have seen signs by now.”

That was good news. I should’ve been ecstatic, but mostly I felt a little lost. “So I’m out of the woods. Not literally, of course.”

His snort ruffled my hair. “Funny girl.”

“Who bit you?”

For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer, but then he sighed soundlessly and pulled me under his chin again. “I was never bitten. I was born this way.”

“Your mother was a werewolf? I thought you said there weren’t many females.”

“There aren’t. She was one of the few. She was wolf-born as well and powerful with it. She single-handedly balanced one of the biggest packs in this part of the world, almost two dozen wolves of all ranks with my sire as alpha prime.”

His words echoed with affection and pride, giving me a glimpse into how he’d become the man—the werewolf—that he was. “A strong prime can keep a few wolves together without the pack turning feral. But with my mother as their center, our pack was able to move more easily in and out of the human world. Most even held jobs in town. The pack was able to invest in property to be held for future generations. Meaning me. All because of her.”

With my head on his chest, I heard a hollow undertone. His use of the past tense—she was, not she is—warned me that an end was coming, and I wanted to hold him closer, even though I didn’t have that right. “She sounds amazing.”

“She was.” His breath this time gusted against my hair. “She died birthing my sister when I was thirteen.”

Okay, maybe I didn’t have the right, but I hugged him anyway, my ear pressed to the slow dirge beat of his heart. “I’m sorry.”

“Pregnancies are rare in werewolves. The shifting energies are just too much for conception. But when it happens, pups are celebrated by the whole pack. I’d been the last one born, and my mother wanted to give us that again. Instead, her death tore us apart.” He let out a jagged breath that seemed to slash through the sensual music of his voice. “Literally, in some cases. My sire killed himself that night, as did a handful of other males. Three alphas tried to step into the power vacuum. They killed each other. By then, half the pack had shifted and fled. Most of the rest left in human form, but I have no idea what happened to them. I tried tracking some of them, but they just vanished, into thin air, like they didn’t want to be found. At least not by me.”

The pain in his voice pierced my heart, an ache I remembered too well from Oma’s death. I didn’t want to think about those dark days as I’d struggled to keep the bakery going by myself. In my misery and hating the emptiness in the house, I’d let Tommy get too close too soon. I doubted Reeve had made that sort of mistake. But maybe he’d gone too far the other way, holding everyone at bay.

“You were still just a kid,” I reminded him softly.

“I was wolf-born.” His voice thrummed with pain. “Maybe I couldn’t hold them together, but at least I might’ve stopped them from killing each other and themselves. An alpha prime should be able to control his people. Instead, I inherited a territory empty except for the ghosts.”

I tucked myself tight to the warmth of Reeve’s big body. If that emotional ruin faced all werewolves, no wonder Lysander was out biting women, hoping to strike gold for his pack. It didn’t excuse him, but I thought maybe I understood him better now.

“I won’t let the virus beat me.” Maybe it was selfish to make it all about me after Reeve’s terrible tale, but I thought he should know I was going to fight. “I don’t want to be another ghost on your mountain.”

His arm latched around me possessively. “I didn’t let Lysander take you. And I won’t let you die.”

I didn’t think he needed the reminder that he hadn’t had a choice in keeping his pack alive. And he wasn’t that boy anymore.

I rolled so I straddled him. Yes, I was definitely being selfish, but his cock rose to nudge my damp curls, and I thought maybe he wanted to forget too.

Cradling his jaw between my palms, I stared down into his eyes, which had gone pure wolf silver. “If we only have tonight, let’s make it count. And I count twice so far.”

“Third time’s the charm,” he murmured. He angled himself up with exquisite gentleness into my pussy.

I wanted to show him that I was strong enough to get through the night, despite the old wounds that made him hesitate to believe in me. For all my tough-girl intentions, I gasped at the delicious friction on my tender flesh. He lifted his head to suck at my hanging breasts, his hands full and kneading.

Riding him slow, I ground my clit into his pelvic bone. He reached behind to slick his finger around my other hole, and another note of darker desire joined the chorus of pleasure singing through my veins.

I imagined an entire pack ringing me, watching and wanting, my power holding them captive. But more than that, making a place they could be.

I spasmed against Reeve with an aching sob, but he kept thrusting, pushing me harder, until I came again with a wrung-out cry of his name, and then he came too, silently but his silver-blue gaze locked on mine.

