Page 44 of Untamed

I pick the dress that reminds me of home and pull it over my head.

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Inuit

I smile with my canines shining white. "Hello, how has my pack been treating you?"

The male and female in front of me quake in fear. Snot and tears streak their faces. Their hair is limp, greasy, and laying in clumps on their heads. The male's arms are set in soft casts, healing, according to Thjis, but still painful and weak.

They won't meet my eyes, but their trembling grows when I saunter over and pull the aluminum folding chair toward me. I make sure that the legs scrape against the concrete floor of the stained slaughter room floor as I spin it and sit in it backward. Folding my arms across the top of the chair, my grin widens to a bared-canine grimace.

"I said 'hello' and asked a question. It's rude to ignore me."

The soft crying of the female grows to hiccuping sobs, uncontrollable. The sound is high-pitched and suffocating. I wait, letting her rein in her panic. I don't have the patience for FeraxMaw wolves.

"I've placed a call to your alpha," Rhet says to them kindly. His blue eyes shine with sympathy, and his face is soft. It's all bullshit.

Good cop, bad cop, assholes. Rhet used to be the bad cop, and Ezra was the good cop. But when I stepped into this role, I became 'bad cop.' According to Ezra, I look like "a crazy-huge, savage, mother-fucker.”

The female's wailing starts to taper off as Rhet keeps speaking. "I didn't realize that the leadership of your pack had changed," he says quietly, commiseration in his voice. Isn't it hard when the leadership changes? Isn't it too bad that Harrigan, the former alpha, didn't die with my teeth sunk deep into his jugular?

I watch the FeraxMaw trespassers, my heart as cold as stone. These kinds of wolves destroy. It's all they're good for. New leadership or not, FeraxMaw can't shed their evil. It's too deep in the spirit and soul of that pack.

"He kicked us out," the male whispers hoarsely. His eyes nervously dart to me, then focus on Rhet for a few beats before falling back to the floor.

"Why?" I ask smoothly. "What sort of crimes did you commit?"

"Nothing!" his head jerks up reflexively, but he can't hold my eyes for more than a split second.

"No?" Rhet asks. "It must be hard to be kicked out. Your alpha told me that you left of your own volition. Two different stories. They don't match. I've heard his side. Why don't you tell me your story?"

We didn't talk to the new alpha of the FeraxMaw. We don't have any way of contacting Orion Ferax even if we wanted to. Alpha Jax sent a message through. He's got a clusterfuck in the north. A forest fire, a rescue, a small community to evacuate. But, he managed to send us a message about the new FeraxMaw alpha.

I need to know what my enemy is up to, and these chumps fell into my lap. How convenient.

They don't answer Rhet's questions. The female has stopped sobbing, but her eyes keep straying to the bloodstains on the floor. If she weren't so stuffed up from her caterwauling, she would be able to smell that only cows have met their end in this room.

"Why did you leave your packlands?" I growl lowly. My chest rumbles, deep and angry. It's an unspoken threat to lesser wolves, to wolves without a home, a pack, a family.

Just like my mate.

My growl spikes in sheer, livid viciousness. My sweet Bliss, alone but not deserving of being packless. Not like these two. How dare this female try to gain my sympathy with her tears when myQitsukhas suffered so much?

My growl grows in strength, my wolf salivating for pain. I stand abruptly. The chair clatters to the floor. Both prisoners flinch, but Rhet is cool as a cucumber.

"He's crazy!" the female blurts out. At first, I think she's talking about me. "Orion, he, he wants to... he just has h-his own wolves. They're the only ones who are a-allowed to be the-there."

"So he did kick you out?" Rhet asks calmly. Blue eyes shoot a warning at me.Don't lose it.

I bare my teeth, my fists clenched. The scent of my testosterone-fueled rage fills the room. It blends with the smell of slaughter. Blood and danger, danger and blood, dance in the air, weaving into an intricate promise of more death. My wolf shakes his head, baring his canines.Alpha. Danger.

I don't need to break more bones, not that these two need to know that. I've done enough damage to leave an impression. I'm not a cruel alpha, but I am dead-fucking-serious about defending my territory, especially now.

The male raises his head, a defeated look on his face. He licks his chapped, bleeding lips. A slow, shaky inhale, and he starts spilling his guts. "Harrigan was a decent alpha, but something happened about a year ago. Orion turned on him, his father, and took over the pack. Then, there were all these interrogations. Bit by bit, wolves disappeared until we just decided it was safer to go south." He snorts, "safer," he mumbles, shaking his head. "They told us you were just a rumor," he says to me. "Some wolves talked about the Adlartok alphason surviving, but we thought it wasn't true."

"I'm very real," I grin macabrely, hiding my unease at the information. So, all of FeraxMaw knows who I am, which means the entire north knows. We chose not to tell anyone who, exactly, I am. But it was never going to stay a secret for long.

"Orion hates you. We don't know why," the female adds. "Please, we just want a new life. Away from all this."

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