The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(56)

Well, it was gradual. I had days to fuck myself up in the head about it.

Her scent floods my senses, and it’s all I can do to think. The fuckers have finally stopped the truck, and they’re opening the door. We’ve been traveling north for hours—I’d say mostly at highway speeds. We could have gone three hundred, four hundred miles easily. That puts us well beyond all pack territories.

No matter that they’ve got a shifter working with them, this is human shit. They want us alive for something, and that means they’re going to move us. There will be an opportunity. Mari will shift and run, and I’ll let out the wolf.

She better fucking shift and run.

I broadcast the words through the bond, but like always, she’s ignoring it. When it comes to the bond, somehow she figured out how to stick her fingers in her ears and sing la, la, la. I never learned that trick, but I guess I never wanted to, either.

I can’t reinforce the message by giving her the eye. She’s got her neck twisted as far as it’ll go to watch the doors creak open. She’s a pale female, but she’s blanched fish belly white right now. Her fear pounds fists against my chest where the bond flows in.

The humans will die for this. I’m going to rend their limbs from their bodies with my bare hands and let my wolf shit on the piles of their bones. The shifter, Lenox, I’m going to kill him last. He’s going to suffer.

I don’t know how to make her less scared if she won’t tune into the bond. I don’t know how to make her less scared, period, and to be honest, fear is the reasonable reaction to the situation. As long as I can’t risk shifting, we’re out armed.

I grit my teeth as the barrel of a rifle appears in the opening. It remains trained on me while the cocky elder one, Smith, hoists himself into the container. Lenox follows him, and the man with the rifle brings up the rear.

Mari scuttles as far from them as her chains allow, plastering her back to the side wall. They don’t seem worried about her. All three only have eyes for me. Good.

I get why the humans underestimate her—they believe their females to be physically weaker—but Lenox has no excuse. Even the weakest shifter female is magnitudes faster and stronger than the most capable human male.

Mari doesn’t have an opening in this moment, though. She could take Smith out if she struck quickly, but the man with the rifle is out of range, and even a male shifter as puny as Lenox could take her. Mari isn’t the smallest in the pack, but she might be the most delicate. She’s like a fucking dandelion fluff.

My shredded muscles swell, half in response to the threat, half in response to the sweet scent wafting toward me on the breeze coming through the open doors. I don’t know how, but even when she’s not in heat, Mari’s scent makes me think of pretty shit—like rainbows and snowflakes and butterflies. It’s insane, but hell, so am I.

Smith looks from me to her and smirks like he knows something. I’m going to rip his smug face off his skull and shove it through his eye holes. He leers at Mari as she tries to hide her breasts and her pussy while at the same time pressing closer against the wall.

There’s a stabbing pain in my guts. I’m going to kill them slowly while she watches.

Unless she doesn’t want to.

She probably wouldn’t want to.

Fuck.

My wolf lets out a pissed off rumble. He’s being weird. He’s been hanging back, super-attuned to the fact that we’re in a hairy situation, aware that I’m going to call him out at the first opportunity, and he’s ready for it, but for once, he’s not chomping at the bit. It’s disorienting. I’m used to having to hold him back with the full force of my will.

“So, Mr. Ryan, did you enjoy your little road trip?” Smith finally speaks after doing the silent sneering thing to try to mess with our heads and assert his dominance.

It’s always embarrassing when humans try to assert dominance over shifters. They misunderstand the concept on a fundamental level. It’s not about who has the advantage in any given moment. That’s luck or Fate, maybe skill or intelligence.

Dominance is something else. It’s why even with me chained to a wall in a metal box, all three males’ heart rates increased the second they stepped in here, even though they’re armed. It’s why even though I’m terrified that Mari’s going to get hurt, I’m not the least bit scared of any of them on an individual level. They just haven’t earned it.

“I hope you appreciated the company we secured for you.” Smith leers at Mari.

What’s wrong with this guy? He’s a fucking creep.

“She confided in Lenox here that you fucked her and dumped her. Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.” He tuts and shoots Mari a look of feigned sympathy. She clenches her small fists and drops her head. Red seeps across her chest and up her neck.

I jerk at my chains. Look over here, motherfucker. Get your eyes off her.

“Is that true, Mr. Ryan? You did the old catch and release?” He arches an eyebrow.

There’s a knot in my throat. My wolf growls in my chest.

“I mean, I get it. I do,” Smith goes on when I don’t otherwise answer him. “A female might be a decent lay, but that doesn’t mean you necessarily want them around the house, yapping in your ear all the time, right?”

I feel a sharp pain through the bond. At the beginning, that’s how it felt pretty much all the time, unless Mari was asleep, and she didn’t sleep much. I fucking hate the feeling, but I don’t turn away from it. I never have.