Page 36 of In the Mouth of the Wolf

Chaos erupted, as half the staff began to crouch into battle readiness, the other half running in terror. Mike cracked his neck and bared his teeth, his canines elongating and sharpening.

My face paled. Bloodsucker? Mutt? Did they know each other? “Elias,” I whispered. “What…”

“Vampyr trash,” he bellowed. “She doesn’t belong with you. She’s one of us.”

Vampyr? Like… vampire? What the fuck was going on?

Mike’s eyes scanned the room, watching as the shifters tightened around him. “I’m not here to fight. I’m here to take my fiancé home. We live as humans, and we don’t bother anybody. Come, Marlowe.” He gestured for my hand.

Grabbing Elias’s shoulder for support I yelled back at him. “I’m not going anywhere with you. You’ve been cheating on me!”

The rage that emanated off Elias was palpable, and the other shifters growled in response, circling closer and closer. Unbonded or not, it seemed shifters stuck together as one in the face of outside threats. And Mike, my shitty, cheating fiancé, was a threat.

“If you’d let me explain, Lunessa…”

“Lunessa?” Elias asked incredulously. “You mean to force her into a servaglio? Anomega?”

Mike hissed again, “Don’t pretend like you know anything about them. My servaglio and I worship her.”

Lunessa. I’d always thought it was just a cute pet name, but all this time, it had a much deeper meaning. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to discover what that was.

I ripped the ring from my finger and threw it at him. “We’re done, Mike. I don’t want anything to do with you, or Jen, or whoever else you’ve been fucking. Just go home!”

He winced at the sound of the ring bouncing off the floor, then picked it up and sighed. His face softened as he looked into my eyes. “Lunessa, my love, you don’t mean that. Come, let’s talk about this back in the room.”

His words washed over me like a warm, gentle breeze. All the anger and fear left my body, and I felt happy. At peace. I dropped my hand from Elias’s shoulder.

Of course I didn’t mean it, Mike was my fiancé. I loved him. He would have a very reasonable explanation about this whole thing.

I took a step back towards him when a dominating bark brought me back to my senses. “Marlowe,stop!”

My tunnel vision cleared, my wrath returning. “What the hell…”

“You think you can compel your way out of this?” Elias asked, facing Mike. “I should rip you limb from limb, but for Marlowe’s sake, I will give you ten minutes to gather your things and leave. You will never bother her again, do you hear me?”

“I’m not leaving here without her!” Mike yelled back. He ran towards Elias, fangs bared, as Elias started towards him.

“No!” I screamed. My heart was beating so hard I thought it might burst through my chest. Pain shot through my limbs, and I collapsed on the floor, my body contorting and my bones breaking, bending, reshaping. I felt my face grow outwards, and hair cover my skin as my clothes ripped apart at the seams.

My tail twitched, and I raised myself on four shaky paws. A whine escaped my snout, the people around staring at me in awe.

“Marlowe…” sighed a male. He smelled familiar, smelled safe. But the male behind him reeked of death and danger.

I whimpered, then ran straight out the door, and into the snowy woods beyond.

18

ELIAS

Istill couldn’t believe my eyes. Marlowe, my beautiful omega, had shifted into a wolf in the lobby of the DoubleTree Hotel in Eau Claire.

Her omega designation was rare enough already, but shifters had long thought the ability to transform had disappeared, like losing a vestigial limb.

Yet there she was, and she was glorious. I felt pressure welling up inside me, throwing itself against some unknown blockage that was stopping me from shifting with her. All I wanted was to lick her nose and run wild through the woods in playful chase.

“Marlowe…” I said quietly, trying not to frighten her.

Her honey-colored coat rippled over her small, lupine body. Hazel eyes met mine, and she sniffed and whined in my direction, taking a step towards me. But her focus swung to the bloodsucker, and her tail tucked between her legs.

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