Page 57 of Wolf Desired

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“Knox, stop!”Cyrus yelled when he realized commanding me to escape wasn’t working.

An enormous wave of power slammed into me, Cyrus willing to freeze me in place to control his brother, and I dropped to my knees before I could even think of doing anything else.

But Knox kept running straight for me, his eyes wild and his teeth bared, Cyrus’s power not affecting him.

“I. Said. Stop.” The pressure of Cyrus’s power increased, and darkness swept across my vision, narrowing it down to a pinprick where I was focused on the massive black wolf barreling toward me.

“Knox,” I gasped, his name a whisper on my lips as he crashed into me.

God. This was it. He was going to kill me.

The impact knocked me onto my back, and he pinned me down with his front paws and clamped his teeth around my throat.

My pulsethu-thudded, straining against Knox’s physical and emotional weight along with the weight of Cyrus’s power that crashed again and again, stronger and stronger, with his desperate attempts to control Knox.

But Knox didn’t move, didn’t even raise his head to look at his brother, who was clearly more of a threat than me. His hot wet breath huffed against my throat and he released a low growl.

Mine,his wolf snarled in my head, his voice filled with rage.

Black specks danced across my vision and I fought to breathe even as my body shook with fear. With a snap of his jaw, Knox could kill me.

Mine mine mine.Knox’s wolf released my throat and jerked his attention to Cyrus and Deacon, stopping them a good sixty feet away from us with a low, dangerous growl.Mine.

He looked ready to attack, his teeth bared, his body tense.

Mine.

“Let her go, Knox.” Cyrus took another step closer, his claws extending from his fingertips, and the muscles in Knox’s back legs bunched.

He was going to attack, and while Cyrus and Deacon were two of the most powerful shifters I’d ever met, they were already bleeding. A lot. I didn’t want to think about the damage Knox’s wolf would do if he thought they were trying to take what was his.

Bishop had said wolves in this realm weren’t possessive, but I wasn’t sure that applied to Knox, or at least Knox’s wolf.

Mine,he roared again, adding a suffocating wave of his own alpha power to the already suffocating mix.

“I am,” I gasped, praying that he wanted to protect and not hurt me and cupping his furry cheek with a trembling hand.

The touch drew his attention away from his brother and Deacon and back to me, and his dark eyes, filled with vibrant green flecks, captured me, stealing my breath and flooding me with his emotions: rage, fear, yearning… hurt.

I didn’t know why he hurt, but I recognized that he, too, was broken in ways others didn’t see or understand. I also felt his acceptance, or what had been his acceptance of how he thought he was before I’d come along, and the agony that he wasn’t worthy of having a mate.

I bit back a bitter laugh.Iwas the one who wasn’t worthy in our relationship. I couldn’t even shift.

He growled, his wolf pushing back his human emotions and insecurities and replacing them with a blinding fury. Those emotions would never get in the way again, not so long as his wolf was in control.

But that wasn’t good for him or me or anyone. The wolf half of a shifter’s soul was his primal half. It didn’t understand complex emotions or the need to sometimes sacrifice those emotions to protect someone.

Like protecting a girl who didn’t know he was broken.

The realization of what had happened hit me, and I brushed both hands into his thick fur, urging him to keep looking at me. He hadn’t taken his wolf form since before I’d had sex with Bishop, a form I’d been told — and had seen for myself — that he preferred. Which meant he’d been actively suppressing his wolf.

If his wolf was determined to keep me as a mate, then it would have taken everything he had to keep that half of his soul from taking over while I’d been suffering through my heat. He might have even had to collar his wolf to keep him contained.

And now his wolf was pissed, had taken over, and was never letting go of their body.

“Iamyours,” I repeated, praying his wolf could sense my sincerity. “But I’m also his.”

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