The Lone Wolf's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #3)(65)

I’m doing this right, and the pleasure coiling faster and tighter inside me is exactly what I need. On an upward slide, he thrusts his hips, and that’s right, too. I sink down on him, let him split me, stretch me until it burns.

I whine. He drags his fangs along the top of my shoulder, and the prick of his incisors distracts me from my fleeting distress. The pain is not worth paying attention to, and then it’s gone, and all that’s left is the exquisite agony of Darragh driving wildly into me, pistoning his hips, slamming the spot that makes me feel good, so good.

I hook an arm around his neck, arch my spine, drop my head back, and close my eyes. I’m riding him, but I’m not in control. I’m in heaven.

I angle my hips so his pubic bone grazes my clit with each thrust, and I’m flying. Darragh’s a beast, out of his mind, but I am, too. We’re together, snarling and howling our release, as I come on his cock. His knot swells, holding me in place, capturing me, quivering and limp against his chest.

His growl vibrates my cheek. Eyes plastered shut and mind spinning, I hardly register his nose nudging at the crook of my neck, and then, with no warning except a rise in the timbre of his rumbling, his fangs pierce my skin.

I shriek and struggle out of instinct, but I’m trapped by his knot and his teeth. I brace my palms against his hot, hard chest. He bites down harder.

A rush surges through my body, dancing from nerve to nerve. I stop fighting. The bond pulses, alive in a new way, sluggish but strong.

This is how it’s supposed to be. My mate. Claiming me.

I’m not alone.

I haven’t ever been because this male was waiting in my future.

I snuggle closer, boneless, as he licks my wound closed, rumbling his assurance, his pride. I feel his heartbeat slow to normal against my cooling breasts.

At some point, he unwinds the chains and wraps his arms around me, stroking my back, and the licks turn to gentle kisses.

My jaw cracks as I yawn. His knot subsides, and fluids gush from my battered pussy and splatter on the metal floor. I’m past embarrassment, past everything. In this moment, I’m safe. My mate is here. His claiming mark smarts, and it hurts, but it’s a good hurt. All is well.

Metal grinds on metal. Rusty hinges creak. Behind us, a door opens.

Darragh springs to his feet with a roar. I tumble to the ground.

The scope of a rifle appears, aimed by a new human in a black vest. Another man I haven’t seen before vaults into the container. He has a tray. It smells like raw meat.

I watch the man with the meat’s gaze drop to my bare wrist and waist, his eyes rounding as he registers my location in the box. I watch his mouth open and his head turn.

The man with the rifle’s focus is glued to Darragh.

I hear Darragh’s voice in my head. Shift and run.

I sprint for the door, and mid-stride, I seize my wolf, thrust her into our skin, screaming as bones snap as I propel them forward with sheer will, and my wolf leaps through the air. There is a moment when we see the open field beyond, and the royal blue evening sky—and then my wolf collides with the rifle barrel, knocking it aside, and she goes for the man’s eyes, and then she tears out his throat.





11





DARRAGH





Terror cuts straight through my dwindling rut, sweeping the madness from my brain and leaving everything crystal clear.

Time slows until it ticks by frame by frame.

Mari’s wolf has her teeth sunk into the mangled remains of a man’s throat. His rifle has fallen beside his lifeless body.

The other man is reaching for a taser holstered at his waist.

From a distance—a yard or so—shouts ring out. Boots hit the ground. Four, five, six men.

My nose quivers. Many guns. Gas. Exhaust. Vehicles. But I can’t see anything out of the open doors but a field of tall grass and forest beyond.

Mari’s wolf has hunkered down, shrinking herself against the corpse, trembling. Her blue eyes are huge and trained on me.

“Run,” I shout, tearing at my chains. “Run!”

Her wolf’s gaze flashes to the other man. He’s raising the taser, his hand shaking.

I roar, buying her time as he turns to me, his instincts warning him that I’m the real threat.

“Run!”

Her wolf glances over her shoulder in the direction of the pounding boots, and she huddles lower, whining up at me.

“Fuck, Mari, run! Now!”

A sharp crack sounds. Dirt explodes a few feet from where she’s cowering. She ducks her head under her paws.

A man—Smith—shouts from a distance, “Hold your fire! Tranqs only!”

A split second later, there’s another pop and a clipped ping as a bullet hits the side of the container.

I fight the chains. The cuffs cut into the gashes I’ve carved in my wrists. The links groan, the walls creak where the plates attach, and given ten, twenty more minutes, I could tear them free, but they need to give now, and I’m not strong enough. I need a burst of power, and will isn’t enough. I’m not enough.

“Go!” I scream. She crouches and shakes.

In this second or the next one, a shot will ring out, it’ll hit its mark, and maybe it’ll be a dart with red feathers, or maybe it’ll be lead.

Time stops.

For the first time since he tore himself from my skinny, nine-year-old body, my wolf is dead silent.