Breath heaving, I collapsed against his chest and this time we slept.

~~~

He woke me once as the sun was coming up. I knew it was up because it was gleaming blearily through the skylight just above the bed. Ugh. After the night I’d had, I wasn’t interested in facing the day. But Reeve kissed his way across my breast, lingering on the tattoo.

“The moon is out of the sky,” he said, an edge to his voice. “How are you feeling?”

“Like somebody woke me out of a lovely dream where I was getting fucked by a werewolf.”

“Any other hallucinations? Fever?” He put his fingertips under my jaw, angling my head up. “Your pulse seems elevated.”

“Mmm, maybe because a hot guy is poking me with his cock right this very second?”

His sensuous lips pulled to one side in disapproval. “I’m trying to tell which stage of the change you’re going through. Now that the full moon has set, the virus will go dormant until nightfall, but that could leave your system susceptible. So how do you feel?”

I grimaced at his bossy tone. Typical male. We’d shared feeling-ish things last night, and now he was trying to put me back in a box as part of his alpha prime to-do list: wax the Beemer, hunt bad guys, save the girl. I hadn’t let Tommy or the virus beat me; I wasn’t going to let one arrogant alpha check me off either.

Instead, I wrapped my fingers around his insistent flesh and gave him a crooked smile. “You tell me how I feel.”

Our joining was hot and quick. I rolled over when he was done, drawing the covers with me, and went back to sleep.

Maybe I wasn’t quite ready to face my feelings either.

When I woke again, I was alone. Despite the unfamiliar surroundings, I remembered instantly where I was; the blankets smelled of sex and pine and male. Though the loft was warm and the angle of light said the day was well along, I snuggled down into the blankets to think.

I was alive. Which was nice. No one would be missing me today since it was my day off. But I’d need to check in with Carmen at some point or she would worry. As for tomorrow… My mind skipped over that worry for more immediate concerns. Where was Reeve? And what was for breakfast?

Once my stomach growled its emptiness, my bladder had the opposite complaint. Grumbling myself, I pushed the blankets back. Thankfully, the potbelly stove kicked out an amazing amount of heat—almost as much as Reeve—because a cabin in the woods in winter was a little rustic for my tastes.

I found my clothes in a tidy pile at the foot of the futon. I winced at the orange granny panties folded on top. Well, at least they’d done the walk of shame without me.

I dressed quickly, hung the blankets over the loft railing to air out, and went downstairs.

The cabin was empty, but Reeve had opened the shutters, and silvery winter light glowed on the wood and stone. From outside, ringing thuds echoed. I recognized the sounds of chopping wood and stepped out onto the porch into the brisk air.

Reeve had pulled on jeans that must have been in the cedar chest, but that was as far as he’d gotten. He was barefoot on the mossy loam, an axe hefted over his naked shoulder.

It was one thing—a delicious, dreamy thing—to touch him by firelight, but to see him in all his tall, dark, and thrilling glory in the light of day…well, some dreams did come true.

I licked my lips as he let the axe thump to the ground between his feet, his biceps and pecs flexing. Maybe I was turning into a bitch in heat, but damn, he was so fine.

He inclined his head, his shaggy black hair sliding across his forehead. “Outhouse is in back,” he said.

Oo-tay, that took some of the romance out of the moment. Although we’d already screwed this morning, so what else did I want?

Refusing to let his gruffness bother me, I gave him a finger-wriggle thank-you wave and whisked around to the backyard. Tucked into the tree line was a cute little shed with a crescent moon carved into the door.

I flattened my palm over my tattoo. “Mine’s prettier.”

But as outhouses went—especially one used by hunting males—I was pleasantly surprised. There was even a deer antler stuck to the wall with a roll of toilet paper on one tine. Since boys peed in the woods, I knew the TP was just for me. How sweet.

I did my business, used the bottle of hand sanitizer hanging from below the paper, and hurried back to the cabin.

Reeve had left the door open as he carried the split logs to the wood box beside the stove. I grabbed a few pieces, managing not to grunt at the weight of the wet wood, and ferried them inside.

In silence, we stacked the wood to dry beside the stove then washed our hands at the tiny kitchen sink.

“This is a really nice place,” I told him at last. “And if you tell me you have bacon grease and flour, maybe some salt and baking powder, we might even upgrade it to slice of heaven.”

