Page 196 of Kingdoms of Night

But instead I caught a sweet fragrance on the wind.

Riley.

Odd.Her scent had always appealed to me. However, something was different about it now.

I inhaled again, trying to discern the distinctive note, but Riley shuddered, distracting me. We needed to find shelter and food.

With a reassuring purr, I angled my body toward the scent of freshly cut wood. That indicated human tampering, which meant it would lead us to something. Maybe a campsite or a cabin.

It turned out to be the latter.

Although, there wasn’t just one cabin. There were several.

I paused near the trees and shifted back into human form so I could use my voice. My body shook from the sudden change, my neck cracking as my limbs straightened.

Riley stared up at me with glittering eyes, her wolf openly appraising me again.

“I’m going to go have a look around. Stay in animal form in case you need to run, okay?” I tried underlining my words with a little purr, hoping it would make her cooperate again.

Her wolf responded by sitting down on her rump.

Beautiful, I thought, fighting the urge to smile. “I’ll howl if I find anything disturbing,” I said instead, not wanting to risk her reverting back to her usual bratty state.

Then I took off on my bare feet toward the cabins, while fully engaging my shifter abilities along the way.

Time to hunt.

CHAPTERFOUR

RILEY

Somewhere in North Carolina

Stand up,I demanded.

My wolf lay down instead.

Look, I get it. You’re mad that I didn’t let you shift for, well, a while. But you have got to get it together.

My wolf huffed in reply and put her head on the ground, obedient to a fault. The Alpha had told her to “stay.” So she was staying.

He’s not our mate,I told her.

She snorted at that.

He’s not ours,I repeated, the words ones I’d been chanting for hours. But she was utterly hypnotized by Jonas’s purr.

Which, yeah, it was a nice purr. And I’d never actually been the recipient of an Alpha’s purr before, so I’d rather enjoyed the way it’d made me feel.

However, that didn’t mean I wanted to sit here like an obedient dog waiting for my master to return.

Unfortunately, that wasexactlywhat my wolf wanted.

Hell, she wanted a lot more than that. She wanted Jonas’s wolf to mount her.

Which was not happening.

The minute he realized I was an Omega, he’d claim me. I could feel the assurance of that all the way to my soul.

---