Page 11 of Never Tamed (Bad Wolves #3)

Torin walks along the perimeter, collecting small sticks and fallen branches for a fire. Dax disappears in search of food while Mathis digs a large pit in the snow.

“Ren,” Noble beckons me over as he sinks to the ground and stretches out his legs. “Sit with me.”

Noble’s back rests against the frost-bitten tree. I slide down into the snow with a sigh. Being near him eases the chill.

“You okay?” I ask, nudging his arm gently with my shoulder.

He exhales a dry laugh, the breath visible in the cold. “Define okay. I’m annoyed. I’m worried. I see the way you push through.”

“Annoyed?”

“I hate feeling useless. My leg has healed but not enough.”

I chuckle. I can’t help it. “Try to think of this as the vacation you wanted.”

“Oh, sure.” He gestures to the white around us. “This is a far cry from sandy beaches and fruity drinks.” There’s a pause. And then he sighs. “We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?”

I blink up at him. “What do you mean?”

“Look at us—the four of us, within a few feet of each other and not at each other’s throats…”

“Torin in sweatpants,” I add.

I never would have guessed it in my wildest dreams.

“And getting his hands dirty.” Noble nods over to where his alpha listens to Mathis while trying to slide two stones together to create a spark on top of his collected wood pile.

“If you told me last year that we’d be out here, working with the Grey Valley Pack, I’d think you had escaped from the loony bin. ”

That’s how I feel on a daily basis.

“If you told me I would be mated to three werewolves and would turn into one myself, I would’ve probably slapped you,” I say.

He chuckles and jostles me. The mate bond flares with warmth. “This is because of you. You know that, right?”

“What is?” I play along. “The need for a straight jacket?”

“No. The peace between us, and our ability to get along.”

I memorize Noble from the side, this warrior with the soul of an artist. “Getting along is stretching it.”

“We’re not trying to kill each other, so I’d say it’s getting along.”

I shiver more out of familiarity than any real sense of cold. “It’s not me. It’s Andras, and the Blood Moons, coming for your packs. That’s what made you join forces.”

Heat crackles along my skin from his nearness and I lift my chin to meet Noble’s stare. “No, baby. It’s you. You’ve upheaved our lives in the best way.”

I rest my head against his shoulder for a beat, just long enough to feel the way his body eases with the contact. He smells so good, like home, and it eases me. It makes me feel steadier than I have in days.

To think I almost lost him.

My chest tightens.

When I pull back, he looks at me like he wants to say more, but doesn’t. Instead, he links our fingers, lifts our joined hands, and presses a kiss to my knuckles.

“I’m here, Ren,” he says as if he can read my mind—damn mate bond link. “I’m a little battered, but I’m here. We all are.”

We sit for a moment longer with our hands tangled. The quiet is thick and comforting between us. With a little help from Mathis, Torin finally gets the fire started. It’s puny, nothing but a whisper of flame. The rest of the sticks haven’t caught yet.

The grin on Torin’s face stretches wide. He’s so proud of himself and trying not to show me.

It’s kind of cute.

Okay, it’s really cute.

Mathis, however, refuses to sit still. He stalks over the bank and stares across the creek, unmoving and unflinching. His mind is somewhere else where I can’t reach him.

If I tug on our bond, I sense his bone-deep anger and shame, his guilt. He’s not angry at anyone else.

This kind of fury is different, heavier, and pointed inward. He’s furious at himself.

Leaning in, Noble whispers, “Do you think the women on the radio… the ones they found dead…”

I already know where he’s going.

“…you think they were Mathis’s people?” he finishes, barely above a whisper. “And the pregnant one…?”

I nod. “I hope with everything I am that it’s not.”

He lets out a breath, long and heavy. “Goddess.”

I look over at him. There’s an aching kind of grief in his expression.

“Mathis hasn’t said much,” Noble murmurs. “But he doesn’t need to. The way he looked when he heard the radio… I know that pain. I felt it when I lost my sister.”

“He was trying so hard not to break,” I say. “But Flora was very special to him. Like a sister.”

Noble frowns and my heart skips a beat. I kick out at the snow.

“He believes he failed her and it’s his fault. I feel him.”

“I know,” I say, throat tight. “I wish there was some way that I could comfort him, make him feel better.”

“You’re barely holding on, too,” Noble finishes for me.

Slowly, I nod. Tears began to sting the corners of my eyes and I blink them away.

“I can feel that, too. We’re in the middle of the fight of our lives. Both packs have lost so many—family, friends, packmates. The best thing we can do now is to take out Andras. That’s the only way we’re going to avenge those who’re gone and keep the others safe.”

He’s right. I know he is. We have to focus on what’s ahead. Andras always seems to be one step ahead of us, so we need to be one step in front of him. That’s the only way we’re going to survive.

The memory of when Flora instinctually jumped in front of me when we were attacked at Rudy’s springs forward in my mind. Even in the short amount of time I’ve known her, I found her incredibly warm and sweet but unwilling to take anyone’s shit.