He smiled at me, and my breath caught. When he was being broody and axe-wielding, he was sexy as hell. When he smiled, it seemed like this heaven came with its own fallen angel.

When he pulled out a tin canister of brown sugar along with the other ingredients I’d asked for, I decided maybe a cabin in the middle of nowhere in winter was very much to my taste.

At least when it was stocked with Reeve.

I whipped up some griddle cakes, putting a bit of a burn on the brown sugar to caramelize, and slid the stack onto the kitchen table in front of Reeve. I was disappointed he was wearing a T-shirt, but I was suitably mollified by the way his eyes widened at the golden cakes.

He swiveled around to look at the stove. “No way.”

“Way,” I said smugly.

“Mind blown.”

“Seems fair after last night.”

I’d meant that since I hadn’t gotten around to blowing him sexually, the least I could do was feed him, but he lowered his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “for what happened to you. This is the only way I knew to make it…not better, but less bad.”

I wanted to slap myself, but instead I put a plate in front of him and waited until he looked up at me. “You didn’t bite me,” I reminded him. “Well, until I wanted to be bitten. You told me what’s happening, which is more than Lysander bothered to do. The only reason I’m not a quivering ball of freak-out right now is because of you.”

A hint of that smile returned. “I liked you quivering.”

I snorted and sat down with my cakes.

He snaked a long arm across the table to grab two mugs and a stainless steel carafe I hadn’t noticed. When he swiveled the lid, that morning perfume—no, not sex this time, coffee, which was very much like sex to me at this moment—rolled across us.

“No way,” I said.

“Way. Not fresh ground, but…”

I grinned at him. “If it was too perfect, we’d never leave.”

His smile faded, not in a bad way though, just that his clear blue eyes got even more intense.

I swallowed my coffee nervously, thinking about what I’d said. That sounded a bit too intense. He hadn’t said anything about seeing each other again now that the danger was past. And I hadn’t meant to imply that I wanted to. I’d just…

Well, sometimes dreams came true but you woke up anyway.

“Bettina,” he said.

I jumped up, the cake left half eaten on my plate. “I need to finish seasoning the griddle,” I said quickly. “If I leave a little grease on it, next time you won’t get so much sticking and burning.”

That sounded almost dirty to me, which is how I knew it was time to get away from him. If I told him all my baking secrets, what else might I accidentally say?

While I cleaned up the kitchen, Reeve straightened the loft. I heard the snap of the blankets as he shook them—oh God, wolves had amazing senses of smell, didn’t they?—and the thump of the cedar chest being shut. Then it was quiet for a moment. But when I turned to look up, all I saw was his shadow moving away from the railing.

Had he been watching me? What was he thinking?

Whatever. This worry over what a man was thinking was how I’d gotten into trouble with Tommy because I’d stopped thinking about myself. But I’d sworn I wouldn’t make that mistake again, would never be so needy.

Well, I’d needed Reeve, true enough, but that was over now that the virus wasn’t going to kill me.

Over, except now I needed to get back to town, of course.

He put the fire dead out in the stove and closed up the shutters on the cabin while I waited on the porch. Even though the sun was directly overhead, the forest was still cool, and I wrapped my arms around myself.

I started when a warm weight settled over my shoulders: Reeve’s suit jacket. “Won’t you be cold?”

“We always keep extra layers tucked away,” he said. “Nakedness is an occupational hazard for shapeshifters.”

Oversized though it was, still, the jacket felt…right. Which made me nervous. I was moving awfully fast, and a good baker knew she couldn’t rush the rise. I shoved my arms into the sleeves before taking a steadying breath and turning to face my companion.

Reeve had on a black, vintage Creedence Clearwater Revival T-shirt layered with a long-sleeved wool plaid, threadbare around the edges but smelling of sweet cedar.

I smirked at him. “You listen to CCR? Kind of old-fashioned, isn’t it?”

“Bad Moon Rising never goes out of style.”

“Are all werewolf in-jokes so on the nose?”

“We’ve been forced to be secretive, but we don’t have a lot of use for subtlety among ourselves. Stay sharp, stay on the move. Kill or be killed.” He stepped past me, then glanced back with an amused glint in his eyes. “Also, what else do you get a werewolf for his birthday?”

My mind boomeranged between images of him in his birthday suit and the grim picture he painted of a life in the shadows without the simple, soft pleasures I took for granted. I’d survived the night, but I wasn’t sure daylight was making anything clearer for me.

