Page 3 of Caught By the Wolf

Run, said the smart part of her. Now’s your chance. Escape while you can.

Because now she had a bigger, more dangerous threat.

What would the wolf do to her once he’d dealt with the men?

As if he’d heard her thoughts, the wolf turned his big head and looked back at her—just once, quick, like he was checking on her—and his eyes were gray. Storm-cloud gray. Not an animal’s eyes at all.

Nobody had ever looked at Ella Scott like that in her entire life. Like she was the only thing that mattered. Like she was worth the risk of five rifles. Like her curvy body was something a creature this powerful would put itself in front of without hesitation.

Which was ridiculous. Granted he was a huge-ass shifter, but there were guns pointed at both of them now.

There was no way they could escape.

But every instinct she had handed her an answer that made no sense at all.

He wasn’t here for them.

He was here for her.

CHAPTER TWO

Roman

Roman Matthews ran his boundary the way he did every day. Several times a day. On four legs, alone.

His brothers thought he did it out of habit. Let them think it. The pack they’d grown up in had a hundred wolves to walk its borders. The one they were forming had three. He was the eldest, not the alpha. They were brothers, all alphas in their own right.

But if the eldest didn’t hold the line, nobody held it, and Roman had already learned once what happened when a line didn’t hold. He’d buried that lesson along with the packmates he’d lost, and he didn’t intend to make the mistake twice.

So he ran alone, lived alone, and planned to die alone. A man who’d lost a whole pack had no business collecting anything new to lose. He’d made his peace with it. Mostly. His wolf thoroughly disagreed. The animal wanted a mate the way animals needed food and water. But after six years even the wolf had mostly quit bringing it up.

He’d leave that for his brothers to hope for.

He had more important things to deal with today.

The trucks on Matthews land were a problem. They’d shown up on the old logging road a week ago. He’d found boot prints, tire marks, a hunting blind tucked into a spruce with a clean view onto his land. He knew the rumors going around. Locals bringing in money from out of state for out of season trophy hunts.

The news hadn’t bothered him before. The hunts were taking place elsewhere on the mountain, on land that wasn’t his to defend.

Now they’d moved onto his. And a name had started attaching itself to the rumors—Dale Pruitt. He’d overheard a sheriff’s deputy at the diner on one of the rare occasions he went into town. Roman hadn’t cared enough to ask. He cared now.

Someone had been watching this land for longer than a week. The placement of that blind, the way the tire tracks avoided the soft ground where scent would hold—that was homework. Someone had studied their patrol routes. Roman filed the thought away like a blade under his tongue. Later. First the immediate threat.

He was cutting down toward the creek when he heard them and knew right away something was wrong. They were moving slowly, too slow to be chasing a deer or a bear. But he knew they were hunting something. Pushing their prey. Some flanking, some circling. He knew that pattern. He and his brothers hunted elk that way.

Roman turned toward the sound, stretched into a real run, and the wind shifted. The scent hit him and his whole life went into the ditch.

He stumbled.

Actually stumbled, paws tangling like a pup’s, and stood there in the middle of the woods with his heart slamming and his head full of one thing.

Mate, howled the wolf.

No, thought Roman. It can’t be. It shouldn’t be.

Mate. This time the word came out low and guttural, fierce and protective. The wolf inside him rose to the surface, banging its head against the inside of Roman’s chest.

Mate, mate, mate. Must get to mate. Ours. Claim. Protect. Fuck. Breed.