Morgan
Travellingacross the wildlife reserve to some unknown location with a wolf shifter I barely knew—who willingly offered to have his hands bound—to meet his mixed-species family was… an experience.
The entire time I wondered what the hell I was thinking. This obviously had to be a ploy, didn’t it? Nothing about Dax’s story made sense. It sounded like a fairy tale. But then again, thanks to Rock and the other two-faced alphas in my herd, I had a decent sense of knowing when someone was bullshitting me. Dax seemed to be telling the truth, even if it did seem like a fantasy.
There was nothing to do but go along with it. If he was lying and there was some wolf ambush waiting for me, I had the upper hand. Dax was bound and I was already cautious, ready to spring at any sign of danger.
Not that I had anywhere to go if Ididescape a wolf ambush, but I tried not to think about that.
The sting of Rock and the other alpha bucks chasing me from the herd still hurt. It had been a long time coming, but that didn’t lessen the pain. Dax was right. They didn’t just want me out of the herd—they wanted me dead. To purposely try to get a wolf to kill me was despicable.
I snatched a mouth-full of grass as we walked and chewed it forcefully to distract myself. Dax glanced at me but knew better to ask if I was all right when I clearly wasn’t. I thanked the gods for small mercies. As far as wolf shifters went, Dax was okay. I appreciated that he offered me a place to stay, even if it was clearly a lie.
A small voice piped up in the back of my mind and asked,but what if it’s not?
My heart skipped a beat before I realized I was being ridiculous. There was no perfect pack. There couldn’t be. No hare would willingly sleep among wolves, much lessmatewith one. In my whole life, I’d never heard of a deer shifter mating with someone of a different species.
Then again, I never thought I’d be chased out of my herd either…
“Have you ever been this far out of your herd’s territory?” Dax asked suddenly.
His voice pulled me out of my tangled thoughts. I glanced down at his hands, where his wrists were still bound by his shirt. “No, I haven’t. Why?”
“Just curious.” He smiled. “I wanted to know if you were familiar with the grove we lived in.”
“Never heard of it.” A moment passed. “I didn’t know there were even wolf shifters around, just natural wolves.”
Dax grunted in thought. “You didn’t know Klimt, then?”
“Who?”
He chuckled. “Nothing. He was a bully of a wolf we chased off the land a few months ago when we first arrived in the wildlife reserve.”
“Your pack chased off a lone wolf?” I asked, not quite believing his story. “That makes it seem likeyouwere the bullies.”
Dax faced me sharply, his smile gone and replaced by a serious expression on his face. “He threatened my pregnant brother-in-law and my younger omega brother. On top of that, he unfairly stole this territory from an omega in our pack who was barely eighteen. Klimt was no victim.”
I was surprised at his reaction. If what he was saying was true, that Klimt guy really was an asshole. Dax’s words and expression seemed genuine.
“All right,” I said, backing down. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know the full story.”
Dax sighed. “And I’m sorry for snapping. It happened recently, so the wound was still fresh.”
“A wolf apologizing to a deer twice in one day? I must be dreaming.”
“I’d pinch you if my hands weren’t bound,” Dax teased.
“And I’d toss you with my antlers if you did.”
He chuckled and I found myself smiling as well. Even if he was a wolf, his company was easy to be in—not like the shitty bucks I’d been surrounded by in my herd.
But no matter how comfortable his presence was, I wasn’t going to let my guard down until I glimpsed the full picture. Call me old and bitter, but Dax’s story didn’t add up. Wolves and hares didn’t just mate and create a perfect little family.
Fear flickered through me. What if the hare was a hostage? My muscles stiffened. If he was, I had to get him out. We prey shifters had to look out for each other.
“You said your pack arrived here recently,” I began. “Where did you come from before?”
“Across the land.”