“You told me you like to sing sometimes,” I said.

“When I’m a wolf.”

“Don’t be shy. You can do the harmonies.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Bets—”

As we set out, I sang him a few verses. Despite the chill in the air and from my own doubts, I felt warm and protected in his coat. And in his presence.

“It’s too soon in the change for you to be howling,” he grumbled. But he held out his hand to me as we stepped over a log and laced his long fingers through mine.

When I got to the part about the end coming soon, though, he tugged me to a halt with a low growl.

At the sight of the snarl twisting his wide mouth, the song died in my throat, choking me.

I wanted to ask him what had happened, but I knew enough not to speak. His piercing, icy gaze scanned the woods around us.

The walk which had seemed almost like a fun outing if I squinted right, now seemed menacing.

Abruptly, he jerked me into motion, not running, but striding quickly and silently over the thick pine needles, deeper into the press of branches. The shadows closed around us.

He yanked me down beside the bole of a fallen giant. The reddish wood had moldered, with mosses and shelf fungi sprouting along its length. The smell of forest decay, normally sweet, made my breath catch in horror.

“It’s him,” I whispered. “Isn’t it? Lysander found us.”

Reeve nodded. “Not sure how, unless he’s just that good.” He sounded reluctantly impressed. “But someone got upwind.”

“At least he makes mistakes.”

“No. He’s tightening the noose. He must think he has us all but caught.”

“Not yet we’re not,” I said grimly.

Reeve glanced down at me, and this time the approval was clear in his eyes. “I think they expected to corner us in the cabin. Instead, we’re going to make a run for the car. But I mean run.”

“I have sneakers,” I said. As if the only thing holding me back from a three-minute mile was cuter footwear.

“Put them to good use.”

Despite my show of spirit, my grip tightened on his hand. “If I wasn’t here, you could outrun them in a second, couldn’t you? This is your territory. They wouldn’t have a chance.”

He reeled me into the circle of his arm and stared down. “If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t have a reason to run.”

What, like he’d have stayed to fight them? When he’d told me how many there were? I wanted to punch him in the nose again, but obviously we didn’t have time.

“You better run from me,” I snarled.

He smiled, the cocky bastard.

Then he slapped the car keys into my hand.

I froze, the chill slashing into me hard when he stood. “Wait. What are you—?”

“Hard to steer with paws,” he said while he stripped out of the flannel and T-shirt in one graceful move. “You’re going to have to be the getaway girl.”

His skin was smooth and taut, rippling over the muscle underneath. Tiny flecks of sunlight glimmered on the powerful spread of his shoulders. Shoulders I’d gripped just hours ago, as if the night would last forever. My fists clenched, holding the memory tight even as I knew he was about to change in a way I would never forget.

He continued, “The route we followed in this morning is programmed into the GPS. You might not have a good signal until you hit the forest road, but then set it for home. It’ll take us right to the pack.”

Hearing him say us calmed me. A little. “You’re not going to leave me?”

“Not a chance. I’ll be right behind you.” He hesitated with his hands on the fly of his jeans. “You might…want to turn around.”

I lifted my chin. “You got nothing in there I haven’t seen already,” I reminded him.

I’d never really appreciated the real meaning of wolfish grin before. But now I saw it in full force as he kicked out of his boots and unzipped.

I thought he’d been sexy when he’d been splitting logs bare-chested, but Little Red Riding Hood was all wrong: the lumberjack had nothing on the wolf.

As the layers of clothing came off, light and shadow played over each exposed ounce of his naked body, the light sliding, the shadows pooling. It wasn’t just layers of fabric either. He’d already changed from CEO to biker dude and now to some primitive forest godling, the sophistication shedding away so easily. This was why he was alpha prime: he walked with confidence in all worlds.

He stood straight and tall—and brazenly naked—before me, his arms at his sides, his eyes half-lidded, and his cock starting to swell. My fingers twitched to follow those shifting contours, and I licked my lips as if I could taste him already, the black coffee and burnt sugar and rampant male.

