Page 41 of Mated By the Pack
Home? I’m not sure if it’s the words or the implication of what he said that steals my next breath. I shake it off.
“This isn’t my home,” I state firmly, glancing behind me. “It’s an old military bunker. But you already know that, don’t you? You’re the ones who left the bones inside—trophies of your kills.”
“Trophies from when we were a younger pack,” he replies. “We didn’t move them because they scare off trespassers brave enough to step into our den. Those that don’t scare easily… well, their lack of fear doesn’t save them once we return from the hunt.”
Then they get torn apart. Like we would have been, if these wolves didn’t want me for another purpose. A purpose I only know about from a dream.
Another wolf shifts, amber fur disappearing in a flash as a mountain of a man rises. His build is similar to his brother’s, but his eyes are more intense. A flicker of purple is woven into his golden stare. His hair hangs in shimmering strands in front of his right eye, covering what looks to be a scar. He has wounds. They’re healing, but visible, glowing with the same faint crimson as Nara’s, after The Tangle gave me a remedy.
“My brother is being kind. Too kind,” he growls, his voice deeper and tense. “You’re our mate. We can smell you. Sense you. The itch goes so deep it is maddening. We will have you and I’ve waited long enough.”
The amber-haired man takes a step forward with purpose. My eyes get wide, and I take a step back, but Gideon throws an arm across his brother’s chest. Hard enough for me to see his semi-erect penis bounce, throb, and thicken. A heat rushes through my body and my core clenches. I imagine itinsideme. I tremble so hard I choke on my next exhale.
“Easy, Jace,” Gideon says. “We agreed we would talk to her, not pounce on her like hungry wolves.”
“But I am hungry. And my belly’s full,” Jace snarls, the purple in his eyes flickering with a need that makes a tingling quiver through my body. “Full of meat from keeping you and your friends from getting gored by Minotaurs, chewed up by a trihybrid, or torn apart by a fucking Gen-Lion.”
Minotaurs? Trihybrids? Gen-Lions? Wait… Could that be…
“Frank? Did you hurt Frank?”
The words come out of my mouth before I mean to say them. Why should I care? He was working for the slavers and kept us from escaping the first time we tried. Still, he stopped them from whipping us. Me, specifically, since I volunteered to take the lashes for our failed escape attempt. And The Tangle spoke to him, through me. He had… a purpose.
“We didn’t kill him,” Gideon says. “We would have, but he wisely chose to follow some advice he got about searching for a Pride without a king, or something like that.”
“Why does it matter?” Jace growls, pushing against Gideon’s arm, but not moving past it. “He was chasing you. We were the ones protecting you, not him.”
A third wolf shifts, brushing away leaves and twigs as he rises. The mossy brown fur turns into tangled curls, wild and unkempt. His face doesn’t have the same rough edges as his brothers. It’s rounder, softer, and he looks—kind. There’s no hunger in his eyes. Not even a flicker. Not like Gideon, who hides it behind control. Definitely not like the unhinged hunger in Jace’s purple-gold stare.
“Enough,” he mutters, his voice lower than I expect. “Seriously, Jace. That’s enough.”
Then his gaze lifts to mine, and it’s not intense. Not sharp. It’s steady. Warm. It touches something inside me I didn’t know was trembling until it isn’t anymore. I’m still buzzing, still tingling all over, but when he looks at me, I feel… calm. Like if I took a single step forward, he’d catch me before I even stumbled.
“You’re our mate, Calla. That’s it,” he says. “My brothers will call it instinct. Or hunger. But I think it’s fate. That’s what brought you to us. And why you’re the one who’ll save our pack.”
“From what?” I ask. I almost asked Silas the same thing, but I didn’t get to stay in The Aether long enough. “What am I saving you from?”
“Extinction,” Gideon says. “And suffering.”
“I’m really suffering right now,” Jace grumbles, his toes digging into the dirt.
“We’ve lost brothers. Sisters. Our pack isn’t what it once was. The only thing waiting for us is death,” the kind-faced brothersays. “But you’re the one who can change that. Give us peace. Purpose. A future. Gideon and Jace are the only two who feel the pull right now. The rest of us will, in time. It’s following a pattern.”
He gestures toward the platinum wolf. “Knox is next. If it keeps going the way it has. Gideon’s the oldest—he felt it first.”
“Jace is the second oldest,” I mutter, nodding as it clicks into place. “And you?”
“I’m Vance. Youngest, so I’ll be last.” He chuckles softly and jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “It’ll be Caleb before me. Don’t mind him. He doesn’t say much.”
The onyx wolf doesn’t react. He stays still, watching from the shadows like a statue carved out of the night. Jace pushes harder against Gideon’s arm, that same arm still the only thing keeping him from lunging forward. From tearing my clothes off and taking what he clearly thinks belongs to him.
And as much as I hate it, I’m starting to wish Gideon’s arm would slip.
“I haven’t felt genuine pleasure in over two hundred years,” Jace snarls. “I’ve got a lot of time to make up for. And don’t pretend you don’t already know what’s going to happen. I can smell your arousal, and it won’t be long before that sweet nectar is dripping down your thighs.”
I swallow hard and take a step back. My whole body is buzzing. Overheated. The bracelet on my wrist pulses faster, syncing with my racing heart. It’s too much. These feelings. These thoughts. The strange desire coursing through me, demanding I give in. The first traitorous trickle drips down my thighs and sends a shudder through me.
This is what the supplements were for. In Haven North, we’re dosed so we don’t feel like this. They allow us to focus on work instead of desire. Lust. The kind of hunger that could make you forget everything else.
