Page 51 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

Shit. Why hadn’t I checked my phone earlier when I felt it go off?

Reading the messages had made me lag behind Clay’s long strides. I rushed to catch up, curling my hand around his forearm. He jerked as though I’d shocked him and stared down at me, reading my face. “What is it?”

“It’s Jared,” I said, holding the phone out for him to see, my heart hammering heavily in my chest. “He said not to—”

“Welcome home,” the gruff voice interrupted and as one Clay and I glanced toward the cabin to find Ryland sitting on the top step of the porch. Forrest leaning against the post below. Ryland stood as he spoke. “We were just thinking about coming back another time. Glad we waited.”

My fingers curled tightly around my phone and I lowered it from Clay’s line of sight. I didn’t realize my fingertips were also digging into the flexed muscles of Clay’s arm until he removed my hand with his, giving it a tiny squeeze before dropping it. “Just go inside,” he said in a low voice.

“No need for any of that,” Ryland said, waving his hand as though to swat away a fly. He’d clearly heard Clay. “I’m just here to have a little chat. No reason to get all defensive.”

Ryland stepped down onto the dirt lawn, making the steps creak and groan under his weight. I’d forgotten how big he was. Broader through the shoulders than even Clay. Taller, too. With shifty brown eyes and that scar running down through his left brow, puckering the skin on his stubbled cheek.

Clay was positively rigid, and his energy was contagious, setting me on edge. This was Clay’s alpha. Jared’s alpha.

So then why did I get the feeling that Clay didn’t trust him. How could he have given his allegiance to a man—a beast—he didn’t trust? How could either of them expect me to?

I rationalized that Ryland was sort of like a boss. He had to keep a large group of people that turned into wolves in line. I imagined that was a difficult job and would require a heavy hand at times. Ryland was just the shifter equivalent of a stern CEO.

Lots of employees feared their superiors. Nothing to get your panties in a knot for, Allie.

“Why are you here?” Clay asked up front, stopping several feet away from his alpha. I didn’t miss the space he kept between them. I stayed with Clay, catching Forrest watching me from where he was still leaning against the post.

His square jaw twitched as he pushed off from the railing to stand with his beefy arms crossed over his chest.

Ryland met Clay’s stare. “I’ve no doubt you’ve heard about the problems your mate’s indecision have caused our pack.”

Clay paled.

Ryland cut his gaze to me and I balked, unable to meet his deep brown eyes. My wolf’s hackles raised. As I suspected, she was immediately on the defensive, making anger rise like steam in my core. I balled my hands into fists, digging my fingernails into my palms to keep myself steady.

I got the feeling shifting into a wolf right now would be a bad idea. Ryland was an alpha. From what I understood, you did not challenge an alpha. Not unless you wanted to die.

“There’s still almost two weeks until the next moon,” Clay growled.

Ryland never took his eyes off me. I didn’t have to lift my head to see him staring, I could feel it. “And that’s the problem.”

“Ry,” Clay began, his tone changing to one I didn’t recognize. His alpha’s name almost a plea.

I glanced up at Clay, surprised to find his expression pained. Tense.

I didn’t like it. Not one fucking bit. My wolf didn’t like it, either.

Ryland held up a hand to silence Clay. “I’m afraid we can’t wait any longer. One of the pack was injured this morning trying to chase off one of Samson’s pack from our lands. If Charity had been more gravely injured, I would’ve had no choice but to retaliate.”

Ryland’s gaze was back on me now, making my skin itch. “I know you don’t understand the implications of your indecision,” he said, and I gulped, finally gathering the courage to look him in the eyes.

When our gazes met, Ryland’s brows lowered and his eyes narrowed, as though he recognized something in the gray hue of my stare. Something he didn’t much like.

“Our race is a dying one,” he explained.

“The number of born wolves declines every year and it is forbidden to turn a human. The witch’s council looks the other way for the most part, but if they are feeling particularly nosey, the offense is punishable by death.

Effectively, if an Enduran bites and changes a human and it can be proven that it was not an accident, then that shifter will pay with their life.

So, you see why a shifter who has not claimed her pack would be something of a commodity. ”

“Packs made up of mostly born wolves are families. Brothers. Sisters. Cousins and the like. You can understand how important it is to inject new bloodlines into packs to prevent…” he trailed off, thinking of the right word. “Inbreeding.”

