shades of eyeshadow fell out. That’s where he’d gone. On an errand for her.
Wolf still couldn’t move. She couldn’t even lift her head when he slammed the door. It felt like hours passed before he opened the driver’s side. Now there were red and blue lights flashing outside the window. She could hear Wes talking, but it was much too low for her to understand the words. Other men were talking. She hated men. Men were venom.
She growled again and tried her best to move her body, but Wes’s order still rattled around in her head. If she’d had any question about what he was before, it was laid to rest now.
Wes was an alpha and apparently very good at giving alpha orders. Dangerous boy.
The driver’s side door opened, and Wes tossed an armload of his shredded things into the passenger’s seat. She’d ripped up his clothes, but he didn’t look mad when he glanced at her with those glowing blue eyes. He looked somber. Sad even. Sadness was worse than anger. Sadness was too close to disappointment, and Wolf didn’t like to disappoint him—not Wes the Alpha.
But…he’d left. She’d thought so, at least.
He sighed heavily, ran his hand through his long, mussed hair, and slid his dirt-smeared cowboy hat onto his head. He turned over the engine until it roared and then drove them past the blue and red lights.
He didn’t speak. Miles stretched on, and she was stuck here, frozen, uncertain, a little scared of what she could’ve done. She could’ve killed that man.
Good. Wolf smiled.
Horrible, Summer said softly in her head. We would’ve done to him what was done to us. Remember how scared we were?
Wolf did remember. It was the brightest memory she had. Waking up and not knowing or remembering anything. Seeing Wes’s wolf, feeling safe…but then losing him. Perhaps Summer was right. Perhaps Wolf didn’t want to do that to someone else, even if they were a man. Or maybe so. She really didn’t like men, and biting them would be fun. She needed to think more about it.
Your moral compass is broken, Summer muttered inside her head.
Disagree. I never had a moral compass to break in the first place.
Summer laughed.
Wes slowed and pulled the truck onto a bumpy road that wound this way and that until Wolf’s stomach churned. She didn’t like riding in trucks, especially when she couldn’t move. She was beginning to feel pinned and trapped, and panic flared in her chest.
He’s going to drop us in the woods, Summer murmured inside.
So now he would leave them. Wolf growled and slid her head a few inches on the seat.
“Not yet,” Wes said grimly. He hadn’t looked back at her even once the whole drive.
He was mean. It was cruel to freeze her in place like this. She wasn’t some submissive creature that enjoyed confinement. She was a wild animal who thrived in freedom. How dare he? How dare he give her an order like this? He wasn’t her alpha.
Yes he is, Summer argued.
Shhh.
Wes stopped the truck and threw it into park, got out and shut the door softly. Too softly for a man like Wes. He should be angry that she’d shredded his things. Angry that she tried to bite that man.
But when her door opened, he didn’t look upset. He dragged his eyes down her body and murmured, “I forgot how pretty your wolf is.”
I am Wolf. The words didn’t come out, only a snarl.
A slow grin stretched Wes’s face. “Monster.”
He leaned forward, cradled her giant body in his arms, and then walked into the woods. Between two pines, he lowered to his knees and cradled her against his body, rocking her gently.
The snarl died in her throat. What was he doing? Why was he holding her like this? People didn’t touch her like this. Touch was supposed to hurt, to be uncomfortable, but Wes’s arms around her made her feel okay.
“You thought I left, didn’t you?” Wes said, looking up at the half moon that hung low in the sky.
Wolf whined. Yes.
“I did that to you. I made you scared to be abandoned, didn’t I?
Another whine, and she swallowed hard. Yes.
“I’ll be the one to get you over that,” he promised softly. “Only thing that will heal that cut is time. You don’t trust me now, and I don’t blame you. Hell, you may never trust me, and that’s okay. I earned that. But you’re a werewolf now, and you can hear truth and lies. Listen to the truth