The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(61)

Paws are built differently than hands. I can picture the diagram from shifter physiology class at Moon Lake school. Humans have the long metacarpal bone in their thumb. Wolves only have small dewclaws. The actual circumference of the carpals aren’t that much different, but broken—the wolf’s bones would take up less space. Not much less. But maybe enough.

“What are you thinking?” Darragh asks from his crouch, his face darkening. Despite the submissive position, his posture crackles with dominance. Something has set him off. Can he read my forming intentions through the bond?

Am I really going to do this?

I can’t think more than a step ahead or the fear threatens to choke me.

But can I really stand here until I fall irreparably into heat? What happens then? I present for Darragh, mindless and in misery, until he goes mad with rut? And then the humans string me up again until he comes for me, and they kill him and rape me on his hide.

I don’t have a choice.

“I’m scared.” In a way, the words slip out, but also, I need to hear Darragh say what I know he will.

“It’ll be okay,” he growls, eyes narrowed. He definitely knows something’s up.

But it won’t be okay, not unless I’m brave, and somehow, in a way that makes no sense at all, it’s easier to be brave when he lies to me.

I give him a smile, because I think he might need a comforting lie, too, and then I close my eyes. My wolf is close. She rises to her feet. She understands what I want to do. She’s sick with dread, but we’re partners. We aren’t two sides of a coin, like they say about the wolf and the man. We’re sisters.

“Mari, no—” Darragh barks as he senses the shift, as he realizes what I’m going to do.

“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “It’ll be okay.” And I surrender my skin, my wolf seizing it seamlessly, assuming her shape, shaking out her fur.

“Mari, stop. Shift back.” Darragh imbues the order with the strength of an alpha’s command, and although my head instinctively ducks, my wolf doesn’t obey. He’s not our alpha. He’s our mate. “No, Mari.”

My wolf yips at him to be quiet. She’s sizing up the cuff around her forepaw, wriggling her hindquarters to test the band around her middle. There’s enough give in that one. If we have the room to maneuver, we can squeeze free.

She begins to chew the restraint, but as soon as her snout gets near it, I realize it isn’t real leather. It’s some kind of synthetic material. It tastes like chemicals.

“Mari, shift back. Now.” Darragh tries again, even firmer. My wolf snorts at him and keeps on gnawing.

“Mari, please,” he tries again. My wolf’s ear flicks at the tone of his voice. The thought of my pain is making him desperate.

Well, in this situation, pain is unavoidable. I give up on the band. My teeth haven’t even made an impression.

This is going to hurt like a son of a bitch. With an instinct newly kicked in—or maybe connected to my impending heat—I know that Darragh isn’t just going to hate this—it’s gonna kill him. But not literally like those men will if he goes into rut.

Darragh is my best chance of getting out of this alive, so this has to happen. Besides, the thought of him collapsing at my feet again, dead this time—no.

No.

I take a few calming breaths, reaching deep to commune with the wolf, preparing myself to break my own wrist.

“Don’t fucking do it, Mari.” Darragh growls at the same time his wolf rumbles a warning in his chest.

My wolf closes her eyes and settles her full weight on the chain to hold it in place, bracing her hindlegs against the floor.

“Mari, I’m warning you.” His voice has turned into a throaty snarl, and as I draw in one last big breath and grit my teeth, I think how weird it is that my stomach flips every time he says my name.

I jerk my foreleg back as hard as I can until it wedges tight in the band. Then, on my next breath, I use all my strength to drag it through the cuff, cracking the bones, one by one, until the limp paw slides the rest of the way through. The pain burns, shooting up my leg from the broken joints. My wolf clamps her throat shut on a scream.

Darragh roars and fights his chains, wild and terrifying in his fury. But not to my wolf. Even stronger than her pain is the urge to comfort him.

She hobbles up onto her good leg and drags her carcass toward him, contorting her middle, twisting her haunches left and right and clawing forward on the metal floor until she squeezes the rest of her body free.

Darragh’s wolf howls. My wolf perks her head up long enough to yip at him to be quiet, and then she hauls herself the rest of the way over to him and collapses at his feet. I remember the night when I shifted for the first time, how I laid on my back and demanded that he scratch my belly.

There’s no sting of humiliation in the memory anymore, not that I can feel much beyond the horrible throbbing in my wrist.

“Oh, Mari, what have you done?” he says, battered as he sinks despondently to the floor.

With the last dregs of her energy, my wolf gives over our skin, receding into the far reaches of our insides to lick her wounds. I curl into a ball and clutch my aching wrist to my chest. Darragh bends his knees and makes a barrier around me with his legs.

A hesitant hand touches my bare hip. His palm is cool and rough against my flushed skin. I moan.