Page 36 of In the Mouth of the Wolf (Of Wolves and Kings #1)

36

MARLOWE

J ust as Cam and I finished showering, Nolan yelled that dinner was ready. The delicious aroma of cheese and a rich Bolognese sauce had already reached my nest, and my mouth was watering as I raced down the stairs.

I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw Nolan’s face – his eyes were black, and his lip was cut.

“Cam!” I cried, turning around in anger. “What did you do?”

He looked indignant, holding up his hands. “Hey, I didn’t do it! I’m perfect, remember?”

“It was me.”

I whipped around at the sound of Archer’s voice, finding him not looking quite as contrite as I would have liked while he set plates around the kitchen island. Elias had his back towards me, opening the wine, and Nolan was finishing mixing the salad.

Like nothing had happened.

“Seriously? And you all are fine with this?” I asked.

Cam put his hand on my shoulder and sighed. “We’re alphas, babe. We try to use words, we really do, but at the end of the day, we’re still not human. Our tempers run hot, and we sometimes resort to fists to settle differences between us.”

I shoved him off, losing my appetite. “Yeah, and does that include betas? Females? Omegas? If I piss you off, are you going to punch me, too?”

“Never,” Nolan replied emphatically, coming to my side. “Marlowe, we would never hurt you. I would never hurt you.”

It was easy to say that now when our emotions had cooled, but outside the liquor store, I had seen a look in Nolan’s eyes that shook me to my core. Even if he did think he was incapable of ever laying a hand on me physical, emotionally I was still suffering from his actions. “But you did. That’s what I was trying to tell you. Do you want to know what those women said?”

Their expectant eyes all fell on me.

“They called me a whore.”

Snarls erupted from the pack. “Enough!” I yelled. They quieted at my command, hands balled into fists at their sides.

Proving my point , I sadly realized. “Since omegas disappeared, shifters have adopted more human practices like monogamy, right?”

Archer nodded. “That is correct.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay, so put yourselves in a beta female’s shoes, then. The resurgence of omegas would be a threat to their dating pool, their relationships, even their safety. They called me a whore because I’m bonded to four alphas, one of whom dropped his beta girlfriend like a sack of potatoes after just a whiff of me.”

“Hey,” Cam retorted. “She wasn’t my girlfriend, we’d only been on a few dates.”

I gave him a pointed look. “What if she had been, though? Or what if you two had been married, and then you met me? Let’s say the rest of the pack was single and bonded to me. Would you be able to resist me? Would I be able to resist you? Could you handle just sitting out of my heat?”

I watched as my words hit them, as the realization sunk in. Cam rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, shit…”

“Yeah, exactly. I’m an unwitting Jolene in a town full of Dollys. So Nolan, when you stormed into that liquor store, guns blazing, all you did was justify their fears. That even the affable, friendly mayor could become so obsessed over an omega he’d threaten to kill two females just for being a little bitchy. I was upset because I could understand where they were coming from, and because I had foolishly thought that once I was bonded, I could live here and be treated like a normal person.”

“You can, and you will be,” Nolan responded. “It’ll take some getting used to, for all of us, the town included. But you’ll find your stride. You’ll make friends…”

“Friends?” I scoffed. “How can I have any friends if they’re worried their partners are going to fall in lust with me the moment I walk by them?”

The room fell silent. My chest heaved in anger, and then Cam looked up and shrugged. “Lesbians?”

Archer groaned and Elias and Nolan just shook their heads in disappointment.

His brows furrowed, and he huffed. “No, hear me out. Female omegas are only magnets to males, right? Lesbian alphas and betas aren’t going to be drawn to her the same way. They won’t be jealous. Nolan, have Megan take Marlowe to Shifting Sapphic next weekend.”

My mouth hung open in shock. I didn’t know whether Cam was an idiot, a genius, offensive, progressive, a combination thereof, or something else entirely.

“Megan isn’t gay,” Nolan said flatly, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Cam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know, but Marlowe shouldn’t go to a bar alone, and we’re not allowed inside. A female family member is safest, and Ivy’s off the table because she’s like, thirteen months pregnant or some shit.”

“There isn’t enough research on the effects of omega pheromones on homosexual shifters,” Archer replied. “You know as well as I do that exclusive same-sex relationships were deeply frowned upon in shifter culture until recently. For all we know, Marlowe could elicit the same reaction from a gay alpha female as she does from a straight alpha male.”

I picked up my plate and served myself a slice of lasagna and some salad, then grabbed a whole bottle of wine. “Alright, I’ll just go eat in my nest alone while the big, strong alphas discuss my future, then punch each other. Good night.”

They let me go without a fight.

At least they let me go the best they could. Every ten minutes or so, I could hear one of them pause at my door, listening to make sure I wasn’t too upset.

To be honest, I was too numb to feel much of anything. I needed time to process everything that had happened, but it felt like every time I started to feel better, some fresh new hell would reveal itself to me.

The heavy meal and wine combined with my seventh rewatch of The Office lulled me into a comfortable daze, and soon enough, I fell asleep. Alone.

M y wolf stirred.

I hadn’t felt her since the last time I had shifted, but now she was awake – restless and nervous. There was something driving me into setting her free that evening, and I couldn’t resist the call any longer. I shed my clothes and left my room.

The house was quiet and dark, my pack having retired for the night. I needed to be careful as I tiptoed down the hallway and stairs. My shifter senses had sharpened tremendously in the past week, so I knew how well we could hear even the tiniest creak from the floorboards.

I made my way to the back door, sliding it open and biting my tongue to keep from gasping as a blast of frigid air hit my nude body, covering my skin in goosebumps. It was snowing again, and I could feel the whine from my wolf, desperate to roll around in the soft, pillowy drifts that had accumulated in Cam’s backyard.

When I had shifted before, it had just happened. There had been no stopping or controlling it, so I wasn’t entirely sure if I was doing any of this right. I closed my eyes, imagining a gate in my mind. I slowly unlocked the latch and opened it, letting her through.