Ugh.

A low growl emanated from Clay’s chest and I saw his eyes spark to light.

“She’s mated,” he hissed at Ryland.

“Which is why I don’t understand why she hasn’t simply agreed to submit herself to my rule and become pack,” Ryland spat, getting impatient.

My wolf battered against my resolve. She wanted to show him who should be the one submitting.

“She needs more time,” Clay demanded.

“She needs to speak for herself,” Ryland seethed at Clay before turning his hard stare back at me. I had to physically resist the animal urge to growl at him. My upper lip twitched, wanting to curl back over my human teeth. My nostrils flared as I inhaled deeply.

“I don’t want to leave Forest Grove,” I managed, giving myself a mental pat on the back for not sounding as angry or as afraid as I did inside.

Ryland stepped in closer to me and Clay, stopping only when he was so close I had to lift my face to meet his stare as he curled his massive body over me. “Is that your answer then?”

My mind raced. I wasn’t ready to do this. Looking into Ryland’s eyes, I knew I didn’t want him to have that sort of power over me. I didn’t want anyone to have that sort of power over me. And it seemed my wolf heartily agreed.

“No,” I replied, my voice strangely steady. The tone thick with the animal quality of my wolf trying to get free.

Ryland’s expression shifted. His dark brown eyes flickered with rage. “You can’t have it both ways.”

“I’m taking her to meet the pack,” Clay said, shifting his stance so he was nearer to me, in reaching distance of Ryland. Forrest, who’d been still and silent until just now, moved in closer, putting himself on Ryland’s right flank.

When Ryland didn’t budge, refusing to back up off me, something in Clay’s expression snapped. He clapped a hand hard onto Ryland’s shoulder. “She isn’t going to make a decision right—”

Ryland turned on Clay, knocking his hand away.

His eyes glared vibrant orange and his jaw unhinged in a halfway shift.

“Back,” he growled at Clay and my mate bared his own teeth.

And even though I could see how hard he struggled.

Even though I could see the strain in his muscle as he fought against the command from his alpha, Clay fell back a step as though he’d been shoved by a physical force, bowing his head with a dark grimace.

My wolf roared.

Before I could stop it, my body splintered into a thousand pieces.

It fractured and bent and broke. But this time I didn’t feel the pain.

I hardly noticed it. The fury was white hot, and my wolf was stronger than I’d ever felt her.

She forced herself to the surface in one great push and when she made the decision to take the reins, I didn’t stop her.

I didn’t think I could’ve even if I’d tried.

No one would make Clay bow to them. Not in front of me.

Not while I could do something about it.

The other three humans in the yard shifted quickly. Their bodies exploding into their larger wolf counterparts. Clothes flew in the breeze and settled over the dirt like tattered flags.

I heard Clay’s voice in my mind, but it was distant, my wolf wasn’t listening. She was beyond hearing reason. She was fucking pissed.

Allie, Clay urged. I can’t help you. Back down. Back down!

His growl made my wolf turn to him and snap at his ankle, surprising him enough that he backed up a step. The sounds coming out of my mouth were viscous. They scared even me.

Clay tried to put himself between Ryland and I, but Ryland gave him one look and pulled his canine lips back over his teeth, growling as drips of hot saliva fell from his exposed tongue.

Clay’s upper body bent under the pressure of his alpha’s stare and he made a pained keening sound that made my wolf lose her fucking mind.

As though anticipating that I was about to attempt to rip Ryland’s head off while he was busy with Clay, Forrest sped forward.

He was a blur of dark fur and small glowing yellow eyes.

He lunged for me, but I was faster, parrying to one side a fraction of a second before he’d have had me.

My jaws found a hold on the back of his neck and I tossed him like a rag doll several feet away.

He scrambled to his feet and came for me again, this time taking up a warning stance, his eyes meeting mine in challenge. His growl was loud, but mine was louder, echoing in my ears.

My wolf raised her head, looking down at Forrest. She held his furious stare, digging her claws into the dirt, stamping them to assert her place. Forrest skidded back a step, his head bending lower until we were over him, daring him to touch us again.

He lay with his chest against the earth, still growling softly, but no longer a threat.

Allie, Clay’s voice in my mind was different. Breathless. It was enough to break me out of the strange trance-like state that’d taken over. I backed away from Forrest, but he stayed down, his teeth still bared as he growled softly to himself.

