The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(57)

Smith cocks his head. “No comment?” He shrugs and eyes Mari again, his gaze lingering between her legs.

I clench my teeth so hard that a fang nicks the inside of my lower lip.

“Is she in heat?” he asks over his shoulder.

“Yes,” Lenox answers.

“How can you tell?”

“The look she gives me.” As he says it, Mari glances up at him from staring daggers at the floor, and her face scrunches like she’s sucking a lemon.

Smith snickers. “I think you’ve definitely blown your chance, Len. She hates you.”

Lenox’s bland face doesn’t show the least concern. “My scent is registering to her as noxious. Like fecal matter or spoiled meat. It’s a physiological reaction among shifters to encourage pair bonding between fated mates.”

“So, you’re saying that you literally smell like shit to her?” Smith barks a laugh. “Now I’ve heard it all.”

Lenox is unruffled. I want to know where he comes from. I bet he’s Moon Lake, using words like “physiological reaction.”

Smith slaps his hands together. “Excellent. How long before Conan over there goes into rut?”

My gut cramps. That’s not happening. Hell, no.

“Once she’s in full heat? I’d give it twelve hours minimum. Maybe forty-eight on the outside.” Lenox taps the wall. “There’s minimal ventilation in here. That should speed things up.”

Smith frowns. “The last clients fly in tomorrow evening. They’re not going to want to wait to hunt.”

“I told you to hold off a day or two so we could better gauge the, uh, female’s readiness.” Lenox averts his eyes from Mari like the subject offends his delicate sensibilities.

When I’m done with him, when he’s learned to cry and pray again, I’m going to cut his tongue out, shove it down his throat, hold his nose and clamp my hand over his mouth, and suffocate him with it.

Smith takes a few steps further into the box, closer to Mari. My whole body primes.

“You think you can hold out four whole days, Conan?” He grabs Mari’s wrist and drags her arm to her side, baring her breasts. She tenses all over, but she lets him. Why? She’s stronger than he is. I want her to fight, but I also want her to do whatever she has to do to keep herself safe. Acid surges up my throat.

Standing here, powerless, I know what hell is.

I try to hold her eyes, but she bows her head, and before I can stop it, my gaze falls to her breasts, just for a moment, a split second, and fuck, they’re beautiful, round and heavy and tipped with big, puckered, pouty, brownish-red nipples. Saliva floods my mouth and shame throttles my throat. What am I doing?

I force my focus back to her face. She’s looking up again, but not at me. She’s staring at the man. No. She’s staring at the rifle pointed at me.

That’s why she’s letting Smith touch her. She’s scared. For me?

I growl—not my wolf—me. She doesn’t have to give a shit about me. That’s not how this works. That’s not the tradeoff. I leave her alone, and she doesn’t suffer. That’s the deal I made with Fate or God or whatever calls the shots in this fucked-up world.

I yank violently at the chains to distract the males.

“So you’re going to hunt me? That’s the plan? Hunt a wolf in rut?” The last thing I want to do is dialogue with these motherfuckers, but I need Mari to stop looking at that gun. I need her to stop feeling the way she’s feeling.

Smith grins. “Well, not me, personally. I don’t have the two million buy in. Yet. I will after this, but for this round, I’m serving in an exclusively logistical support role.”

Two million?

Smith draws his lips back in the approximation of a smile, revealing his bleached Chiclet teeth. He looks like that crazy actor with the face you want to punch.

“I know, right? Two million.” He whistles. “That’s a lot of dough, but you’ve developed quite a reputation. Haunt of the Hills? The Mercenary?”

“I’m not a mercenary.” That’s human bullshit.

“You just roam shifter territories, taking out ferals for the fun of it?” He says it like he can’t believe it, but with the notable exception of Moon Lake, the packs don’t care about getting rich. And I sure don’t do it because it’s fun. It’s nerve-racking as shit being away from Quarry Pack camp.

It’s worse, though, trying to sleep knowing that shit is out there, and Mari weighs maybe a hundred-and-seventy-pounds max, and she’s got the self-preservation instincts of a drunk bunny rabbit. No, a drunk bunny rabbit is cannier. What’s the kind of animal with such undeveloped defense mechanisms that it would charge alone into a dark shack with a notorious mad wolf in it?

I don’t think an animal capable of that type of recklessness has made it this far through evolution.

I go to run my hand through my hair and the chain catches me short. There will be time for losing my shit about Mari going on a coffee date with the villain from “The Most Dangerous Game” after I’ve killed them all. That’s the only possible outcome of this.

Emboldened by the gun, Smith saunters further into the container and squats to size me up. He probably intended to put us on eye level, but he misgauged. I’m on my knees, and still, I’m sneering down at him.