Page 23 of The Enforcer’s Rejected Mate (Red River Rejected Mates #1)

Chapter

Fifteen

T he other wolf is massive. Much bigger than me, which my wolf doesn’t like.

She snorts and snaps at him when he circles her.

He’s looking for an easy way to attack. He’s as beautiful as he is scary.

Thick black fur that even in the pouring rain I can tell is shiny and soft.

His fur is so dark that any light around him seems to vanish wherever he moves.

His eyes are dark too, gray and mean, the color of a mountain face in winter.

He bares his fangs when we dart forward to snap at him.

Rip. Maim. Kill.

I shake my head and will her to knock it off with the killing.

At least I do until the other wolf lunges.

He doesn’t pull back like we did, he keeps coming.

His legs eat up the space between us until we have to run.

Controlling my wolf is what I’d imagine driving on an icy road to be.

She resists, tries to wheel around to face the other wolf but I’m not stupid.

I can’t win this fight against this kind of wolf.

He’s too big , I scream at her but she snarls in response.

It’s only when I feel the white hot pain in my back leg that I realize what happened.

He bit us.

The other wolf’s deep breaths sound so close that I know he’s only a step behind us.

He’s going to bite us again if we don’t get away.

Pain shoots up our leg and finally our wolf stops resisting and moves with us.

We pick up enough speed to put a respectable amount of space between us.

Only then do we turn when we’re almost at the middle of the meadow.

Blood drips down our leg and onto the wildflowers while we stare down the other wolf.

Our staring match lasts for a half second, just long enough for me to spot the path behind the other wolf.

I couldn’t see it before where I was standing.

I was too far away then but now I can see the clearly marked path heading off into the woods.

That has to be the way to Bloodstone. I know I’m right because the second the other wolf sees me spot the path he charges us again with a bark. His meaning is clear.

Stay away.

We bark back. Fuck that.

My wolf flies. She’s fast, so we might have a chance to make it up the path before he can stop us.

Maybe we can lose him in the trees if we do but it only takes a few yards into our sprint for the path for me to realize that while my wolf is fast, we’re not that fast. The other wolf is on us before we can dodge but this time when we collide we’re facing him and ready.

We bite and slash with our claws but instead of a wolf, it’s a man that has his arms around us.

The man looks down at us, long dark hair falling over his forehead and the darkest eyes I’ve ever seen in my life narrow on me.

The man is easily a head taller than me, the top of my head barely comes up to his shoulders.

His very broad and muscular shoulders that I try not to get distracted by because he just attacked me.

In the fading light I see tattoos covering his arms and chest but I can’t make any of them out.

Without thinking, I crane my neck to get a better look at the one on his shoulder and see it’s a broken clock.

Is he an Alpha? The wind shifts and his scent comes to me.

My mouth waters the second I catch it. The smells of rainwater, fresh pine and cedar fills my nose.

He smells clean and fresh, crisper than the cold rainwater running down my lips and onto my tongue.

I taste the rainwater and sigh. It’s refreshing and cool.

Would he taste the same way?

My wolf wants to find out. I know it when she melts against him, head lolling to the side, neck bared. You traitor, I scream at her but she ignores me for the muscular naked man with thick thighs and tattoos.

“Shift!” he commands.

I scream more from shock than I do anything else because my wolf listens.

One moment she’s there, trying to lick him and the next she’s gone, giving her skin up to me.

I fall against him with a yelp and try to pull back from him but it’s no use.

His hold on me is too tight for me to even get an inch between us.

“Let me go!” I kick at him but I’ve never been much of a fighter.

That’s my wolf and with her completely showing this stranger her belly, we’re not doing much damage.

He spins me to face him, his broad chest presses against me, the ridges of his abs hit my palms and that’s when I fully realize that I’m skin-to-skin with a naked man.

Not a man, a shifter, my brain corrects, as if that’s any better.

He pulls me closer, leaning into my space and I almost moan when his scent wraps itself all around me. My wolf wasn’t wrong, it’s nice. I breathe in. Luna . It’s downright intoxicating.

“Who are you?” he rasps, the deep bass of his voice vibrating against my chest and right down into my bones.

