Page 13 of Claimed by the Pack

“Cheyenne...” he started.

“No. I told Chelsea I'd hear her out. I don't want to hear anything else from you. Chelsea, I heard you out. Can I go now?”

“Well, there's the matter of what you're going to tell people. A lot of people are looking for you and probably very worried. They're going to want to know what happened to you. The police were called in from Bali today because it's been 48 hours...”

“What do you want me to tell them?” I asked. These people were genuinely crazy. At that point I would have promised them anything just to get the hell out of there.

“Maybe that you were drunk and you wandered too far from the club, and got lost?” I could tell by the look on her face that she realized how lame that story sounded. But it didn't matter, as soon as I was out of here, I was telling the police everything, before these crazy people hurt somebody.

“Sure, okay. Can I go now?”

“One more thing,” Chelsea said. “We're not bad people. We're not violent people. We just want to live our lives, raise our families and get along the way everyone else does. Ridge is learning new ways to live. Being human was a much smaller part of his life than being wolf was. In the wild if a wolf finds his mate, he just takes her. Ridge knows what he did was wrong though, and he won't bother you again, isn't that right, Ridge?”

We both looked at him. His eyes were on me. I hated that I still felt a tingle in my belly when he looked at me. I stifled a shudder and finally Chelsea repeated his name and he said, “Yes. Right.” He didn't sound convincing, but again, he wouldn't be running around free after I spoke to the police.

“Fine. Can I go now?”

“Chase?” I didn't even realize Chase left the room. I looked around when she called him and for a few seconds, I thought I was losing my own mind. A big, beautiful gray wolf sauntered into the room from the kitchen. I was sure my face must have been as white as a ghost and my jaw was dragging the floor.

Chelsea was looking at me and she said, “He won't hurt you, but I wanted to be sure before you went home and told your story, that you knew what you were dealing with.”

Suddenly I felt rage again.

She was threatening me.

“How dare you?You send Chase out of the room and he sends in your pet wolf so not only do you believe I'll buy into your threats but I'm an idiot as well...”

Chelsea was standing up as I was going off.

I saw her look at the wolf and then suddenly the strangest thing began to happen to her face. The bones seemed to be stretching and her muscles were rippling. I watched it like a train wreck, unable to turn away as white hair began to sprout all over her body. The whole process only took seconds, but I felt like I'd witnessed it in slow motion. Suddenly a white wolf was standing where Chelsea had been. I turned my head toward the gray wolf and that was when the scream escaped my throat.

Ridge

I thoughtCheyenne was going to faint dead away.

I wouldn't have blamed her, having to look at Chase naked. He was whiter than Chelsea's fur. If I didn't know better I would think he hadn't seen the sun in years. Go figure, my mate would get to see him naked first. At least he's no competition.

He cupped his hands in front of his penis and said, “I'm sorry, Cheyenne, I'll put some clothes on.”

Cheyenne's breaths were fast and deep and her eyes were as wide as saucers.

I'm not sure she even heard Chase since she was staring at Chelsea.

Chelsea gave her a minute or two to look her over and then she shifted back into herself.

I automatically took the afghan off the couch and handed it to her. Chelsea is beautiful, but she doesn't belong to me and I shouldn't be looking at her like that. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and told Cheyenne,

“I'm sorry to frighten you, but there's no other way to prove that we're not crazy...we're wolves. Are you okay?”

Cheyenne looked like she didn't know if she should scream again, run, or cry. Instead, she nodded dumbly and after a few more seconds she said, “I won't tell anyone, I promise. Please, just let me go home.”

Chelsea nodded. “I'm sorry for all we've put you through. We'll take you home right now.”

I was surprised that Chelsea was going to let me anywhere near Cheyenne, so I wasn't surprised when I stood up and she said, “You can run home with Chase. I'll take her.”

I wanted to argue.

I desperately wanted a chance to be close to Cheyenne again so that I could see if that spark was still as strong as it was. But, I knew I'd only be getting myself into deeper trouble. I just nodded at Chelsea and tried to look at Cheyenne, but she wouldn't look at me still. I left her there with Chelsea and went into the kitchen where Chase had gone. I wasn't sure what would happen from here on out, but I was sure that if they forced me to stay away from her, they might have to put me in a cage to make sure I complied.

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