Page 1 of Never Tamed (Bad Wolves #3)

Ren

C atarina buries her claws in my side.

My scream clogs somewhere behind my tonsils despite the blinding flash of pain pulling it up and out. The tips of each talon bite into my internal organs and I pull up short, my throat constricting, muscles tense like they’ll harden to keep her out.

Too little, too late.

She saw an opening and she struck, faster than I’d bargained.

“What are you going to do now?” She hisses air through her teeth. “Thought you'd rush in to save the day, didn’t you?”

Her ice blue eyes are dead. Despite the chaos and the mess we’ve made of the church, the torn petals and shredded lace, not one hair on her perfect head is out of place.

I hate her. I’ll ruin her.

She shoves me back and pries her claws free in the same move. Blood geysers from the holes left behind. I shove my hand against the wound and Catarina takes another swipe at me, crimson dripping from her fingers. I duck back in time for her to catch nothing but open air.

Barely.

Every nasty thought I’ve had about the woman coalesces into a single film of red across my vision. I’ve never met her until today—if you can call trying to mutilate someone a meeting—but I’ve always wanted her dead.

“You damned yourself with your color scheme.” I flash her a blood-stained grin and increase the pressure on my side. “Really, Catarina? Mauve?”

She growls and lunges. I duck to avoid her, but the movement stretches the puncture holes, and I drop to my knees with a yelp.

None of this shit happened when I was just a waitress.

Back when werewolves certainly didn’t exist. And I wasn’t one of them.

There’s yelling in my head where the mate bond between Torin and me burns as bright as the tail of a comet. His roar, not mine.

His fear and anger and panic blot out everything else inside me because it’s compounded by the other two mate bonds connecting me to Mathis and Noble. For an agonizing heartbeat, their worry is the only thing I feel, disconnecting me from the pain in my body.

Ren, you have to hold on. I’m coming . Torin is outside the periphery of my hazy vision and fighting the crowd around us.

Mathis is a one-man storm and takes down anyone who manages to get close to him. His fists fly faster than bullets from a machine gun.

Grinding my teeth, I force the alphas out of my head. The connection remains. How does anyone get anything done with mates hounding them? They’re going to get me killed with their concern.

“I expected so much more out of you.” Catarina’s taunt helps draw me to my feet. “The way Andras spoke, you were going to be somewhat of a challenge.”

Bitches like her are a dime a dozen.

They never used to come into Rudy’s, we were too far beneath them, but the girls and I would see them when we’d go shopping. The untouchables. The ice queens.

I stumble up, my arms at my side for balance.

I’ll be doing the world a favor by putting Catarina down like a dog.

She smirks before launching herself at me again. The double slits in the skirt of her wedding gown give her maneuverability, a regular bridal assassin.

The image of Andras fucking her from behind fills my head a second before she strikes. The pain from the wound blurs with the rest of the aches in me, my body worn down. Nerves have eaten away too much of me.

I’m not fast enough to avoid her this time and she sends us both careening into the nearest pew. The wood cracks, shattering around us.

Catarina makes a whole lot of noise during her attack.

Her fist collides with my jaw and my wolf rears up inside of me. Eager, ready. Absolutely fucking pissed to be on our back.

Torin’s roar cuts off in my head, slicing through the cacophony of the church out loud.

The sound splinters Catarina’s focus for a split second, her gaze narrowing and her lips thin. Her attention flicks up to Torin.

My chin throbs and a wave of dizziness crashes over me from bloodloss but fuck her.

Hard.

And not in a good way.

I knee her right in the cunt. If you’re gonna fight, then you fight dirty. Pulling punches and playing fair only gets you killed. My parents would have been horrified if they heard me say it but they aren’t around anymore.

If I can’t fight dirty, then I won’t be, either.

The first cunt punt barely makes Catarina flinch. My chest tightens. I knee her again and this time she loses her balance. She flounders on top of me, and with abs screaming, I rear up and punch her in the chin.

She falls backward into the ruined debris of the pew.

Glaring at her, I clamber upright, hand pressing to my side. Blood loss is gonna be what gets me in the end. My head’s already spinning.

Ren , focus !

Torin the control freak, always acting like his word is the damn law. The newness of the bond makes him the loudest, the closest.

I hear him everywhere. I feel him everywhere. It’s insane, the deepening in my head, the impossibility of untangling myself from him. I narrow my gaze on Catarina and block out my mates.

Mates. Plural.

All three of them are here.

Catarina windmills her arms and I’ve never been so pleased to see someone with a split lip. A flush mottles her pale skin as she swipes the back of her hand across the wound.

Before she has a chance to recover, I throw myself at her, using momentum to get my hands wrapped around her neck. I’ll strangle the smirk right off her face once and for all.

Fuck logic.

There’s only survival.

I graze her overheated skin before Catarina blocks me, her hands still half-shifted into claws. Her eyes flash gold and those claws dig grooves into my skin.

Her stupid, pointy chin bothers me.

The fact that she played Torin for a fool, forced him into this sham of an alliance and marriage enrages me.

She tried to hurt what belongs to me. I’ll never forgive her.

Pushing through the pain, I punch her in the throat this time.

I want her to bleed. I want her to beg me to go easy and show her mercy. But none of those things happen.

It’s the last hit I get on her.

Catarina might be a bitch—she’s a lawyer, after all—but she’s way more practiced with this weird half-wolf form than I am. She’s not reeling from the emotions of a new bond, trying to figure out where Torin fits into life and making room for him inside my head.

My fear for him, and his emotions, make it even harder to keep my boundaries high.

