Page 23 of Banished From the Pack

I bat Ethan’s head. “I know she’s a wolf. Do you think you’re the only one with a nose?”

“Cut it out, you two,” Warrick grumbles, and we both fall silent.

Warrick may not have bested Axel, but he’s powerful, and he’s the most dominant of us all. He needs to be someone’s Alpha, and since he doesn’t have a pack, he leads us.

“I’m surprised she made it this far,” Ethan muses. “A cute little female like that…”

A male lone wolf might make it a few years, but a female? She’s as much prey as the bunny.

“What, you want to fuck her?” I demand, suddenly protective of the female.

“I might,” Ethan says with a shrug. “If she’s close enough to legal and dumb enough to let me.”

Not that Ethan’s afraid of the law. Humans don’t govern supernaturals, and without a pack to keep us in line, we live like outlaws. Our bodies are hard from hard work. Our skin is inked all over and scarred from the many fights we’ve been in over the years. Locals fear us and hate us in equal measure, and the Jacksonville pack’s got orders to kill us if we’re ever caught in their territory. They’ve tried, and we’ve got the battle scars to prove it. But they just can’t shake us for good because Axel’s all about law and order, and he won’t break werewolf law and come attack us outside of his territory no matter how many times we cross him. Man’s got principles, whatever those are.

I give Ethan a shove. “Don’t fucking touch her.”

“Leave her and let’s go on home,” Warrick says. “Dinner’s waiting.”

“What?” I ask, twisting around to glare up at him. “We can’t just leave her. She needs help.”

“Who’s going to take care of her? You?” Warrick sneers at me.

“Why not me?” I demand. Warrick may be out Alpha, but we aren’t afraid of him. We’re each equally important, even if he’s most dominant.

“We could all use a little female company,” Ethan says. “Imagine how easy it would be if we didn’t have to go down to the bar to find a piece of ass every time our balls get full.”

“You mean every night?” I ask with a sour look at our most promiscuous brother.

He grabs his balls. “These bad boys need relief after a hard day’s work.”

“If she belongs to them…” Warrick jabs a thumb over his shoulder. “Those sons of bitches will be crawling all over our place if we take a she-wolf from the pack.”

“If she belongs to the J-ville crew, we get to mess with them a little,” Ethan says, with a sly grin that shows off one of his missing molars, courtesy of a bar fight with a fae.

“They already want us dead, asshole. You’re not banging her even if she is of mating age.” I start to slap the back of Ethan’s head again, but Warrick snags my hand.

“Enough. Let me consider this,” he says, scowling.

Ethan and I wait, silent, as our brother thinks. I might argue and make my case, but in the end, he has the final word. Always.

Which means this is my only chance to persuade his stubborn ass.

“She’ll die for sure if we leave her out here,” I say. “She’s barely alive now. She’s probably not from the Jacksonville pack. Look how skinny she is. She must be a runaway, and fuck only knows what she’s been through before she collapsed.”

“He’s right,” Ethan says, eyefucking her tender little body like he wants to put his dick in it right here and now. “If she doesn’t belong to the pack, they can’t miss her. A gift is what this is. And it just fell into our laps. Are we really going to toss it to the gators?”

“Maybe she was looking for the pack, and she almost made it before her strength gave out,” I continue. “Now, we have a defenseless little she-wolf on our hands. One of our own kind. Are we really going to leave a fellow lone wolf to die?”

“Or send her into the arms of our enemies?” Ethan asks.

At last, Warrick grunts before turning to leave.

I look at Ethan and smile.

Ethan doesn’t need any more pussy. Women love his outlaw charm. They see his tats and they want to ride him like a motorcycle. I’d be lying if I said we didn’t have a certain… Reputation around town. Sometime in the last ten or fifteen years, word got around that we’re always good for a few multiple orgasms.

I’m not much better, but sometimes I want more than I let on. Sometimes I’d rather one of those women stick around a little longer. But they always head home to the comfort of their stable lives after a wild weekend with us. As I toss the girl’s body over my shoulder and start back toward our cabin, I think maybe we’re due for one who sticks around a while.