Page 20 of Tolerated By the Sigma (Mate Hunt 7)

“Sometimes the best offense is a good defense,” I shot back. “I’m smart enough to know when I can’t win a fight, and even smarter for getting myself as far out of harm’s way as possible. And before you say it, I wasn’t being stupid when I got in the car with the guy.”

I continued, “His profile picture looked exactly the same as he did when he picked me up, and we had FaceTimed a few times before our date. I liked him. I don’t know what happened between the last video call and when he picked me up, but—what are you doing?” I cut myself off when Ryder flew to his feet and strode toward the exit.

I had to jog to catch up to him, so I jogged. When I slid between him and my front door, I found his eyes glowing red again.

Damn, his wolf was strong.

“What are you doing?” I asked the beast, still blocking his path out.

Ryder’s fists clenched at his side, and the wolf snarled back through the human, “Defending what’s mine.”

Shit.

That was territorial werewolf 101, and I hadn’t even considered that it might occur.

Ryder’s wolf now knew that I’d liked my asshole of a date once upon a time—and that meant he wanted him gone.

And not just gone, but dead.

He picked me up and spun me around, setting me down behind him before he stalked out of the house.

His shirt went over his head, and those sexy tattoos and muscles distracted me for half a second. It wasn’t long, but it was long enough for him to drop his pants too—and long enough for me to nearly orgasm on the spot because of the sight of that gorgeous backside.

His breaking bones snapped me out of it—literally—and I shook my lust away as Ryder shifted faster than I’d ever seen anyone shift before.

That had to mean that he and the wolf were on the same page with this one, and that was absolutely not good for me.

“Wait,” I called after Oscar, reaching toward him.

Before I could grab a handful of his fur, he was sprinting through the trees, lost to the forest.

I hurried back into my house and grabbed my phone. Vi was my first choice, but she didn’t know Ryder, so I called Del instead. She was mated to his brother, after all.

She picked up on the fourth ring, and I admitted, “We have a problem.”

EIGHT

I didn’t knowwhether or not Oscar would be able to track my ex-date to his house in the nearest town, but me, Del, Rocco were pretty sure we knew where he would go first:

The bastard’s car.

It was still in town, and had been parked at the gas station where all the shit had gone down the night before.

We parked in the gas station’s lot with the vehicle, and I got out to look around. Rocco headed inside to make sure the men weren’t in there—they weren’t—and Del resumed feeding Felix, which she had been doing before my urgent phone call.

I was still wearing my nearly-nonexistent clothing, but I didn’t give a shit about that. It would be much better to have Oscar and Ryder pissed at me than pissed at my asshole of an ex-date.

Five minutes passed with no sign of either of the men, and then ten. I tried to call my ex-date, but his phone went right to voicemail, which didn’t feel like a good omen.

At all.

When twenty minutes had gone by, Rocco’s phone rang.

The stricken look on his face told me that whatever the Caller ID said, it wasn’t good.

I was in their back seat with Felix, but leaned toward Rocco as he answered, trying to hear more.

There was a long pause before Rocco finally said, “We’ll be there as soon as we can. We have Charly here too.”

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