But it wasn’t just an illusion of illumination. He was changing. His body seemed to…unfurl. There was no crack of breaking bones, no magical sparkle, he just shaped himself anew, not so different from the way my clenched hand was one shape and yet changed when it sprang open again in surprise, reaching for him. My heart ached with a peculiar yearning, like something inside me was changing too.

He curled forward and his palms hit the loam. His bare skin seemed to blur, and I blinked to clear my eyes. When I looked again, he was awash in bristling fur as black as his shaggy hair had been.

My own skin prickled when the wolf looked at me with pure silver eyes.

Oh God, he was a devastatingly compelling man, but as a wolf, he was something else again: power and beauty at its most elemental, unfiltered and raw.

My outstretched hand brushed the thick black ruff around his neck. So soft. Wonder blossomed in me. This wild thing had been mine for the night.

And this lovely wildness was in me.

From far away—but not far enough—a chilling yowl echoed through the trees.

I froze, all the dreaminess draining out of me in a sickening rush, but Reeve bounded forward. He paused to look back at me, a command to follow clear in his stare, before he vanished between the trees.

He was telling me to follow not just his path through the woods, but the path of the wolf: bold and fearless. Could I do that?

Did I have a choice?

With a curse, I scrambled after him.

Chapter 5 ~ Reeve

My hackles sprang up all along my spine, and I longed to howl a challenge at the invaders. Their presence sullied my territory, and I would rend them into bloody scraps fit only for the tiniest carrion feeders. But I had to protect my mate.

Mate? I shook my head, trying to wrest control from the wolf. From myself. She wasn’t our mate, not yet. She hadn’t been brought to the pack. She hadn’t had a chance to touch us all. Hell, she hadn’t even gone through her virgin shift.

My flowing steps faltered when I glanced back to find her. I’d never been so conflicted with the wolf. For so long, we had done everything to hold the pack alone, and now the wolf wanted more. She had done this to me.

And after last night, I knew I would do anything for her.

I slowed my headlong pace, hearing her labored breath as she struggled to catch up. I stopped abruptly, nose in the wind. The invader’s pack was close. They would know I had changed. They would be expecting an attack.

I spun to her, my heart stuttering when she flinched back.

This was all too much for her, but it couldn’t be helped.

I butted my snout against her thigh, copping a quick snuffle while her hand dropped to my ruff.

Encouraged, I arched like a cat—damn cats got all the lovin’—into her grip and bumped her leg again.

“What do you—?” She gasped when I changed tactics and direction and came at her from behind, thudding my snout between the backs of her thighs. “Reeve!”

But then she was astride me, her fingers tight in my ruff.

“Oh,” she said. I sensed her breathlessness this time wasn’t about the running.

I took off.

Her second sound was more “oof”, but she clamped her thighs around me—I’d known how strong she was, my gorgeous mate—and we ran together.

Nothing would take her from me: no virus, no invader, nothing.

She was mine.

Chapter 6 ~ Bettina

My eyes streamed tears in the cold wind of our flight. Or maybe I should admit I was terrified. Or ecstatic.

The wolf—Reeve—flowed beneath me, carrying me through the blurred forest. His muscles between my thighs bunched and stretched, black fur rippling, so close and intimate, I felt as if I was the one who was racing the wind.

I wanted it to be me.

But then Lysander or one of his pack howled again, the cry of a bloodthirsty hunter.

I clenched my fists in Reeve’s mane. Definitely terrified.

All the damned trees looked the same, and I had no idea where we were until we burst out of the thicket to the old fir where the Beemer was parked.

Before the wolf stopped, I was already sliding off his back, fumbling for the key in my pocket.

I stumbled to the closest door—the passenger side—and wrenched at the handle, flinging the door wide. I dove through, stabbing the key toward the ignition even as I swiveled into the driver’s seat.

“Get in,” I yelled at Reeve over the roar of the engine.

He took one last look at me through the open door and then slammed his body against the frame. The door swung shut.

“Reeve!”

A half dozen wolves emerged from the trees. None were the big golden one—Lysander must have been leading the assault on the cabin, not expecting us to sneak away—but I recognized the smaller gray wolf with the distinctive yellow-brown eyes. I wanted to scream again, in rage this time. I had given him cupcakes, and he had hunted me in my own bakery.

No time for that. Looking over my shoulder, I smashed the gearshift into reverse. The engine shrieked, and flying pine needles scratched like thousands of claws at the undercarriage. I was giving it too much gas, but the wolves scattered as the car bolted out from the hole I was digging.

