Page 7 of Never Tamed (Bad Wolves #3)

Ren

T he rough swim up to consciousness leaves me with the worst taste in my mouth, like I’ve spent a few hours licking the underside of a rock.

My tongue works over my fuzzy-feeling teeth, and I slowly blink open my eyes.

Mistake .

Huge mistake, because the second the light touches my eyes, the pain worsens. It splinters through my head and trails like a drawn magnet to the place in my side where claws tore through me.

I squeeze my eyes shut again. Oh, god. Or goddess. I’m alive. I shouldn’t be.

The dull ache in my side thrums like the beat of a drum and my head might as well be filled with the rest of the marching band. It clangs against bone, loud enough to blot out the comforting reassurance of my mate bonds.

But not entirely. I draw in another breath to the bottom of my lungs and feel them start to separate from the pain, first Torin, then Mathis, and Noble. All three of them are there, lending me strength and comfort.

I might be sore, one step up from a corpse, but I’m also pissed off. The second my brain flicks on and the memories click back into place, a familiar fire lights in my gut.

Fucking Catarina.

Fuck her and the rest of those double-crossing sons of bitches who thought they were going to take us down. I force my eyes open out of spite this time and ignore the pain, pushing off the unyielding floor of the storage container.

Awareness flickers inside my head as a strong arm bands across my shoulder and tugs me close. You okay ?

Noble’s voice is there, all full of concern and love and things I don’t want but need right now.

“No,” I say out loud. “I’m not okay.”

My voice is a growl, and I cough to clear my throat.

Where’s Torin ?

His mate bond is the strongest, the newest, the one pressing close and demanding I make space.

They have all taken up their respective places inside my head and my heart and I know instinctively that Torin isn’t around.

The shipping container is cold, the metal unyielding, and reeks of stale oil and rust.

Noble scoots me closer yet and rests his opposite hand on my knee, gently, reverently. “It was touch and go for a night. You shouldn't get up yet.”

Clearing my throat a second time does nothing. Only reminds me of the foul taste. “I’ll be fine. I should walk.”

The gravelly words grind together.

It’s likely that I used it to scream in that bitch’s face and now I’m paying for all those curses. I regret none of them.

If curses were claws then she’d be the one recovering from a near gut job. As it is, I can’t remember if I got any good hits or not. I sure hope so.

I hope she’s having a tough morning and regrets every single second of her past. But it’s wishful thinking.

I tilt my chin up and my gaze latches onto Noble until his face solidifies and the blur retreats to the edges of my vision.

Noble places a hand over mine and leans into the touch, closing his eyes. “I’m fine, baby.”

There’s a bruise on his brow that’s purple, but outside of a few scabbed over places, he looks normal. Tired, but normal.

And Mathis? I ask.

He…needed to take a walk. To get himself together . He’s having a hard time keeping it together , Noble answers.

If I tune into the bond between me and the Grey Valley alpha, I’m greeted with nothing but nerves, which isn’t like Mathis.

Ever since I met him at Rudy’s, he’s been the pillar we all lean on, stable no matter the circumstances.

I pull back sharply from the sensation although there’s no escaping it. Our mate bond is locked in place.

My free hand clenches.

I remember the amazing feeling of plowing my knuckles into Catarina’s face and catching the glimmer of surprise in her eyes before her head rocketed back.

If only I’d killed her when I had the chance.

Then half of our issues would be solved instead of left out in the open like stray tendrils of rope needing to be woven together.

I catch a flash of shadow pacing back and forth in the gray watery pre-dawn light. Through the half open doors I see Dax scoping outside, watchdog style and humming that weird song under his breath.

“He hasn’t stopped since we got here. The car crash must have jarred loose the last shred of his sanity.” Noble says it like a joke, but I sense his worry.

Dax going stir crazy isn’t going to help us figure out our next moves.

Pliant, I let Noble gather me onto his lap and snuggle closer, breathing him in. The nearness helps. I hadn’t realized I needed the contact until my muscles relax and I sag further into him.

Wolves need this kind of closeness. That’s what Mathis has always said. Once you give into the wolf, the comfort of the pack is almost a necessity, especially in tough times.

If this doesn't count as a tough time—

I thought surviving my twenty-fifth birthday would be the hardest thing I had to do.

The universe really has a sick sense of humor. Or maybe it’s the Moon Goddess who is kicking my ass so thoroughly. Surprise after surprise after surprise.

