Page 20 of Claimed by the Wolf (Wild Fated Shifters #1)

NOX

S o much for the element of surprise.

I’m surrounded as soon as I enter the property, a handful of Emeric’s men encircling me when I step out of my SUV.

“Good afternoon,” I drawl coldly. “I’m here for Brynn.”

“This way,” Emeric’s Beta instructs me, waving me forward.

Frowning, I follow him as we move away from the house toward the stables, my eyes trailing over Brax’s SUV, senses on high alert. As we round the corner, my instincts flare.

Brax stands between Brynn and Emeric, their postures telling me everything I need to know. Without hesitating, I fly toward them, half-shifting to give myself momentum and knock my mate out of harm’s way to face off with Emeric.

Startled, Emeric squares his shoulders and bares his teeth, his fangs elongating. “What’s this?” he hisses. “Are you coming at me?”

“Why are you cornering her? Them?” I demand furiously. “Is this the way you treat members of my pack at your house?”

He scoffs, but I catch the look of confusion on his face as his eyes dart between Brynn and me. “No one was cornered.”

Emeric sniffs the air around us.

The hairs on my neck rise. “What are you doing?” I growl, glancing back at Brax and Brynn. The siblings offer me identical wide-eyed looks, and suddenly I understand.

He knows.

“I was explaining to Brynn that there are some rumors about you two.” He walks around us to study us closer.

I tense, willing myself to be calm. I have no idea how much longer the Golden Shade is going to last, but I need to get Brynn out of here before it wears off.

“I haven’t heard any rumors,” I lie. “But I don’t like your snap judgments.”

He stops between us, the suspicion in his face palpable. “I don’t trust you two,” he spits. “There’s something… I can feel it.” He turns and looks at his enforcers. “Isn’t there something?”

The others shuffle uncomfortably, but there’s an awkward murmur of consensus.

“I don’t see it,” a dark-eyed female declares from her place among the group. “Are you sure?”

Brynn’s head whips up, and Emeric gazes at her skeptically. “Really, Alessa?”

She shrugs. “You asked.”

The atmosphere is charged, and all eyes land on me. But I know what needs to be done now, what I should have done in the first place. I need to claim my mate, consequences be damned.

“This clearly isn’t going to work out.” I grab for Brynn’s hand. “You can’t be trusted to take care of my Beta’s sister.”

I pull her away from the group, a cold sweat forming on my brow.

“You can’t unilaterally decide that!” Emeric barks. “She belongs to me!”

“I just did,” I fire back without turning, but my senses are on high alert. I’m ready for him.

“How are you doing this?” Brynn whispers as I drag her toward the waiting SUV. “How come he can’t detect our bond?”

“Just keep moving,” I urge her, but as I speak, it happens. The burning desire to press her against me overcomes me in a torrent. The simple feel of her hand in mine sets me on fire.

The Golden Shade has run its course.

A low murmur erupts over the Willow Grove pack, and Emeric shouts for me to stop.

“I knew it!” the Alpha roars, his voice changing to a guttural growl.

Fuck.

“Get to the car,” I pant, tossing her the keys and spinning around to confront the massive bear bounding toward me.

Brax stops in his tracks to morph into his panther frame, and I waste no time shifting back into my wolf form.

All around us, the Willow Grove pack members shift into their animal forms, outnumbering us, their sights set predominantly on me.

This is going to be the end for me, I’m sure, but at least I’ll go down fighting for the female I love.

Snout to snout, Emeric and I face off, huffing, our eyes clashing. I desperately want to look back and see if Brynn made it to the car safely, but I don’t dare look away.

Emeric’s fury is tangible through the thick of his chocolate-colored fur, his eyes flashing. He feels betrayed, and nothing I can do or say will make it right now.

It has to be this way.

Through my peripheral view, Brax’s ebony fur stands on end, each one of us waiting for the other to make the first move that will inevitably lead to a long and drawn-out war.

“Please! Don’t do this!” Brynn cries from the hillside. “You don’t understand! It wasn’t supposed to happen like this, Emeric!”

He releases a primal grunt, and I snap my head toward her, urging her to run with my eyes. To my horror, Brynn descends into the pit of animals, the Willow Grove members hissing and snapping at her, fueling my anger when she passes.

Brax rushes to stay on her heels, but she holds out a hand to keep him back. “No! Just let me talk to him,” she begs. “The one thing we haven’t tried is honesty.”

She stops in front of us, kneeling to meet us both at eye level. She cups my head first before turning to Emeric, who snaps at her furiously, but Brynn doesn’t back away.

“Please hear me out,” she pleads. “I don’t know you well, Emeric, but I think you’re a rational leader. You don’t want to go to war over this, over me.”

She places a hand on his fur and stares imploringly into his snarling snout. “We didn’t know we were bonded until after I was promised to you. By then, it was too late to back out of the arrangement.”

Emeric morphs back into his human body, and one of his pack members hurries to find him clothes as he snorts in disbelief. “You expect me to accept that?”