If she were here now, she’d be bossing the guys around and telling me not to shed a tear. Kick Andras’s ass extra hard for her.

The thought makes me smile. I planned on doing it anyway. Now I’ll send his rectum into his throat just for her.

By the time we settle for the night, the cold has dug deep into my bones.

The pit Mathis carved out of frozen dirt is large enough for us to snuggle into and block out the wind.

The heat of so many wolves helps me stay warm.

Dax and Mathis shift into their wolf forms and their bodies, along with the fire, provide enough warmth for me and Noble.

Torin is the last to shift. With a final look toward his beta, he does, the massive blond wolf closest to my feet.

I curl into Mathis’s side, inhaling the woodsy scent of him. He just lets out a long, shaking breath and lays his muzzle on the top of my head. He’s so solid even as a wolf. I press my cheek against his chest and memorize the steady, heavy thud of his heartbeat, strong and grounding.

And I hope it’s enough to bring him some kind of comfort.

With the four men surrounding and the heat radiating off their bodies, I drift off into dreamland and somehow, my unconscious brain decides to put me right back in the middle of the forest.

Almost like it won’t release me. Like I don’t want to go.

Frost coats everything—leaves, branches, my skin. There’s no cold. I’m running, light on my feet, faster than I’ve ever moved, faster than when I shift.

The trees blur past me. The wind sings through my hair.

“Find me.”

The voice echoes from everywhere and nowhere. Soft, feminine, familiar.

“Find me…”

It repeats, again and again. Like a song. Like a heartbeat.

The ground inclines and I leap over fallen logs, breath burning in my lungs. I dodge through moonlit glades and my feet barely sink in the snow. Something glows ahead, white and distant, and I need to reach it. I don’t know why—I just know.

“Find me.”

The voice grows louder. Urgent. The glow… it’s calling to me.

Then I hit the earth harder than before. My body feels different, not like a dream anymore. Things are too real and too vivid for me to still be asleep. I’ve woken up.

And I hear everything from the scurry of mice to the urgent flap of owl wings overhead.

My paws glide over the cold ground, snow spraying behind me. Wait— paws ?

My breath comes out in heavy puffs, my lungs full of wild air. I don’t feel tired anymore. I feel alive . I glance down at white fur rippling up my forelegs streaked with silver and tipped with black claws.

My muscles coil, stretch, and move like they’ve always known this.

I’m not dreaming anymore.

I’m awake.

And I’m running through the forest… as a wolf. Surprise flickers for an instant, a question of what, and how, before something inside me tells me not to stop. I have to keep climbing the mountain, up and up, faster and harder.

My legs won’t stop. My body won’t slow down. I’m getting closer to the glowing, to the voice.

I recognize the path before I recognize why it matters. There’s familiarity in the thinning of the trees and the even thinner air. I know that broken stone marker half-buried in snow.

It’s the temple of the Moon Goddess.

The last time I was there, Andras and his people had come out of the ruins of the temple they’d destroyed to attack us, before I ever had a chance to besiege the goddess for more time.

Now the pull, magnetic and ancient and thrumming in my bones, calls me home like a drumbeat.

“Find me.”

The snow gathers in thick drifts here. Frost tickles my snout and I’m flying like gravity forgot to apply to me.

It’s unnatural.

It’s terrifying.

It’s exhilarating.

And, suddenly, there .

The ruins rise from the snow like bones—white stone, cracked columns, a crumbling arch that leans slightly like it’s bowing to the storm. The temple is smaller than I remember, but it feels bigger somehow. Alive. Waiting.

My heart refuses to slow and I skid to a stop right at the spot the Blood Moons ambushed us last time. Is this another trap? Something brought me here. I heave out a heavy breath.

Turning in a slow circle, I sniff the air, ears swiveling for any sound, for any sign I was followed.

There’s nothing, only the soft drip of melting ice from the columns.

How the fuck did I get here?

Better yet, why am I here?

What’s left of the Moon Goddess’s temple looms half-swallowed by snow and shadow. I shift back into my human form, but the transformation is rougher this time, like my body’s fighting it. My bones pop and realign.

I stumble forward, bracing myself against a stone until the last shockwaves of the change finish. The bitter cold hits me instantly, and when I look down, it’s clear why. My clothes are ripped up and split at the seams from the sudden shift.

Taking a ragged breath, I peer up. The stone I’m leaning against is what’s left of the Moon Goddess statue. The once-beautiful form stands cracked and barely together, with limbs and half her face missing. One broken hand still reaches out, palm up, like she’s asking for something—or offering it.

I stare at her.

I never saw this the first time, this ode to a deity long forgotten by mankind.

“What do you want from me?” I whisper, the words raw. She’d come to me in a dream before, but when I need her the most, she’s gone silent. “What am I supposed to do?”

The wind stirs.

“That’s it.” I lift a hand. “I’ve officially lost my mind. I’m talking to a rock. A stupid, broken rock—”

Then, behind me, a familiar voice slices through the silence. “You know, I never did like that statue.”