Page 7 of Forsaken (The Nightwolf Pack #3)

CHAPTER 7

M ontgomery

Mine! Ours! Take her now!

I grind my teeth together so hard that my jaw aches. It’s still not enough to silence my insistent wolf. He continues to prowl just beneath the surface even as I curl my hands into fists, causing my fingernails to break the skin of my palms.

I’m not a fucking animal, I remind my wolf, though that’s not quite the case, is it?

I’m both. Animal and human.

My hand goes to my flat belly. I stroke up and down once, twice, three times, over the fabric of my T-shirt. The tattoo below the shirt is the reminder of who and what I am.

Too many years spent in my wolf screwed me up.

I don’t belong here as the alpha of a pack, and I damn sure don’t deserve a mate.

No.

She doesn’t deserve a mate like me.

“Well, let’s get this over with.” Even her terse tone beckons me.

My wolf snarls, and I don’t know if the son of a bitch wants to rip her clothes off or strangle her for scaring the shit out of us. Either way, his fierceness would tear her to shreds.

I close my eyes tightly and curse Ronan for walking out of here, leaving me alone with her. That’s the one rule I should’ve made with both of them on the drive to New Mexico.

Don’t leave me alone with her.

Serafina pushes out a sigh. “Obviously, this is the kitchen.” She spreads her arms out wide, looking this way and that.

My eyes trace down the lines of her body, noting the way the dress she’s still wearing, cups her ass. Though her long hair is tousled from the day’s events, it still falls enticingly over her shoulders. Her soft-looking skin begs me to trail my fingers along her bare arms.

But I know I couldn’t handle touching her.

The fire in her eyes that relays her anger only arouses my wolf.

A picture of me wrapping my hands in her hair and tugging while I violently take her from behind makes my wolf come close to howling inside of my chest.

“You’d stop looking at me like that if you knew what was good for you,” I grumble under my breath.

“What was that?” she asks, her hand on her hip.

“Kitchen,” I say out loud, but it comes out so damn strained and thin I can barely make out the word.

I need to focus on anything other than my wolf’s tendency to override my human. Usually, the kitchen is one of the places that calms my wolf, but not right now.

And right now, I can’t use my typical outlets.

“We’ve already established that,” Serafina’s unrelenting voice pierce’s my concentration.

It takes just about my entire strength to keep him reined in.

I can’t … no, I won’t let her see the animal I am.

“It’s where the food gets made.” She looks at me and smiles.

It’s not genuine in the least.

But neither me nor my wolf give a shit.

Her lips are perfectly plump pillows begging for my teeth to bite them.

“No need to linger here. I don’t cook.” She glances around, and then underneath her breath says, “Won’t be here for long anyway.”

Her eyes widen when a growl permeates the air.

I cut my wolf off and spin around, presenting her with my back.

At the same time loud footsteps make their way down the stairs, followed by a second set.

The first set belongs to Noah.

The quieter, calmer footsteps are Ronan’s.

“Living room,” I grunt out as they both step into the room.

“Gee … well, I wouldn’t have guessed if you hadn’t pointed that out. This guy’s a regular Martha Stewart.”

My lips twitch with an unknown emotion.

I look away from both Serafina and my brothers, silently telling one of them to take over.

“Hmm,” Serafina says.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her run a finger along one of the edges of the wooden bookshelf.

She inspects her finger. “Not a speck of dust. You must have a devoted cleaning person.” She spins to look between the three of us.

“Good. Because you can forget me doing any sort of household chores while I’m here. Which …” she points at us individually, “won’t be long.”

She turns to me. “Growl all you want.”

I hadn’t even noticed my wolf’s growling. At this point, it’s second nature.

“Stop touching that,” Ronan’s sharp voice cuts through the air at the same time Serafina rotates the crystal ball paperweight that sits on the shelf.

She doesn’t pay him any mind as she places the weight on the shelf below where it originally sat. She then picks up one of the framed photos on the next shelf.

“Who’s this?”

She turns to hold up the picture that has my heart sinking.

I turn away, moving as far away from her as possible.

Silence falls over the room. I can’t hear my brothers’ thoughts, and I don’t need to look at them to know they must be experiencing some of the same emotions coursing through me.

I’m ready to rip my shirt off, shift, and go for a run. I could do it now. Noah and Ronan are back. They can finish the damn tour without my help. They’ve lived in this house longer than I have, anyway.

“Hmph,” Serafina scoffs. “No answer, huh?” She turns the picture so that she can look at it. “Given the similarities in appearance, I’d guess these are?—”

“I said to stop taking things out of their rightful place,” Ronan barks in an uncanny loss of his temper.

He snatches the frame with the picture of our parents out of her hands and places it exactly where it was before.

Ronan is a stickler for order. Not something I’m certain he took into consideration when he decided we should kidnap Serafina. The woman is like a magnet for disorder and interruption.

Serafina isn’t fazed by Ronan’s outburst. If anything, the smirk on her face shows she takes pleasure in it.

She whistles and clicks her tongue, shaking her head. “Touchy, huh? Well, there is one way you can get me to stop touching your belongings.”

The taunting lilt of her tone isn’t lost on any of us.

