“You can say that again.” I give him another kiss, then quickly slip into some clean clothes before heading toward the stairs.
Ollie slips into the hallway behind me, a shadow on my heels, and though the feeling is faint, the connection between us thrums with his anxiety. He slides his hand into mine and I give his fingers a gentle squeeze.
I move through the house near silently and when I reach the foyer by the front door, I pull Ollie to a stop, not wanting him any closer until I have a better idea of what’s going on.
“Stay here and let me see who it is,” I say.
He nods, his green eyes worried as his teeth dig into his lower lip. I press another quick kiss to his forehead, then step closer to the front door. The glass insets on either side make the world outside too blurry to be of any use, so I simply open the door, moving my body to block the view into the house as I take in the unwanted visitors on the porch.
The twohumanvisitors.
One is a woman with most of her face hidden behind a pair of oversized sunglasses and her dark hair pulled back into a low ponytail. She’s dressed simply in running shorts and a T-shirt, but the tension in her posture and the forced edge to her smile make the casualness of her outfit seem more like a costume.
The man next to the woman pulls off “casual” even worse than she does.
For one, he’s broad and bulky, and the jogging pants he has on are at least an inch too short for him. He seems to be used to looming rather than emoting, his face blank, as if he doesn’t even know how to smile and doesn’t want to try, and his shoulders tense like he’s standing at attention—or preparing for battle.
The woman holds out her hand. “Doctor Ezekiel Stevens?”
Her voice has a robotic cheeriness that grates on my nerves and has my wolf wanting to bare his teeth.
“Nope,” I say in a bland voice as I stare her down, my gaze flicking to her larger comrade every couple seconds in case he decides to make a move.
She shuffles her feet, waiting for me to continue, her expression growing more strained as the seconds tick by without me saying anything else. I might not deal with humans much, but I know damn well long silences make them antsy.
Finally, she lets out a nervous huff. “Um, well, is Dr. Stevens in?”
“I’m afraid he’s not available at the moment.” Maintaining my bland tone, I add, “Maybe I can help you?”
There’s a flash of something in her eyes that I don’t quite catch and her smile grows even more strained. “I spoke with Jason at the wildlife center and he said they’d released a wolf into Doctor Stevens’s custody.” She lets out a fake chuckle and shakes her head as if she simply can’t believe any of this is happening. “You see, there’s been quite a mix-up. That so-called wolf belongs to us, and he's not a wolf, just a hybrid.”
They’re here trying to take my mate.
I force my expression to stay blank even though rage rushes through my body and claws begin to form on my fingertips. The woman is probably here to put Doc at ease with her fake friendliness. My eyes dart to the man again. And he’s the muscle in case things go wrong.
Except… that means they probably don’t know that this is a pack house or that Doc and I are also shifters. One human man can’t stand against us.
“I see,” I say, my face carefully blank. “Well, Dr. Stevens can’t just release a wild animal into your custody. Do you have anything that verifies your claim? Vet records? A DNA test maybe?”
There’s a flash of irritation on her face before she manages to cover it with another awkward laugh. “Jason said all I’d need todo was come here and pick him up. He didn’t say anything about bringing records.”
I raise my brows. “I find it hard to believe you expect Doc to hand over the animal without any verification of your claim that he’s a hybrid. Plus, there’s the matter of the condition he was found in. If he truly belongs to you, you weren’t taking very good care of him. It doesn’t seem like it’s in the wolf’s best interests to return him to you.”
She scowls, no longer able to hide her growing anger. “It doesn’t matter what it seems,” she snaps. “The wolf—thehybrid—belongs to me, and I’m here to pick him up and take him home.”
“No,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and widening my stance in the doorway.
“Excuse me?” Her voice rises into an indigent screech. At least to my ears, anyway.
“You’ve given me no reason to believe what you’re saying is true, nor any proof that the wolf belongs to you,” I reply.
The woman drops all pretense of congeniality, her expression hardening. “Look, kid, just hand over the wolf. You don’t know what you’re messing with. IfIcan’t convince you…” She motions the man forward and he steps closer to me, puffing out his chest and cracking his knuckles. “We’ll have to do this the hard way.”
I look the man up and down, then snort out a laugh before turning my attention back to the woman. “First of all, I’m not a kid,” I say. “I might be twenty years your junior, but neither you nor your goon back there are going to intimidate me into doing anything.” My lips curl into a smile, flashing a bit of fang. “And I think it’s you who doesn’t know who you’re messing with.”
I allow my wolf to shine in my eyes for a split second as a low, barely audible growl settles in to my chest. Granted, this isn’t the best idea and could very well likely get me in deep shit with the triumvirate if they find out, but…
Either directly or indirectly, these humans hurt my mate, and they want to take him from me and continue hurting him. The powers that be are just going to have to get over me being slightly threatening. Besides, considering what Ollie said, the humans who held him prisoner already know about the existence of shifters anyway, so I’m not cluing them in to anything they didn’t already know.