I couldn’t see over the coupe’s bounding rear end, but I heard a thump and a yelp. Fucker, I thought viciously.

They must have thought the same thing, because a thud echoed in front of me. I faced forward again to see a big brindled wolf clinging to the slope of the hood. I cornered hard in the small clearing, trying to shake him off, but his fore claws speared into the grill beneath the wiper blades, back claws gouging streaks in the metal. As he stared me down through the windshield, a look in his sulfur-yellow eyes promised he’d do the same damage to me.

Until a whirlwind of black knocked him loose.

I jammed on the brakes, and for a second, I thought Reeve would stay on the hood. But he slid off with his jaws locked around the other wolf. Their violent snarling iced my blood. This fight would end only in death.

Terror gripped me as murderously as the werewolves’ fangs. “Reeve, no,” I moaned, though I knew he couldn’t hear me. “Leave them. Stay with me.”

I’d finally found a man—even if he was a werewolf—who’d made me believe I deserved to indulge my own appetites, sate my own hunger, not just cater to others. He couldn’t leave me alone now, surrounded by monsters.

The GPS had run through its startup sequence and was drawing a cheerful magenta line along the path to escape. I ignored it and powered around in a tight circle, aiming at three wolves. But they were too agile and jumped quickly out of the way.

My chest heaved on an anguished sob that threatened to rip me to shreds. Always before, when I faced a problem, I’d been able to throw myself into a solution. When Oma died, I threw myself into my work at the bakery. With Tommy, despite my broken wrist, I’d thrown him out. This time, I was thoroughly outmatched. Reeve would die and I’d be enslaved.

Another wolf dodged at the side of the coupe, and a loud bang almost wrenched the steering wheel from my hands. The car, already tightly sprung and difficult to control, yanked hard under me.

The bastard had slashed a tire. Trying to cripple me like it was hamstringing a tasty cow.

Hampered by the trees and the flat tire, I’d never hope to blunder over all of them in the car. At least they couldn’t attack Reeve en masse because the whirling dervish of black and bridled fur was practically indecipherable, but they were circling ever closer.

If I could only—

What? What did I think I could do? I was being stupid again. I thought I could handle this, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the power Reeve or his wolf-born mother did. I was just a baker with a bite mark and a self-defeating desire to belong to whoever would have me.

Nothing to lose. This was what Reeve must have felt when his childhood pack imploded.

I clamped my jaw shut to silence my clattering teeth and revved the engine. I’d have to take out a few of the circling wolves and time a collision with the brindled wolf. Reeve would have only seconds to jump into the car. Assuming I didn’t accidentally kill him.

My fist tightened on the gearshift.

A flash of gold between the dark trees brought my gaze up from the brutal battle.

Another half dozen wolves emerged from the forest at a dead run. They’d be on Reeve in a heartbeat.

But it was the naked man at their center who froze that heartbeat into hopelessness.

Lysander.

Though he wasn’t in the wolf form that had bitten me, the unmistakable savagery was stamped into the body of a Viking berserker. Long blond hair tangled around his massive shoulders, and his thighs rivaled the ancient firs for girth. From across the small clearing, he stared at me, and his eyes were blacker than the winter night I’d just survived.

The circling wolves parted before him, and he reached into the midst of the wolf fight like another man might reach idly for a cold beer. He plucked out the brindled wolf by the scruff and one back leg and flung him away. The wolf got out half a yowl before it smashed into a trunk and slumped to the earth.

But Lysander had already grabbed Reeve. As the berserker towered upright, Reeve shifted.

Even when I had pictured him on his own at thirteen, I had never imagined he could look breakable.

Dangling from Lysander’s fist, Reeve dripped blood. Some of it was the brindled wolf’s, I was sure, but also his own. It streaked his dusky skin in a crimson hue that was never meant to see the light of day. I tasted it, sharp and bright, and realized I’d smashed my fist to my lips to block a scream of denial.

Reeve met my frantic gaze, his eyes not silver but sky blue. His wolf had been beaten.

But the man wasn’t. He wrenched at the long fingers clamped around his throat.

“Go!” he shouted. “Find your pack!”

