Page 32 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

Jared barked and I lifted my snout, narrowing my canine eyes on the exposed wound in Allie’s shoulder. The unmistakable mark of a wolf’s bite punctured her flesh there.

The enormity of what it meant settled in my veins like lead.

She’s your mate…

Grams’ words echoed in my skull.

No.

No.

But as much as I ached to get the fuck out of there, I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off her. My gaze remained fixed as though I was watching a train wreck about to happen with no possible way of stopping it. The tires screeching, the horn blaring. Barreling down the tracks to a break in the rails.

I was transfixed.

It was going to happen. Any second now. And she had no idea.

Being a born wolf, I couldn’t even remember my first shift. I wasn’t plagued with the memory of the most horrifying—most painful—thing I’d ever had to endure. But I’d seen the agony of the first shift once before, and it wasn’t something I would wish on any living being.

Charity, Harrison, and Forrest entered the clearing then, breathless, with their hair matted down in sweat.

Charity and Forrest surveyed the scene, their glowing eyes finally taking a rest on a shocked Allie while Harrison moved to take over for Ryland, their hushed internal conversation prickling at the back of my mind. But I wasn’t paying any attention to them.

Ryland stepped up beside me and as Devin yipped under the pressure of Harrison’s jaws, I turned just long enough to loose a warning growl from my throat.

He’s mine, I spoke into Harrison’s mind before moving to follow Ryland’s slow steps closer to Allie with stiff legs and icy dread pouring down the back of my neck. We moved into a line next to Jared, only a few steps separating us from Allie now.

The smell of her stale fear was so pungent I almost choked on it.

I ignored the urge to go to her. She didn’t want me right now. Judging by the look in her watery eyes, I didn’t think she even wanted Jared anymore. She wanted to get out of here. Away from us.

The realization only made it even more difficult to watch.

Jared whined low in his throat and Allie came back to herself, chest rising and falling heavily as she took the three of us in.

“Th-Thanks,” she stammered, eyes flitting to Devin with a flash of something I couldn’t name.

An emotion someplace halfway between fear and malice.

“I need—” she sputtered, and I willed my expression to remain placid, taming my inner wolf into rigid obedience.

She was afraid enough. She didn’t need to witness my fear, too. It would only make it worse.

The contagion took Allie swiftly. She curled in on herself, folding as though made of paper. A strangled cry slipped past her lips as her fingernails desperately clutched her stomach.

Jared whined again and I saw him attempt to move forward, but he was stopped by Ryland’s short growl and left whimpering quietly to himself.

I shut out his thoughts. Not wanting his panic to take hold within me.

This is our fault.

I shouldn’t have allowed her to stay. If I’d forced her out, this wouldn’t be happening. It was my punishment now to watch her body writhe against the cold earth. To listen to her screams of torment. Just as it was Jared’s.

Her tiny body heaved and shuddered. “P-Please,” she begged in a broken voice that threatened to shatter what little resolve I still possessed.

Knowing Devin was only yards behind us, still breathing, wasn’t helping.

A second later, she gasped and her back arched high and fast—flipping her over body onto. The convulsion was so strong her face crumpled and her hands contorted.

The snapping of the first bone harrowed the beginning of her shift and dragged a long and blood-curdling scream from her lungs.

She shook as the rest of her bones broke and reformed.

The cacophony of snapping and popping sounds would have both Jared and Ry closing their eyes.

But I wouldn’t shut mine. No matter how terrible the scene before me.

Her screams changed as the shift claimed her voice box and shortly after, her mouth.

The shift was over in a matter of seconds but might as well have been hours of torture for the black, throbbing ache in my chest where my heart used to be.

Allie was up and on all fours, whimpering and mewling. She looked down at herself—at her new form—and began to back away, not only from us, but as though she could back away from herself.

Her backside bumped against a tree behind her and she yipped, tripping over her own paws as she prattled away.

Her tails whipped back and forth behind her and I blinked hard, taking a tentative step forward.

But I wasn’t imagining it. She had two. They were tipped in white as though dipped in bleach.

The rest of her was midnight black save for white socks to match her white-tipped tails, and a band of silver like a crescent moon over the back of her shoulders.

She was magnificent.

But…

Two tails?

Disjointedly, I could hear the murmur of her thoughts. They were unclear, as though spoken through a mouthful of cotton. They would only become clear once she was pack—if she became pack, I corrected myself.

But even as muffled as the words were, I could make out the string of profanities marching through her thoughts and something at the center of my being tugged.

Fuck.

When her fleeting gaze finally found Devin, I watched her glowing silver eyes narrow and her wolf snarled viscously, lunging for his throat with a strong thrust of lean hind legs.

I lunged to protect her flank, but Charity was faster, checking Allie’s body out of midair to send her sprawling to ground in a heap of long limbs.

I snarled at Charity, but she only barked at me, a warning to get ahold of myself.

I snorted and stomped in her direction, warning her right back.

Don’t touch her.

Allie didn’t look like she was finished, and if it were up to me, I’d have let her have the kill. But Ryland wouldn’t allow it.

Jared, ears low and tail stiff, moved to follow me, and together we approached Allie. That tugging sensation in my chest was growing stronger, infuriatingly difficult to suppress. It pulled me to her against my will, and small sounds of straining effort chuffed out past my jaws.

She spun at our advance, quick breaths clouding in front of her snout.

Her eyes fell on Jared and the static in the atmosphere was enough to make each and every one of my hairs stand on end.

My spine tingled as my hackles went off like falling dominoes down every vertebra. My ears pressed flat against my skull.

This isn’t right.

Allie stilled and her lithe body tightened as the roar of the mate bond fused to her soul. She tipped her head back and a long, haunting howl ripped out of her core. Jared’s answering howl coalesced with hers, creating a harmony that made the very air tremble.

The bond took hold, and their twin howls dimmed until the absence of sound became almost unbearable. Jared pushed his head against hers, claiming his mate. My gut twisted.

The strength of the conviction in his voice as it echoed through my mind made my stomach turn. Mate, he spoke to us all. Rejoicing in the newly formed bond.

This was a good thing. I didn’t want a mate, I told myself. Never had. Never would.

But the tugging at my center wouldn’t fucking quit. If anything, it was getting stronger.

Regardless of what I did or didn’t want—or of what I’d just witnessed with my own eyes, I knew it deep in the abyss of my soul; Allie couldn’t be his.

I could feel it as surely as I could feel my own goddamned heartbeat.

Allie was mine.

Mate, my wolf bellowed, and Jared broke contact with Allie. Her head lifted and finally, her eyes met mine.

Jared, confused, backed away as I approached. And Allie, poor Allie, fought with everything she had to stop the fusing of the bond. But I wasn’t fighting it anymore. It wasn’t something you could fight. It was useless to try.

She bared her teeth with the effort, but I could hear her inner wolf responding to my call, untethered by Allie’s own wishes. Mate, her wolf replied before a heaviness crushed my chest, forcing out my howl to meet hers. Louder and stronger than anything I’d ever heard.

A primal calling that neither of us may ever be strong enough to resist.

But I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to give it my best try.