When I turned, I found Clay in a similar position to Forrest…and Ryland, staring at me like he was only just seeing me for the first time.

My heart launched itself up my throat when my eyes locked with Ryland’s. His hackles shot up in a ridge of black fur rippling down his spine. I was sure I looked the same. I could feel my skin shifting beneath my fur. Fluttering with anticipation. I shook as I approached him.

Somewhere, deep in the back of my mind, I was screaming for my wolf to back down now, too. Something told me she would not survive this. That if she openly challenged the alpha, she would lose.

We would die.

She wasn’t listening though. She watched Ryland with a singular focus. Our body breathed tightly, conserving energy, restricting my urge to panic.

Trust me, she seemed to be saying. Trust that we are stronger.

But I’d never been strong. Not like this.

I could live in a hunting blind in the woods and withstand the cold. The elements. I could withstand the loneliness of my existence. The death of my parents. The abandonment of my guardians. But this was something else.

This would require a physical strength I didn’t think I possessed in either of my forms.

Clay was still whispering pleas in my mind, but we blocked them out. We needed to focus.

We needed to show Ryland that he didn’t own us.

He doesn’t own me.

An image of Devin flashed before my eyes. His words came back, strengthening us instead of weakening us. You are mine.

It wasn’t true then. It won’t be true now.

We belong to no one.

Ryland snarled at me and a pressure formed in my chest. My head wanted to bend to the force of his will, and it took everything inside of me to fight the urge to lay flat against the earth and quiver in his shadow.

But we were done living in the shadows. We didn’t want to bow.

And in a burst of clarity it was like me and my wolf were one. Just for a second. Just long enough for us to combine our strength and raise our weary head. A vibrating growl reverberated through our rib cage and we snapped back at Ryland when he snapped at us.

His voice boomed in our skull. Concede!

But we were gaining strength. Our muscles burned from fighting his command, but he was not our alpha. Not yet.

Ryland's ears lowered and his growls became lower. His glowing orange eyes were crazed with shock and fury. Any second now, he would attack. I could feel the threat of it like a pressure in the air. I could see how his body was coiling for the strike.

We were ready.

As we lifted our head to stare down at him, his body pressing slowly down toward the dirt, we had a fleeting moment of satisfaction. He’d bent to our will.

Ryland lunged before he fully submitted.

His muscled form leaped from the earth only to be tackled by another body.

A white streak against the bleak dusk. Jared sent Ryland sprawling onto the dirt.

Their bodies skidded over loose gravel and debris, black and white bodies coming up smeared with swaths of earthy brown.

Ryland snapped at Jared, missing his throat by barely a hair.

Jared was up in an instant, standing with his shoulders lowered and a fierce growl echoing all around us. He had positioned himself between Ryland and I, but I knew that with one word from Ryland, Jared would be rendered just as immobile as Clay was.

The dark gray wolf was panting with the effort of crawling his way over to me, attempting to break his alphas command to back down.

Forrest moved as though to sneak up on Jared from behind, but with a look from my wolf, he stopped, dropping his big head back to the dirt with an indignant snarl.

I couldn’t hear them, but somehow my wolf knew Ryland and his nephew were having a conversation.

It was agonizingly slow, but after a minute, I noticed some of the heat leave Ryland’s eyes.

And I noticed how Jared’s body loosened, reverting back to the soft, gentle wolf that’d saved my life all those nights ago.

Ryland moved past Jared a moment later, ignoring me as though I wasn’t even there. My wolf shivered with something like ecstasy. We knew why he wasn’t looking at us. He was afraid.

And maybe he should be.

I was surprised at the malice seeping into my thoughts, poisoning my mind. As Ryland growled at Forrest to get him moving, I walked to where Jared was now standing next to Clay as his friend was finally able to pick himself up from the ground.

When Ryland was gone from view, I sighed inwardly, my sides heaving as my wolf let go. She was beyond exhausted and ready to hand back the reins. I slumped against Jared, and Clay, still panting, slumped against my other flank, resting his head on my back to stare at Jared.

As one, they both turned their attention to me, looking at me as though only just seeing me for the first time. Their emotions raged within them, spilling over until I could feel them pushing at my barriers.

Surprise. Pride.

Fear.