Page 3 of In the Mouth of the Wolf (Of Wolves and Kings #1)

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ELIAS

“Y ou’re just going to let her go?” Cam snarled.

I sighed, running my hand down my face. Did I want to let her go? No, I wanted to wrap her up and bring her down to Chicago with me immediately, hiding her in my home, where no one would ever realize the treasure I’d just found.

But unlike Cam, I wasn’t a Moon-damned barbarian.

“She didn’t grow up in this world. Everything we say is going to sound bat shit crazy to her. Marlowe needs to figure this out on her own.”

Cam started pacing angrily. He ripped off his coat and rolled his shoulders as he growled to himself. He had always been a hot head, and today, he might have just scared off the first omega the area had seen in almost one hundred years.

I really should punch him.

“How can she not know?” he asked. “She’s gotta be in her mid-twenties, right? How many heat cycles has she gone through? After the first one, wouldn’t she know she wasn’t human?”

I got up and walked around my desk, picking up my coat and inhaling the scent that still lingered. Marlowe scoffed at the idea of biological social structures, but the raging hard-on in my pants was proof otherwise. No alpha could resist the sweet perfume, no matter how muted, of an omega in her prime.

“She must be on hormone suppressants,” I said. “It’s the only plausible explanation. If she wasn’t, she would have attracted every shifter in Northern California. You didn’t pick up on her scent until you were just a few feet away, correct? Same with me.”

If she didn’t know about this world and yet was taking pills, it meant someone close to her had been lying. James hadn’t talked much about his family, but unbeknownst to Marlowe, he hadn’t abandoned them, at least not financially. He’d been sending her mom thousands of dollars every month for years.

It must have been a concentrated effort between the two of them to keep the truth of their children’s identities a secret.

But why?

“Fuck!” he yelled, collapsing into one of the armchairs. “I want her, Elias. I want her so bad it hurts.”

I scoffed, still pissed that Cam had interrupted us. I had scented her attraction to me. Sure, she had a fiancé, but engaged wasn’t married. We could have been working closely for months to unravel her father’s estate – I had no doubt eventually she would have given up and ended things with the human to be with me. “And you think I don’t? And every other alpha who’s going to get a whiff of her while she’s in town?”

His hands gripped the arms, his nails running down the fabric. “If anyone lays a finger on her, I swear to the Moon…”

My mind traveled with his, and I felt my anger boil over at even the thought of another alpha trying to knot or bond her against her will before she knew what she was. Before we had a chance to make her ours.

I took a deep breath and leaned against my desk. “We can keep an eye on her while she’s here, but otherwise, we can’t exactly lay a finger on her, either. She’s engaged to a human.”

“A human ?” he roared. “An omega that perfect needs a whole pack of alphas to satisfy and protect her. What the hell is one knotless human going to do?”

I felt his frustration deeply, but I couldn’t let it overtake me and make me do something stupid. Marlowe didn’t seem the type to appreciate typical alpha aggression. “Cam, you need to calm down. We have no claim over her, and she obviously doesn’t want any part in our world, at least for the moment. We’ll do what we can to help her with James’s passing, and any legal transfers with the company, but keep your distance, and keep your knot in your pants. I mean it.”

He leaned back in a huff, his legs fidgeting uncontrollably. Cam was the physical manifestation of how agitated my mental state was. That morning, getting to sit across from her in the diner, feed her, take care of her – it had all scratched an itch I’d ignored for far too long.

I’d really gotten ahead of myself on the drive to my office with plans to convert one of the spare bedrooms in my house to a nest. I had already been adding Earl Grey tea and fuzzy throw blankets to my shopping list when I pulled into the parking lot.

But Cam’s idea of seduction involved shoving her hand on his cock, and he had scared her away.

I should have been ripping his head off, but I sadly related too much to the pain coursing through him. So instead, I headed towards the drink cart, blowing the dust off a bottle of whiskey – it had been months since I’d last been up here – and poured us a couple of glasses.

“I think we need this,” I said, handing one to him.

“Too fucking right,” he replied, downing the whole thing in one gulp.

We sat in silence, the clock on the fireplace mantel ticking away the empty seconds. She was right here. I could have had her with just a little more time.

“We need to let the pack know,” Cam said.

I let out a pained chuckle. “What’s the point? ‘Hey guys, we found what might be the last omega ever and she’s perfect, but she doesn’t know what shifters are and Cam sexually harassed her so badly she skipped town.’”

He scrunched his face. “I didn’t sexually harass her. What are you talking about?”

How could he be so dumb sometimes? “Maybe here you can walk up to a female, shove your knot in her face, and call it witty banter. But in the human world, the one she knows? You’d get arrested for that.”

“Well, the human world sucks.” His brows narrowed in disdain. “Up here, I’m practically Mr. Fucking Darcy.”

I choked on my whiskey and started laughing. “How do you even know who Mr. Darcy is?”

He stared out the window. “My ex loved that movie.”

That made much more sense than the first image I had conjured of Cam sitting down to read a book.

“But anyway,” he continued. “My point still stands. She hasn’t met the rest of us, right? What if we can get one of them to, you know, woo her, and help ease her into reality? Then she won’t be so pissed at us anymore.”

I paused. The idea had merit, I had to give it to him.

“Fine, but we only send one. She’s going to be skittish and on edge, and two large alphas are going to set off her alarm bells.”

Camden paused, then looked up. “Professor?”

I nodded, finishing the rest of my drink. “Professor.”