The Tyrant Alpha's Rejected Mate (Five Packs #1)(55)

His huge hands tighten on the steering wheel. “You just gonna sit there and ignore me?”

Why shouldn’t I? He’s ignored me his whole life. And I’m grateful for it. He should go back to ignoring me. It’s the best I can hope for in this shitty, backwards pack.

“You’re acting like a child,” he says.

And it erupts, bursts out of me so hot it scorches my throat. “You followed me. You ruined my mushrooms. You ruined everything. You’re a—you’re an asshole.”

There’s a beat of stunned silence.

And then he laughs. From his belly. Like I’m genuinely funny. If I had a knife, I’d plunge it into his throat and listen to him gurgle, and then I’d laugh, too. I’d laugh and laugh.

I clutch my arms to my chest, as if that’ll hold my wolf in. She’s snapping, lunging, bloodthirsty and wild. She’s going to bite his face off.

When he’s done laughing at me, he wipes his eyes and asks, “What mushrooms?”

My wolf surges at the same time I drop the reins. Our switches flip simultaneously, and we go off. She barrels through my skin, embodying me, and I welcome her, let her wiry strength join the fury seething in my veins. My spine snaps. My limbs realign. The sizzle of ozone fills the cab.

I can taste his face already.

Killian startles, eyes widening in alarm. “What the fuck? No. Shift back. We’re in a fucking vehicle.”

But I’m the wolf, and she doesn’t recognize his authority. We’re tangled in the seatbelt, but that’s not stopping her. She swipes at him, snapping her jaws, contorting her neck to sink her teeth into his thick thigh, ripping through denim so she can gnaw flesh from his bones. Make him sorry. Make him hurt.

What mushrooms? He’s gonna learn.

“Holy crap, Una.” He jerks the wheel, skidding onto the shoulder, and he unbuckles himself, trying to dodge my muzzle and my claws. I’m tearing up the upholstery. My good back leg nails the window and it cracks like a spiderweb.

“Stop. You’re gonna hurt yourself.” It’s an alpha command. I fight harder, and I manage to rip his shirt, scrape his shoulder and draw blood.

It’s sweet. It’s what we want. We lunge again.

He throws open his door, and as fur sprouts on his exposed skin, he uses his claw to cut me free of the seatbelt, wrestling my writhing body out of the cab and then pitching me through the air. I land wonky, my bad back leg immediately giving out.

My wolf shrieks with pain.

His wolf howls.

Shit.

I crawl away, front legs dragging the back, as quick as I can, so when he bounds out of the truck, six hundred pounds of fur and fangs, he doesn’t land on top of me.

I look over my shoulder, panting, to see how close he is. How angry.

I swear, his wolf smiles. He raises his snout and howls again at the clear blue sky. It’s a warning. A promise. He’s not holding back anymore.

I run.

We’re in a fallow field, and I bolt as fast as I can on three legs, dragging the fourth. There’s a windbreak in the distance, and I head there on instinct, even though it’s not thick enough to lose him, and I’m small and lame and my human mind knows that if he wants to, he can catch me in one modest leap.

My wolf and I aren’t scared. We’re furious. We sprint, tongue out, and the sensation is still so new, and yet so natural, that it almost distracts us from our fury. The dirt is dry and clumpy beneath our paws, and the rich scent of life returning to the earth wafts from the ground.

There are squirrel tracks. A groundhog hole. Crows pecking in the distance. The pain in my bad leg fades as my limbs warm. The world is alive. It’s bright and satisfying and soothes my bitter disappointment, tempers my rage.

There’s a hawk circling high above, and a stream babbles ahead, the wet mossy slickness of it fizzing in my snout like soda pop bubbles.

We’ve been the wolf, but we’ve never run free before. And it’s amazing.

It’s so distracting, so wondrous, that at first, I don’t realize Killian’s wolf isn’t chasing us. He’s trotting a few feet behind, keeping an even distance. My wolf snarls at him over her shoulder on principle. He slows his pace so he’s a foot further back.

This is what his wolf wanted last night, both of us in fur.

What is he going to do?

Whatever he wants. He’s a giant.

Shit.

I pick up speed and duck into the windbreak, but of course, he has no trouble keeping up. The trees are spaced evenly, elderberry and dogwood, then arborvitae and oak.

My wolf isn’t mad anymore. She doesn’t really give a crap about mushrooms or the market, and now that Killian’s wolf is trailing her heels, as she thinks is right, she’s fine. She slows down and turns, letting out a series of sharp, bossy yips.

Killian’s wolf skitters to a halt, standing still and tall, and then he lowers his head, baring his neck the slightest bit, a sly, unrepentant look in his bright golden eyes.

She better not fall for it. He’s a jerk, and he does what he wants.

She pads forward and nips his exposed neck. He rumbles. She licks the fur where she pricked him with her delicate fangs. He nuzzles her, licking, nipping in return. She squirms, tongue lolling. She likes it. She wants more.

She fell for it.

His rumble picks up volume.

She whines and bats him with a paw. He rolls onto his back, cuffing her gently. She slides her flank against his exposed belly, an echo of his purr in her throat.