Total pages in book: 202
Estimated words: 193561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 968(@200wpm)___ 774(@250wpm)___ 645(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 968(@200wpm)___ 774(@250wpm)___ 645(@300wpm)
***
She accepts the glass of water, but instead of drinking it, she smells it.
“I wouldn’t poison you,” I assure.
She gives me a sad smile. “I wanted to poison you.”
“Did you actually want to?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Thought you had to is more like it. Drink it. I promise it’s okay.”
She shakily puts the glass to her lips and drinks from it. She keeps drinking until she finishes it, so I take the glass from her and I’m about to settle in and hold her again when she timidly asks to use the bathroom. I gesture to the door in the corner of the bedroom and watch her tiptoe there as if she’s afraid to wake a sleeping monster.
When she comes back, I’m pacing. Torn. Because I have questions and she’s afraid to talk. I have urges, too, though I sense that handling this less than delicately will risk inflicting damage that might not be easy to undo.
I had a front-row seat to the damage the rut caused Ivy Savage, and while my mate is shifter instead of human, I already know she’s not like the shifters I’ve grown up with.
I’ve met plenty of she-shifters from other packs between college years back along with working with many other packs in consultancy or mediation situations and I learned long ago that while most packs operate with a similar set of laws and structures, there are packs that are dysfunctional.
Some of the packs I’ve encountered have fucked-up alphas who treat their pack members, particularly women, as lower-class citizens. I need to know where she’s from so I can figure out what the deal is. Why we’re being targeted and how we’ll cut this shit off.
This isn’t the first time another pack alpha has set his sights on us for one reason or another. But it’s the first time in a long while. First time for me and my council.
At the sight of her timid body language as she sees me pacing, I stop in front of her, put my hands on her shoulders and give them a gentle squeeze.
“I need your fear scent gone,” I tell her, leaning in to look deep into her eyes. “It’s fucking with me. With my wolf.”
“I…” she lets that hang, looking lost.
“Can’t help it. You don’t know me. You’ve had a rough day,” I finish for her.
She nods just a little before she moistens her lips with her tongue. This is a direct hit to my groin, which is already aching. Though I’ve stopped pacing, it feels like my wolf hasn’t.
I cup her face with my palm. “The fastest way to get it gone is to claim you. Make you mine officially. Mating you will help. You’ll settle.”
She looks terrified. But she forces a swallow down and nods, eyes dropping.
Looking like she’s resigned herself to something distasteful, she takes a step back, looks at my bed, then swallows hard again before shakily climbing up onto her knees and crawling a few paces toward the headboard. My eyes track her movement as she bends forward, balancing on elbows, palms, and knees.
I blink a couple times as I process. She’s gotten into this pose and is waiting for me to mount her. She waits, eyes scrunched shut and her fear scent, which has now notched even higher, is so potently present in this room my gut churns. I’m on the verge of puking from how ill it makes me that she feels like this about me claiming her.
The t-shirt she’s wearing has ridden up so I’ve got a good view of her sweet little ass. I’m not taking it in the way I would under normal circumstances because I’m thinking this must be a position she’s assumed in the past, waiting for someone to fuck her and get it over with. I push away my anger, my urge to question her, my innate desire to find and destroy whoever is responsible.
It takes three inhales and exhales before I can speak.
My voice comes out gruff.
“Stacy.”
She squeezes her eyes shut tighter and tilts her head, showing me her throat.
For fuck’s sake... submitting. This is wrong. All wrong.
She shuffles and moves her knees apart, as if I’ve said her name because I want more access.
“No, mate. Not like this,” I rasp, moving up to the head of the bed and sitting beside her so I can see her face. “Give me your hand, sweetheart.”
She slowly complies and as soon as I’ve got her hand in mine, I tug. “Come up here.”
She doesn’t move, so I pull her up into my arms and lay back, arranging her warm, trembling body on top of mine. I cradle her head to my chest and stroke her hair. My body temperature rises some more, giving her what she currently needs. Warmth. Comfort. I’m beyond ready to make this timid, pretty woman mine, but I know I’ll cause damage if I do it while she’s like this.