It’s got to end.

I need my life back. And I need Andras and his bitch Catarina dead.

Dax scoffs, pausing at the entrance to the storage container almost like he heard my thoughts. “I hate the concrete,” he says with a grimace. “This place smells like gasoline and piss. It’s all wrong. Wolves aren’t meant to live this way.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Noble replies.

Dax sneers and adds, “Not fucking likely, Nobie. You might be trained to accept this unnatural bullshit but I won’t be.”

Mathis rounds the corner and stops when he sees me awake. The night outside should have hidden most of his expression from me but the sharp wolf eyesight lets me see every crag, every line, every exhausted crease around his eyes.

“I contacted the pack.” He slides his hands into his pockets. “So far, everything is fine there. The others are taking care of things.”

“You have your cell.” I force a smile, shaking my head.

Mathis is too keyed up to relax. A small part of him does when he sees me but it isn’t enough to erase the strain from his shoulders. And there, at the edges of my mind, a deepening consciousness.

Torin tuning into us. Listening to us no matter how far he goes.

I sniff.

“Of course I have a phone. There are too few of us for me to stop worrying. But the deltas have it in check. It doesn’t look like Catarina or Andras know about the camp yet. And it doesn’t look like they’ve got a tracer on this burner.”

Mathis pauses, clears his throat, a muscle at his temple ticking.

“Don’t worry about a thing, sweetheart,” he tells me. “We’re going to take care of this.”

I shake my head and immediately regret it. “Not alone.”

We will have to work together. Even Torin, who conveniently decided to flake out on us, like he couldn’t stand to be trapped in the shipping container with me.

“Go on,” Noble urges with a gentle push. “You know you want to talk to him.”

“I’m too transparent,” I grumble.

“No, we’re just in this with you. The mate bond connects us and you’re not going to rest easily until you have this out,” Mathis clarifies.

Have it out? Is that what I’m about to do? My stomach clenches.

There’s no judgment in his tone. No matter what he might have felt for the Steel Claws or their leader in the past—

Things are changing. Twisting and warping into this new creation where no one knows exactly where they stand and I’m at the center of it.

I don’t want to be the one that keeps it all together.

I want to be the one who worries about what type of tequila to bring to girls’ night or if my tips are going to be able to cover my rent and the upgrades to my car.

Those days are long behind me.

Noble chuckles in my head as Mathis growls. You never have to work for change again , he tells me . Now go .

It’s not Rudy’s that I miss. It’s the safety in the known even if the known is pretty shitty.

I struggle to rise and pause halfway with my palm pressed flat on the container’s wall. Once I have my feet under me, I straighten.

Torin is out there. The darkness and the distance don’t matter anymore. I guess I always half suspected there was some kind of connection between us, since I couldn’t get him out of my head no matter how I tried, or how he treated me.

No matter how he forced me to my knees.

There’s always been something between us and I knew it the first time I saw him. Crawling to him, calling him Sir, it was another kind of game between us. His rules, sure, but that’s not always going to be the case. Maybe I knew that, too, somewhere in my head.

I follow the mate bond away from the shipping container, past the pacing Dax who pauses only long enough to grab me in a hasty kiss before shoving me away from him. He tastes like coppery blood and desperation.

For a split second, I’m torn. But Dax waves me away, the tough guy in motion, and I head out.

The gloom sharpens as my eyes adjust. The bay faces the sun and within the hour, it will cut through the shadows.

My wobbly legs bark in protest and the wound on my side tweaks.

I’ve gotten used to healing quickly. But I guess nearly being gutted is another level of healing. It requires more and my stomach growls in protest. I have to eat.

I have to find Torin.

A similar kind of desperation to Dax’s pulses inside of me.

I give a sharp tug on the bond to see if Torin reacts but there is nothing but solid resignation from his end. Following it takes me to the end of the dock.

He perches on the edge with his legs dangled over the side. In stolen clothes, he’s just another attractive dude. I pull up short.

No. He’ll never be like everyone else.

I’ve gotten used to seeing him in his habitual suit and ties with every hair in place. He’s tidy. Controlled to a fault. His hair, normally pulled back in a tie at the nape of his neck, is now loose and wavy around his face, falling over his shoulders.

He doesn’t move at my approach but his shoulders tense and his breath catches.

“Sweatpants?” I ask. “Really?”