Page 76 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

He stepped in, sealing the gap between us until I could feel the brush of his chest against mine. He leaned his head down to meet my fire-filled gaze with a burning one of his own. I didn’t back down.

Didn’t back away.

His breath tickled my lips and it took everything inside of me not to give my wolf what she wanted. She pawed and scratched, whined and mewled. She wanted to devour him. I wanted to let her.

Something flipped hard in my belly, and I gasped, hating how I could both hate him and want him at the same time.

His eyes flicked to my lips and a bolt of white-hot energy shot through me like lightning. I leaned in, ready to surrender.

That’s when he pulled back, leaving me unsteady on my feet as his face turned to stone. “I won’t watch you do this to yourself,” he said in a hard whisper.

Something like acid pooled in my gut and suddenly it was impossible to look him in the eye. My fists squeezed and I bit back a scathing remark.

Clay lifted my bike easily, wrapping his hand around the middle of the handlebars before he went and lifted his own bike back to standing, holding that one up in much the same way. “You can walk back,” he said over his shoulder without any remorse. “Then you and I are going to have a little chat.”

There were so many things I wanted to say. To shout. To scream as he faded around the bend and all I was left with was an ebbing rage and shaking fists while I listened to the sound of the tires slowly rolling over earth as he walked both bikes back toward the cabin and left me in the dark.

If he thought I was going to fucking follow him like some sad puppy, tail tucked between my legs, the bastard had another think coming.

Right there amid the trees, with pine scented wind stinging my fury-warmed skin, I stripped down until I was naked. Bared to the leaf-dappled moonlight beneath the tree canopy.

Shifting was still painful, but over the last week, it’d become more bearable each time.

I was already getting faster at it. Relinquishing the reins to my wolf and letting her overtake me made the transition so smooth I only had to endure a few seconds of agony before I felt my paws pushing into the dirt and the air taking on a crystalline quality.

The sound of the forest magnified in my canine ears.

The skitter of a squirrel fleeing up a tree.

The buzz and chirp of insects. The sound the wind made when it whistled through needles and branches.

And very distantly, Clay, at the trailhead now.

I could hear him sigh as the bike’s tires rolled to a stop.

He was waiting for me.

He may have been pissed off, but he wouldn’t leave me out here all alone.

He could keep waiting.

My wolf strained to go to him, but I asserted my own dominance over her, something else I’d been practicing.

Jared, I spoke in our shared mind.

I had no interest in going back to the cabin with Clay right now. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say.

Let’s go to the quarry.

Sufficiently satisfied with the alternative, we began to move. Slowly at first, gaining speed until Clay had no hope of catching us. We doubled back twice and ran splashing through creek water part of the way, careful not to mark any trees with our scent.

It was another trick Jared had taught me—how to cover my tracks if I was ever out alone. How to give myself a head start. I was glad my wolf seemed happy to cooperate so long as I allowed her to run in the direction of at least one of my mates.

I’d been to the local quarry only once when I was a little girl.

Dad had taken me on an errand to buy some flagstone for the curving stone pathway out behind our back deck.

But I remembered where it was well enough by the road.

Getting there via the forest proved a more challenging route, but my wolf seemed like she already knew exactly where she was going, and I had to wonder if she could somehow sense Jared’s location.

It was about twenty minutes later when the last dregs of my anger wore off and I began to regret taking off on Clay.

I couldn’t say I was ready to admit he had a point, but there was a small bud of guilt poking its head up through my belly and into my ribcage.

Soon, it would bloom and grow heavy with seed.

Ugh.

Didn’t he understand?

Didn’t he get how fucking hard I was trying to hold it all together?

My wolf let out a little yip, and I refocused to find bright lights filtering through the tree branches ahead. The beep and groan of machinery hauling stone and the shouting of men.

We found it.

No point in turning back now. I could ask Jared to send Clay a text telling him where I was. It was the best form of apology I could give. I was still too frustrated to give him any more than that.

Tomorrow at school I was going to have to face Layla and Viv again.

Tomorrow night after work I was going to have to face Ryland. Submit myself to his command.

