Page 44 of In the Mouth of the Wolf

“You really came for me?” I whispered.

Elias and Nolan entered next, sheathing hunting blades around their waists.

“Always,” Archer replied, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply. “You may not be pack, but…”

“I want to be,” I interrupted. Camden’s fists stilled, and they all looked at me, hanging desperately on my every word.

“And not just because of this. My wolf, she… she helped me realize. I was trying to find you last night. She knew before I did, and I’m ready to admit it now. I’m a shifter, I’m an omega, and I want to be in your pack.”

The guys looked at me in shock, and suddenly my breath quickened. What if they’d changed their minds after finding out about Mike? Or maybe they thought what had happened here had tainted me somehow?

“If you’ll still have me…” I added quietly.

Camden stood from where Greg lay motionless, his chest heaving. Then he reached over and grabbed my face, resting his forehead against mine as he released a strangled, rumbling sigh. I melted into his scent, cardamom and cedar soothing my aches and relaxing my tensed muscles.

“That’s the dumbest fucking thing you’ve ever said, babe. There is absolutely nothing you could do or that could happen that would make me stop wanting you. And trust me, I speak for the whole pack.”

I looked up as the other three grinned, nodding in agreement.

Archer scooped me up, and Nolan leaned down to kiss me on top of my head.

“Welcome to Pack Wolcott, sugar. Let’s get you home.”

23

MARLOWE

Nolan and Elias stayed behind to clean up the mess. The three alphas who had held me were dead, but we were on a farm full of animals and I didn’t feel comfortable abandoning them all.

Since they had all traveled there on foot, Camden took Paul’s truck to drive me and Archer back to his place.

We squeezed into the cab of the old Ford F150, with me sandwiched between them. “Adding grand theft auto to the list of charges now, are we?” I joked, as I took sight of the blood on my cheeks in the rearview mirror. Perhaps I should have been more traumatized, but humor was my go-to coping mechanism and it was doing a bang-up job so far.

Camden placed his arm behind me as he turned his head and backed up out of the driveway. I bit my lip as I watched his hand effortlessly turn the wheel, heat blossoming in my core.

His eyes flickered to me for a second before they went back to the road, a grin slowly growing on his face. “Well, Archer was going to take this back after we got you safely tucked away at home, but I kinda like it now. Do you think the cops will notice?”

Archer snorted but didn’t reply, instead addressing me. “I want to let you know, Marlowe, that the only thing we want from you right now is for you to recover and heal. There are no expectations, we just want to take care of you. You still haven’t dealt with your father’s estate, and I’m sure untangling your life from your ex will be a difficult process as well.”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “So, Mike’s a vampire?” I asked. “But he never, you know, drank my blood.”

Camden grumbled under his breath, and Archer took my hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Vampyr, yes. And I don’t know why he never drank from you. They do need blood to survive, he must have been getting it from other sources. Maybe he was afraid that shifter blood wouldn’t be sufficient.”

Was that why he was cheating on me so much, because he needed to feed from humans? Not that it was an excuse.

“Tell me more about vampyrs. I need to understand exactly what Mike is.”

Archer gave me a small smile, and began a short lecture on vampyr biology and culture, what Lunessas and servaglios were, and the truce that had followed an old war between our two kinds.

Shifters, vampyrs… this world was stranger than I had thought, and I still had so many questions. “Are there any other mythical creatures I should be on the lookout for? Centaurs, leprechauns, mermaids perhaps?”

Archer laughed. “No, just us, as far as I know.”

“Mermaids would be hot, though,” Camden added.

A growl erupted from my chest before I could stop myself and Camden shivered in delight. “Aw, are you jealous?”

Oh god, was I? I had to admit that I had been feeling a bit more feral in the past few days, but I definitely didn’t like the idea of being so insecure.

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