“It’s what happened.” She looks toward me and then Brax for confirmation.

I shift back with Brax, scouring for the remnants of tattered clothes to dress.

“She’s not lying,” I tell him begrudgingly. “We didn’t want to lose the alliance. But think about it? Why would we do something like that? It was a misunderstanding, but one we didn’t know how to undo.”

Emeric’s face twists into a grimace of disgust as he pulls on a pair of jeans and slips a t-shirt over his head. “So, it’s just a coincidence that your mate happened to be the one you chose to come here,” he laughs humorlessly. “I find that hard to believe.”

“No.” I stare at Brynn admiringly. “Brynn has always been the one I’ve trusted most, well before our bond. She’s our pack’s rock, its foundation. It was fitting that she would be the one who joined our packs together.”

Her eyes lock with mine, and that pulse of energy we had tried so hard to keep under wraps finally flows freely between us. My heart pounds, her scent enveloping me as I exhale a breath I feel I’ve been holding since this whole thing started.

A cat’s meow distracts me as a black cat rubs itself against Emeric’s leg, her eyes staring wisely up at him. The corners of the Alpha’s lips twitch, and he looks away.

“Okay, Alessa,” he mutters.

The cat sashays off, swishing her tail.

“You handled this terribly,” Emeric tells us. “You embarrassed all of us.”

He looks at his pack and back at us.

I purse my lips, not wanting to admit fault, but Brynn’s gentle hazel stare forces me to concede slightly.

“We did what we thought was best for the pack,” I tell him. “You would have done the same.”

An odd expression overtakes his face. “We all make choices we have to live with when it comes to love. Some of us don’t get a second chance.”

His words send a chill through me, and my neck tenses as I prepare to shift again. “What are you saying, Emeric? You’re not going to let Brynn go?”

He casts her another look, his eyes trailing over her with a fusion of annoyance and admiration.

“You can have your mate, Nox. I have no use for another Alpha’s mate.”

I grunt at his wording. “You didn’t have a choice in the matter. I was taking her either way.”

I gesture for Brax to follow as I again reach for her hand, but Brynn stops us.

“What does this mean for our alliance?”

The question hangs in the air uncomfortably. Emeric and I face off again, the thickness sliceable between us.

“Why don’t we leave things as they are for now. Tentative peace,” Emeric mutters. “We’ll regroup when emotions aren’t running quite as high.”

“Good plan,” I agree tensely.

I tug on Brynn’s hand, the three of us making our way to my waiting vehicle.

“That was incredibly brave,” I tell her, pulling her against me.

“And incredibly stupid,” Brax adds.

“If she hadn’t done it, we would have been outnumbered,” I remind Brax.

He grumbles something unintelligible under his breath and heads toward his car as I open the passenger side for Brynn, allowing her inside.

“We’ll send for your things later.”

She looks at me. “I’m not worried.”

I lean over the door and peer into her eyes. “We’ll have them delivered to my estate.”

Sheer joy colors her face as she smiles. “Yes, please.”

I lean forward to press my lips against hers. For the first time, there’s no shame or guilt attached to our connection, only two mates embracing what they should have all along.

A soft purring pulls us apart, and Brynn chuckles, looking down at the black cat that had been on the battlefield.

“Hi, Alessa.” The cat morphs into her human form, and I recognize the dark-eyed female who had been among the shifters when I first arrived.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Alessa chirps, eying me through a fringe of dark bangs as she leans against the car. “I just wanted to let you know it wasn’t me who told him.”

“Okay.” Brynn glances up from the passenger seat.

“But I did what I said I would.”

Brynn appears just as confused as I feel by this whole conversation.

“How?” she asks. “If you didn’t tell him about me and Nox?”

“Oh, I have my ways,” she replies enigmatically.

Brynn and I stare at her deadpan.

She laughs. “Fine. You might have noticed that Emeric wasn’t particularly interested in mating with you,” she offers.

Brynn grimaces, folding her arms over her chest. “Thanks for driving it home. Yes. He did seem disinterested.”

Alessa chuckles again. “Don’t take it personally, Brynn. It’s not you. He’s hung up on someone else.”

“You!” Brynn guesses.

Alessa chortles loudly, attracting the attention of several pack members walking by.

“No! Emeric and I would kill each other if we were together. No. My best friend. But she left Willow Grove territory, and he never really got over it.”

Suddenly, Emeric makes a lot more sense to me, and I can see Brynn understands him, too.

“Poor guy,” she murmurs. “I wonder where she is?”

Alessa’s grin remains. “Only fate knows the answer to that question,” she sings, spinning away, her long, black hair fanning behind her. “It’s been fun. See you around!”

She’s gone as quickly as she arrived, leaving us the opportunity to do the same.

I climb into the driver’s seat and back out, taking Brynn’s hand.

“Are you going to take me home now, Nox?” she asks hopefully.

“Yes, my love,” I promise her. “And I’m never letting you go again.”