My heartbeat seemed to stutter back to life, galvanized by that voice that had both terrified and teased me over the long night. That I was learning to love. Leave? No! The pack wasn’t mine; they were his.

Lysander’s lip curled as if he knew what I was thinking and approved. “This is her pack now.” His words had the same mesmerizing tenor as Reeve’s: a voice for singing at stars. Tossing Reeve aside with appallingly casual strength, he pointed at the wolves around him before directing the damning finger at me. And in that lovely voice, he said, “Take her. Then follow his link to his pack. And kill them all.”

Indecision spun in me like the tires in mud, churning up ugly doubts. I couldn’t fight Lysander myself. I had only Reeve’s jacket and a stolen car and a GPS that would take me to his pack.

If I stayed, Reeve would keep fighting. And he would die. Then they’d take me and the GPS and they’d kill his pack.

If I escaped, they’d keep him alive, to force him to betray where I’d gone.

Maybe.

A maybe was the best I was going to get.

I longed for one more glimpse of Reeve’s eyes, to know he was alive, to see that he understood. But he was a crumpled heap of black hair and blood. Unconscious or dead already. He had fought for his life. For my life too, and his pack. How could I betray that?

Even as I choked out a horrified rejection, I spun the coupe to align with the magenta arrow, aimed toward his pack, the only ones who could help us now.

Through the rear window, I saw Lysander stride toward Reeve while his wolves leaped to the chase. I crashed my foot down on the accelerator and raced away.

Away from the craziest night of my life.

Away from Reeve.

And to what, I had no idea.

The last bitter howl was utterly silent as my heart shattered.

Keep reading for a sneak peek at Part 3

Wolf Born: Heart of the Pack ~ Part 3: Caught

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About the Author

Elsa Jade, author of sexy shapeshifting romances, also writes paranormal romance, urban fantasy romance, and science fiction romance as Jessa Slade and sexy contemporary romance as Jenna Dales. In all her incarnations, she believes in the transformational power of love and is thrilled to share her stories with like-minded readers.

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Part 3: Caught

Chapter 1 ~ Bettina

How could I have left Reeve behind, fallen beneath the jaws of the Lysander’s vicious werewolf pack?

The question was stuck on repeat in my head, drilling deeper through my temples as the night passed. Sour bile burned in the back of my throat, but I doggedly guided Reeve’s ruined Beemer through the thick pine forests of southwestern Oregon, following the magenta arrow of the GPS. At the end of the arrow was home.

Not my home, of course. His. His pack of alpha werewolves.

Werewolves who were going to be furiously pissed that I left their alpha prime to die. Intellectually, I knew there was nothing I could have done to rescue Reeve. I was just a chubby, lonely baker who up until last night had no idea werewolves actually existed. Well, now I was a baker bitten by a werewolf. But that hadn’t given me any superpowers yet, nothing that would’ve saved Reeve.

Maybe nothing that would save me.

Guilt and exhaustion welled up like a toxic fog of cut onions, blinding me so I had to stop the car. There was nowhere to pull off. The “road” was just a dirt path, intermittently sprinkled with gravel. If the track hadn’t been preprogrammed in, I’d never have gotten this far. There wasn’t even a real road indicated on the GPS. Except for the magenta line, I was just floating through undistinguished green map. I had no idea what was out here except more confusion and heartache.

I lowered my forehead to my hands, clenched around the steering wheel, and swallowed back tears.

Cold winter air seeped in through the bent doorframe where Lysander had tried to drag Reeve out when he rescued me last night. Before I could stop it, a wrenching sob snagged in my chest. No, I couldn’t break down. I choked back the sound until it was just a chilled shiver that even the silvery wool suit jacket Reeve had laid around my shoulders this morning couldn’t protect against.

Bad enough to have abandoned Reeve. I at least had to find his pack and tell them what happened to him, to warn them that Lysander was coming for them. Reeve was their leader. I’d felt the depth of his sense of responsibility to them, and I had to honor that.

Since I’d left him to die.

The bent door at my elbow wrenched open with a shriek of ill-fitted metal.

My head snapped up. Not of my own volition. Someone’s hand was fisted in my hair—

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The trouble continues in Wolf Born: Heart of the Pack Part 3: Caught

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