Catarina grinds her knuckles into the puncture holes in my side hard enough for entire galaxies to burst to life in front of my eyes.

With a yell, I kick out. Catarina jumps away at the last minute and my foot slices through open air.

“Poor little girl playing with the big boys.” Catarina smirks and tucks a stray lock of icy blonde hair behind her ear. “What’s the matter? You can’t hold your own?”

My eyes tear up. Sniffing, I try to track her through the blur, keeping her in front of me at all times. I swing for her and connect with her shoulder.

She barely looks winded. I’m struggling.

We move at the same time and clash together like two trucks on a highway.

Her hit knocks the breath out of my lungs.

I recover faster than I would have as a human and grab for her hair, the perfect updo she’d worn for the wedding, tugging until she screeches.

Hair pulling might be highschool, but it still brings a tear to her eyes.

When I shove her away, I’ve got a few strands between my fingers as a souvenir.

I fall on her, legs settling on either side of her hips, and slam my head into her face until her scream cuts off.

Blood erupts from her nose as the bone breaks. I can’t get a grip on her arms. She bucks, tossing me off, and reverses our positions.

“Stupid bitch.”

Catarina sneers in my face, blood and spittle leaking onto me.

“You know, I’ve been called worse.” I cut off with a grunt when her claws fasten around my neck, the same thing I’d imagined doing to her.

“You think a mate bond is going to stop me?” She leans in close and draws a deep breath. “I’ve smelled it on him from the second you walked into his life. I knew exactly when he broke and decided to fuck you. It doesn't matter.”

“I know who you’re fucking, too.” I grimace, struggling to breath. Stars wink at the edges of my vision. “Does that make us even?”

A yelp sounds from our right, but Catarina doesn’t break her attention away from me. Not until something huge and solid knocks into us. Catarina flies off me and rolls across the floor.

Mathis straightens beside me. Holding out a hand, he helps me stand.

You okay, sweetheart ?

His concern trickles through my head and I nod, hauling air into my lungs and hoarding it like a camel with water in the desert.

The tendons in my neck are halfway crushed, and I rub my hand over them; the skin is already bruised. Catarina struggles to right herself.

Without waiting for her to recover, I throw myself on her, yelling. My muscles scream to shift, to show her exactly who she’s messing with, but I’m not in complete control of my wolf yet. And as much as I want to win, I’m not sure I can take her if she transforms.

Catarina has much more experience with her wolf. Not to mention whatever filthy tricks she’s learned as Andras’s whore.

We collide together and she keeps her feet, absorbing my hit.

Eyes wide enough to burn, I reach for the power inside me, the one I’ve always used to make it through my days.

Waitressing isn’t for the weak or faint of heart.

It takes grit and stubborn stupidity to deal with the public and make it through a twelve hour shift on your feet with only fifteen minutes stolen for food.

You want to yell at every idiot who asks for more beer or an extra side of ranch when they haven’t used the one they’ve got.

And I’ve survived more years in public service than Catarina.

She might be a werewolf but she’s polished. Her hardest days are in a swanky office with carpet and designer heels she gets to kick off the second she’s behind a desk.

I’m not from the streets but close enough. Street adjacent.

And it’s time for me to kill her and be done.

The power I’ve called tingles through my fingers and curls them into claws. The tips of each talon sharpen, lengthen, growing as black as pitch before I swipe them toward her eyes.

Her makeup isn’t even smeared. She bends like she’s doing the limbo and comes up swinging.

Panic flashes through me. Shit, shit .

She’s gotten her second wind. I hold out against her as long as I’m able, but with the punctures in my side, I’m losing steam. Mental strength is all well and good but if your body fails you—

My wolf rises and bends my back, strengthening muscle and bone.

This bitch won’t back down no matter how I hold my ground. To show her I'm not afraid, to show her I’m here to stay, I grin. If she suspects I’m fibbing—

We circle each other again, lost in our own world while her pack snaps their teeth around us. The howling intensifies and the noise digs under my skin to set my nerves on fire.

My mouth opens for a taunt just as another wolf slams into my back like a wall of stone. I don’t have time to figure out my next move. I stumble forward and Catarina lunges for me with a snarl.

Between her and the other, I had no room to pivot. Catarina smashes into me, her teeth bared. Taking us down.

Swallowing my scream, I roll sideways to avoid her hands on my throat again. The wolf behind grabs me by the hair.

“You’re not getting away this time.” He drags his nose against the side of my face. “Pretty little thing, isn’t she?”

Mathis’s fury erupts inside of me in a roar. Noble is silent, distant, too far for me to touch, and the screeching pain in my side blots out the rest of the room for a second. The world goes black, then white.

And Torin—

Torin is the inferno I don’t expect. His anger, the anger of alphas, twines together into this terrible volcanic pressure inside of me. The wolf holding me yelps, dropping my hair, and I surge up to grab him by the wrist.

Then snap them.

His bones crack in my hands like two pieces of stale bread and he screeches. Then things go sideways, like they weren’t already.

Catarina barrels up behind me and rakes her nails down my spine, shredding toward the holes in my side. Both fabric and skin split as she tears. The agony blinds me, and I go down on my knees, bone cracking against the stone floor.

The ache tastes like grit on my tongue. It tastes like black winter nights and other hopeless things you don’t come back from.

Catarina whispers something against my ear, pressing her cheek to mine, our faces level for a heartbeat. Then my own stutters.

I feel the second it skips and all the subsequent skips when my heart trips over itself. My lungs clench and seize and the tiny molecules of air I gulp can’t make it inside me.

Then she’s gone, and I fall on my stomach, straining to breathe while the church goes black.