Page 43 of In the Mouth of the Wolf (Of Wolves and Kings #1)

43

CAMDEN

“F ucking hopeless,” I moaned, sinking back further into the couch. 42-13 to the Seahawks?

Elias was back from picking up the groceries and had come downstairs to watch the end of the game with me, but his mind was elsewhere.

“You good?” I asked, finishing my beer.

“Hm? Yeah, sorry. It’s just so strange, feeling my wolf inside me now.”

I bit back my jealousy. He’d bonded with Marlowe first and now he could fully shift? I knew Archer was being cagey about his testing, but even an idiot like me could see the connection between the two.

Elias was my pack mate and one of my best friends. I was happy for him, of course. I wasn’t a complete monster.

But it should have been me.

“I bet,” I replied. “By the way, I bought some security cameras for outside the house. This whole business with the other full shifter has me on edge, and I’m not feeling too good about someone lurking around and trying to lure Marlowe away.”

Elias growled. “Good idea. I’m starting to worry,” he began, picking at the label on his bottle. “Let’s say Marlowe’s parents were runaways from a shifter commune. What if those communes never lost their ability to fully shift or breed omegas? What if, now that Marlowe’s off the suppressants and is living here, they’ve discovered who and what she is, and want to take her back?”

I might not have had a realized wolf inside me like Elias, but my beastly instincts roared at the idea of anyone thinking they could take Marlowe away from us. Whatever she and Nolan were doing upstairs, I could feel the trickles of their happiness and the love building between them. She wasn’t just an omega; she was our heart, the center of our universe. And if that motherfucker set one more paw on my property, I had two silver shells in the chamber of my shotgun with his name on ‘em.

“That’s never going to happen,” I responded coldly.

A jolt hit me, running through my veins like lightning. The hit wasn’t as powerful as before, but I knew it immediately.

“That ASSHOLE!” I got up to run upstairs and tear Nolan a new one but Elias leapt up quicker and blocked my path.

“I know I don’t have a leg to stand on here, but Marlowe doesn’t deserve you bursting into her nest and ruining her moment. Besides, we both know they’re knotted. Are you really going to beat him up when she’s attached to him?”

My chest heaved. “I gotta do something, I got too much anger in me right now.” Everything I’d been suppressing for the last few days because I knew how much Marlowe hated aggression was boiling over. Her stupid vamp ex, those gross old alphas who had tried to take her, Elias bonding her first, the way I had messed up with Rachel, the incident at the liquor store, that other shifter showing up in the middle of the night and trying to take her… And now, Nolan had just bonded her against my orders while I sat here alone, watching a shitty game of football.

Elias pushed me. “You need to fight? Let’s go, come at me.”

I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck as I lowered myself into a crouch. “You asked for it.”