I’ve never noticed anyone but Keiran, not like this.

Heat unfurls in me, moves through me like a flooded river until all I want to do is feel every inch of the stranger’s big body.

I’m tall enough but he’s still a head taller than me.

I swallow hard and stare ahead at the tattooed flesh of his chest. He’s beautiful in a brutal way.

I used to think that about Keiran but this is different.

Keiran’s brutality was rooted in cruelty but this shifter? It’s strength. I can feel it.

I don’t answer him. I press a hand to his chest, palm flush to his pec where the dark lines of his tattoos swirl out from under my fingers, like my touch is the source of them.

I like the idea of marking him. I scrape my nails against his chest before I dig my nails into him.

My wolf loses it. She howls with delight.

I know if he hadn’t ordered her to shift she would take my skin back in an instant to mark him herself.

I don’t hate the idea, even if I know it’s insane.

I don’t know this wolf and he’s attacked me. In what universe do I want to mark him?

“I-I’m sorry,” I stammer. I move to pull my hand away but he’s there, hand over mine and keeping me where I am.

His hands are just like the rest of the naked shifter pushed up against me.

Warm and strong. “I didn’t mean-” I start, ready to tell him that I’m temporarily losing my senses, that I’ve gone moontouched, as a viable excuse for my behavior but I never get the words out because I’m not the only one suffering from a bout of moontouched behavior.

The stranger kisses me.

But it isn’t just that he kisses me. It’s how.

The stranger kisses me like he knows me.

He kisses me like I belong to him. I’ve never been kissed like this.

Not even by Keiran. The world opens up around us and narrows down all at once and I surrender right to it and him.

I wrap my arms around his shoulders and bury a hand in his hair.

I tug on the strands as we kiss. He wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me up to better meet his kiss.

My feet leave the ground when he does, which just adds to the overwhelming feeling that I’m floating just because he’s holding me like this.

Our bodies move together in the rainwater.

The storm should be cold, would be cold for humans, but we’re not human.

Shifters run hot and I’ve never been hotter than I am right now in this shifter’s arms. He teases me, claiming my mouth when I moan in pleasure.

His teeth are sharp on my bottom lip but I nip him first before he can bite me.

He approves from the pleased rumble I feel in his chest. He moves, I don’t know where he’s moving but I’m dimly aware that he’s moving at a jog.

He shifts me in his arms and I wrap my legs around his waist as the rise and fall of his steps force my body up against his.

My aching core presses against him and the hard muscles of his abs are a surprise in the very best of ways.

Every step gives me a taste of friction that my body so desperately wants.

I’ve never been touched by anyone but Keiran.

I loved Keiran but it was never like this with him.

I whimper and arch my back, forcing more of a punch when my body rocks against his.

His steps slow and I want to scream in frustration but that’s until he grips my waist and lowers me.

The warm, blunt, head of his cock hits my ass.

I gasp when he pulls me lower still and he slides between my thighs. He thrusts up and I see stars.

I break our kiss to cry out. “Yes,” I gasp and curl forward into his arms. I don’t have to move this time to feel more of him.

He brings me down with a grunt as the head of his cock thrusts up against my aching clit.

Overhead, lightning flashes so bright the world goes white.

Pleasure builds in my body almost as fast as the heat in my blood.

I can barely breathe from the weight of how right it feels to be like this with a shifter I don’t know.

“Omega” he growls in my ear. “My Omega.”

My Omega.

Those are two words I’ve dreamed of hearing but never thought I would. Not after Kieran. But here they are whispered in my ear as I cling to the Alpha that said them.

“Alpha,” I keen. I have no sense right now.

Water sluices down our bodies. The cold of the storm is made warm from where we touch.

Water drips down the stranger’s chest and onto my thighs and legs.

Soon it won’t just be water but my slick that marks the pair of us.

I dig my nails into his shoulder, already knowing that I’ll beg him next to have me.

“Alpha, please,” I moan. The rumble of thunder makes the ground shake beneath us.

He leans back to look at me and for a moment I think he’s going to tell me his name but he never gets the chance to because two unthinkable and improbable things happen at once—lightning strikes us and we’re shot through the heart by hunters.