Tempering my expectations, I brace myself as much as possible. He may not be a lycan, or even launching himself at anyone, but that comes with its own set of complications. If it turns out my blood does have a mate effect, we’re back to square one. But when he finally meets my gaze, I find the same amount of hostility as before, if not even more so. Without breaking eye contact or giving any warning signs, he suddenly lunges.
Right at Damian’s face.
“Motherfucker!” Damian goes down hard, landing on his back and pressing his forearm across the wolf’s throat, keeping its snapping jaws at bay inches from his face.
Hunter and Leo are there in the next second, attempting to haul the psychotic wolf off of Damian, but struggling. The downside of being raised as an alpha; you grow to rely on your ability to bring unruly wolves to heel with a simple touch.
“This day is turning out to be far more delightful than I expected.”
Ignoring my brain buddy’s laughter, I drag Cinjin and Kaige with me to intervene. On one hand, we need to know if I can still siphon from this guy because of my blood running through his veins. On the other, if I’m wrong, it gives me a couple of human shields at the ready to throw between us.
I only make it two steps before Cinjin and Kaige tighten their grips to stop me, the latter enjoying this nearly as much as the demon in my head. “Let the others at least restrain him first or you’re going to get your hand bitten off.”
Bo steps in to help, and between the three of them, they finally wrestle the wolf into submission. At my tentative approach, he stops struggling so much, pinning his furious attention back onto me. Shaking off Cin and Kaige, I crouch down beside Bo, just outside of the wolf’s reach.
“How about I see if I can help, hmm?”
Extending a hand slowly, I hold his gaze, searching for any sign that he’s about to lash out again. Restless energy has my nerve endings prickling painfully across my skin in anticipation, but when I press my palm to his side and nothing happens, I breathe a little easier. This time, when I pull some of the demonic energy into myself, I keep my eyes open, trained on the man hiding behind the feral beast.
Though I can feel it, it’s more of a vague awareness, similar to how the first breath of winter air hurts your lungs. Gradually as time passes, he relaxes, and maybe it’s wishful thinking, but some of the venom in his glare fades.
“Now comes the real test.”
All of the tension in the air hasn’t done Slade any favors. “There has to be another way to see if it worked.” Turning to Hunter for back up, he points out, “It’s not worth risking her getting hurt.”
“I don’t like it either,” Hunter decrees, but much to my surprise adds, “but this whole plan only works if we actually have people fighting for her. Can’t happen if we muzzle them all, or there’s no point.”
Bo swallows before steeling his spine. “Not like he’s taking her by surprise. If she can handle several lycans on her own, she can deal with one wolf.” And then he simply... let’s go, forcing Leo and Hunter to release their holds as well.
Hyperaware of every twitch of muscle, I watch with bated breath as the wolf stands, holding onto the comforting feeling of not being alone to deal with this. He takes a single step closer, and when nobody tackles him, another. Stopping right in front of me, he settles back onto the ground, trying to appear unthreatening.
But he doesn’t act anything like when my mates shift, rubbing themselves all over me and fighting for attention and affection.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” All of our heads whip to face three guys coming into view between the trees. Dropping the firewood in his arms, the one in the center snaps, “After all of that bullshit the other day, she went and took another mate?”
Rising to my feet, I flip him off. “I’ll take as many mates as I like, whenever I like; it’s none of your damn business. But for your information, no. Honestly, I don’t even remember this guy’s name, but I can personally attest that at best, he tolerates me.” Looking at the wolf in question, I gesture towards the new arrivals. “You’ll attack Damian, but not these guys? Fat load of help that does.”
Reid offers, “Maybe Damian just has a punchable face. Slade and Sebastian sure seem to think so.”
Another of the newcomers demands, “Then what the hell is going on?”
“Everyone here’s had it out for us since the moment we stepped foot on the mountain, so we figured it might go a long way in mending bridges if we helped you shift.”
Suspicion all over their faces, they wait for me to elaborate without interrupting. All of the commotion draws more of a crowd than I’d like, and by the time I’m done speaking, there has to be at least seventy people.
“This shot,” a faceless voice shouts from the masses, “we’d need one every time we wanted to shift?”
I shrug. “No clue yet, you interrupted the first stage of testing, so we’ll find out tomorrow night.”
Another asks, “But this onedoeswork, at least for a one-off?”
“Sabrina,”she quietly warns, but I realized the corner I backed us into at the same moment she did.
Taking my silence as confirmation, everything escalates quickly. People start shoving past each other in their rush to raid the warehouse, all of us caught in the middle of the chaos.
“Shit!” Leo shoves his way out of the mob and takes off running, the others hot on his heels.
My new guard dog finally puts himself to good use, snapping at people before I get trampled by the crowd. Bo is there a moment later, tucking me behind him as he becomes an immovable blockade people are forced to go around. “Arguably a better problem than what we were dealing with before.”
