Page 47 of Ruthlessly Mated

Tailor and Damon move back into their human forms. Damon dresses swiftly, takes Kita by the arm, and leads her back into the bedroom, with her protesting all the while.

“I don’t need to shift to prove I can shift. I’m a wolf, and you all know it!”

“She doesn’t know how to take it. Her wolf form.”

“I know,” Tailor says.

“How did we miss that?”

“We’ve only known her for a few days. And a wolf her age can usually be assumed to be used to shifts. We’ve had a lot of distractions since we met.”

“She’s so feral in every other way,” I muse. “I really thought she’d be an impressive she-wolf. I assumed she’d be eager to take that animal self.”

“Yes,” he agrees with a little smirk.

“If she doesn’t know how to shift, then we have to teach her.”

“How do you teach someone that old?”

Usually, young wolves start spontaneously shifting around seven or so. Some precocious pups may even shift a little younger. Humans are a delayed species, having infantile characteristics that last for months at a time that only last days in animals. Seven or so is the age that animal and human start to come into alignment.

“If I had to guess, her parents died around then. If they hadn’t, they’d have noticed she wasn’t shifting.”

“Hm.”

“That’s why she didn’t want to run. She figured there’d be no way out for her. We can run at animal speed. We can blend in with wildlife. There are coyotes and desert dogs out here. But if she can’t shift…”

“Usually being mated brings on shifts. But we’ve bred her thoroughly.”

“Maybe we should keep trying,” I suggest.

He smirks. “She can just ride one of us. You’re big enough, Conroy. You could carry her.”

“Sure. It would slow me down and it would make her more vulnerable. We need to get her shifting.”

“What if she can’t?”

We know she’s a wolf. We can smell it on her. We can feel the bond. But she’s not entirely herself yet. She’s carrying aroundthe pain of the past instead of becoming what nature intended her to be.

CHAPTER 7

Kita

“I don’t know what those assholes are talking about, but it better not be that I can’t shift, because I can. I just don’t do it on command. It’s not a fucking party trick,” I vent to Damon, who wraps his arms around me and draws me down on the bed. It is so hard to stay mad at him. He makes it practically impossible. When he holds me close, I feel so completely protected. It is like all the threats of the world melt away, and I am as safe as I have ever been.

I close my eyes, and before I know it, I am falling asleep.

Roused before dawn, I am first gagged, and then tied up. I am not quite awake when the gag slides into my mouth. I murmur a complaint through Tailor’s tie, then my hands are firmly pulled back behind my back and my wrists are tied, along with my ankles.

I start to fight immediately, of course, because this is fucked up. What the fuck are they doing? What are they trying to…

Fuck, I know what it is. They’re going to take me out of the city. They’re going to run with me, and separate me from my cargo. I am about to lose everything I fought for, and it is not fucking fair.

“Shhh,” Conroy says as I start to squirm. “You don’t need to fight. Relax. We’re getting you out of here.”

My mates are kidnaping me. Fuckers. They couldn’t get me while I was awake, but now that I’m asleep they think they can just tie me up and do what they want to do.

I am carried out of the apartment and taken through back alleys and quiet streets to the smuggler’s exit that Damon must have found earlier. I spend the entire time trying to talk through the gag. Whoever tied that gag did a damn good job; I have to give them credit for that.