Especially not when she intentionally begins to misalign the other photos on the shelf, along with the books and other paperweights.

“You could give me my freedom,” she finishes at the same time a book drops onto the floor. “Oops.”

She shrugs and steps over the book.

“No one’s holding you fucking hostage,” Noah says through gritted teeth.

“If that were so, I wouldn’t be standing in the middle of your living room right now with locks on the doors, Mr. Likes-to-toss-women-over-his-shoulder.”

My wolf, which was already raring to go, comes close to unstoppable. My incisors descend in my mouth and hairs begin to pop out along my arms and back. He’s highly keen to the fact that his alpha brother is being challenged.

Ronan notices how close I am to losing it and gives me a slight shake of his head.

Which is the best he can do without bringing attention to my situation and since he can’t communicate with me via our broken bond.

I squeeze my eyes shut. Not now, I tell my wolf. Again, I dig my nails into my palms as I clench my fists. My wolf’s energy courses through me. I can barely hold him off, but somehow I manage.

I give the situation another five minutes before I need to leave, though.

I refuse to ever let Serafina see my wolf. He’s too unpredictable. Years of survival on our own—without a pack—made him so. We almost didn’t survive that life.

“This is your home now,” Noah tells Serafina at the same moment I blink my eyes open.

He gets up close to her, sticking his face directly in hers. “And this is where you will fucking stay,” he tells her through gritted teeth.

“You will eat those words,” she taunts back.

“As long as you are our mate, you will remain here,” Ronan counters. “And wolves mate for life.”

She gives him a scathing look. “We’re not mated.”

I flinch at the reminder, my body involuntarily reacting to that fact. I have to tell myself it’s a good thing we’re not yet mated.

“We will be soon enough.” A dark promise laces Ronan’s usually flat tone.

“And how do you plan on making that happen?” she asks, looking between the three of us as she folds her arms over her chest.

My eyes drop to the plentiful yet respectful amount of cleavage that damn dress shows. Serafina is nicely endowed. My mouth salivates as I wonder what it would be like to run my tongue across her skin.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I shrink farther into the corner of the room. My body shakes with need.

A run. I need a run.

“By force?” She glares at Noah with an eyebrow raised. “I won’t be as easy to mate bond as I was to kidnap. So unless you plan on mating with a corpse, you can forget it right now.”

She gasps and takes a step back, her back pressing against the front door, when Ronan throws his hands up, trapping her between them as he presses his palms against the wall on either side of her body.

He gets so close to her, there’s barely enough space for air to pass between them. “Taking you by force will not be necessary.” He looks her up and down.

Her breathing visibly increases.

“You will come to us willingly. All three of us.”

Heat pulses through me. The bulge in my pants thickens.

Ronan’s voice deepens. “But, if you want us to use force, that can be arranged, Serafina.”

“Not even in your wildest dreams,” she counters, but there’s an underlying breathiness to her voice.

The attraction between all of us is undeniable.

But mate bonds are more than physical attraction.

“And don’t even think of me attending the pack meeting that guy mentioned.”

Ronan drops his arms to his sides as he steps away from Serafina.

“Your presence is mandatory. You will be there,” he declares.

“Fuck off.”

Though he doesn’t outwardly react, there’s a tightness I sense from Ronan. I’ve seen my brother break up pack fights or go up against a herd of bison during a hunt and not give off so much as a base amount of emotion.

Yet, a few words of defiance from Serafina has him reacting.

It’s apparent I’m not the only one she has an effect on.

“That mouth of yours … is a problem.”

She gives him the coldest smile I’ve ever seen from a human before telling him, “What are you going to do? Wash my mouth out with soap?”

He starts to take a step forward but stops himself. He moves back, instead.

“Thought so,” she replies.

“You have to be there.”

All heads turn my way. I hadn’t planned on saying anything, but this needs to be made clear.

“You don’t have the fucking option or choice.” It’s clear my wolf has taken over at this point. “You will attend the Blackclaw pack meeting and show up as our mate. That’s the way Mother Moon willed it, and it is so.”

“What he said,” Noah adds.

What Serafina doesn’t know, it’s as much a matter of her safety as it is important to our leadership that she attend the meeting.

She needs the protection of being known as our mate in order to walk around Blackclaw territory freely, without being harassed or bothered.

Or worse.

Serafina’s gaze shifts immediately to me.

It’s her look that alerts me I hadn’t done as good of a job as I thought containing my growl.

“I’m going for a run,” is all I say as I barge past Noah, into the kitchen toward the back door. As soon as my foot hits the wooden porch, I rip off my shirt, tossing it aside. Next, I unbutton my jeans and kick off my boots, stripping naked in record time.

Not even a minute later I’m in my wolf form, racing toward the woods. Damn the night sky or the incoming storm. We’ve endured worse, and I have excellent recall when it comes to finding my way back.

Right now, it’s to let my wolf out in his base form, maybe even hunt down some prey to relieve his hunger. No, it’s not food we’re craving but it should hopefully be enough to satisfy the hunger and bloodthirst coursing through me right now.

Yes, I’m a coward for running away like this.

Further proof I don’t deserve the title of alpha or to be Serafina’s fated mate.