And by the end of the week, when the full moon reared its ugly head, my friends’ fates would be decided and there was nothing at all I could do but wait for the ax to fall.

My painful reminder of what awaited us forced a long howl from my wolf’s lips. Our chest ached with it, and when we were finished, a bone-weary exhaustion set in and we lay against the cool earth, resting our chin against our paws.

We didn’t have to wait long. Jared found us not more than a couple minutes later. The moment we caught his scent on the wind and began to feel his nearness through the mate bond, a rush of exhilaration brought us back to life.

His silhouette appeared amid the trees, tall and lean. The bright lights of the quarry set his dirty blond hair ablaze, so it looked like a halo rested atop his head.

I gave a little yip of excitement and then my wolf, sated from her long run and the presence of her mate, yielded the reins, putting them back in my hands.

“Allie?” Jared called as he neared, squinting to see me in the dimness. “What are you doing out here?”

I realized, a little belatedly, that I didn’t exactly think this through. I bowed my lupine head, examining my fur coated limbs and swishing tails. I hadn’t brought any clothes.

Jared kneeled in the leaf-strewn dirt; he reached a hand to me, pushing it into my fur.

His eyes blazed vibrant deep amber—that small green fleck like the spark of fire in a rushing verdant river.

Unable to help myself, I pushed my head against his touch, letting the pull and give of the mate bond bring a calm clarity to my mind.

He smirked and a dimple formed in his left cheek. I licked it.

He barked a laugh and reeled back.

Mortified, I lowered my head. I hadn’t meant to… God, did I really just lick Jared?

“Here,” he said and stood, rubbing the back of his hand over the wolf slobber on his cheek before he tugged off his long sleeve gray t-shirt.

It was a study in self-control not to drool at the sight of his naked torso.

That body belonged to a man. Defined abs and thick biceps.

A whisper of light-colored hair disappearing below the belt of his jeans.

Mine, my wolf growled in the furthest reaches of my mind.

I agreed.

“It should be long enough to cover…everything,” he prompted, holding it out to me with one arm and turning his head the opposite way to allow me to shift back without him watching. Always the gentleman.

Shifting back had gotten easier since I started letting my wolf out daily, too. Before it was like coming up for breath after suffocating under water. With my insides aching like they were deprived of oxygen and every muscle was on lock.

Now it was just like opening a door and stepping through it. The pain was always less than making the transition to wolf.

Still though, I shuddered as I took the t-shirt from Jared’s fingers and pulled it over my head. He was right, the hem of the thing came nearly to my mid-thigh. But without panties or a bra, I still felt way too exposed.

“Good?” Jared asked.

I nodded, then realized with a flush that he wasn’t looking at me. That he wanted verbal confirmation I wasn’t naked anymore. “Yeah,” I stammered. “Thanks.”

He spun with eyes half-closed and his bottom lip caught between his teeth. When his gaze met mine, the tiniest of smiles pulled at my lips.

Jared reached up a hand to scratch the back of his neck and looked me up and down.

“Did you come alone?” he asked, peering into the darkened forest at my back as though expecting company.

I nodded. “Yeah,” I told him, pursing my lips. “I know you guys still don’t like me going out on my own, but—”

He held a hand up, a knot forming in his brow. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Allie. I want you safe, but what you do is your business. I’m not here to control you.”

I sighed. How could he and Clay be so similar in so many ways, but so very different in others. “Thanks,” I muttered. “I just…needed to get away.”

He raised a brow at that. “Should I be worried?”

I grimaced. “No, but maybe you should text Clay and let him know I’m here with you. Safe. I kind of took off on him.”

Jared stifled a laugh and gave a little nod, as though he wasn’t the least bit surprised.

“I take it riding didn’t go so well?”

“Understatement of the century,” I joked.

“Well, come on,” he said and extended his hand to me. “My cell’s in the office, and I just made hot chocolate. Stay for a while?”

My belly did a little flip and I took his hand, super conscious that if I bent over even in the slightest, the whole quarry was going to see my lady bits.

“Don’t worry,” Jared said, squeezing my hand as he led me toward the lights in the distance. “The office is at the edge of the quarry. And it’s got a back door.”