Page 37 of Rescued

Again, they began loping in a circle, getting closer and closer. Every now and then one would snap at her, making her flinch. “Stop it!” she said. They started growling. Then one of them lunged at her.

Breanna panicked and turned to run. Another one lunged at her, and she swerved. Somehow she ducked between them—or they were toying with her. She could hear their growls behind her, even feel their hot breath.

Any second they’d be on her, rending and tearing at her. She stumbled over a tree root, fell, and curled up in a ball, waiting to die.

Then she heard a rush of air and a snarl, and the terrifying thud of two bodies colliding. Leaves and fallen branches crashed under their weight.

Breanna lifted her head to see what was going on. The biggest wolf was on the ground, with a black wolf on top of him, fighting.

The other two wolves that had been chasing her were on the periphery of the fight, lunging in and dodging out of the way, trying to bite the black wolf.

Finally the two wolves rolled apart and struggled to their feet. The black wolf faced off against the others, snarling, his body between them and Breanna.

As she watched, his form shimmered and morphed, with popping sounds like sticks breaking.

The wolf turned into Switch, rising up tall, radiating fury.

Chapter 16

Breanna watched, mouth open, as the wolf suddenly became the man who’d been taking care of her.

His back and butt were deeply muscled and powerful—almost as powerful as the aura of danger that radiated out from him. Blood ran down his back from several sets of claw marks, but he didn’t even seem to feel it.

“Leave her the fuck alone,” he snarled. “Breanna, are you okay?”

She got to her feet slowly. Her legs felt shaky and her palms were scraped from her fall, stinging like fire.

Staying well back from the other wolves, she said, “I think so. Yeah.” The three wolves were restless, moving their paws uneasily like they wanted to come forward, but Switch’s anger was making a wall they couldn’t pass through.

Switch yelled at the wolves again. “What the fuck is even wrong with you? You know she’s human. She can’t defend herself. She’s been through enough. Why would you want to mess with her like that, you psycho?”

He was mainly yelling at the biggest one—apparently he was the psycho. The big wolf shimmered and turned into Sanchez. Of course. And he was also naked. Bigger than Switch, and almost as angry. She tried not to look at his dong, hanging out like it was no big deal.

She didn’t think she’d ever get used to how these guys waved their dicks around.

Sanchez snarled back at Switch. “She shouldn’t be in our territory. We don’t want her here. We don’t want any women here.”

Whoa. Was this the eighteen hundreds, or what?

Breanna edged up to Switch, still staying behind him. “What’s wrong with women?” she murmured.

Apparently, though, the big man had ears like—well, like a wolf. He said, “This is a fighting pack. For men. We’re soldiers. We’ve always been soldiers.”

Sexist much? Breanna said, “And women can’t be soldiers? Mikey seems pretty tough.”

Sanchez spat on the ground. So much for Mikey.

He said, “It’s not about tough. When a wolf gets a mate, especially a fucking fated mate, that’s all that matters. They come first. Gunn was our alpha, and then he got with her, and that’s all he could think about. Her, not us.”

Switch said, “It’s not like that anymore. He bonded with you all. Pledged to every one of you to take care of you.”

“It doesn’t fucking matter! Don’t you get it?” Breanna could hear the frustration in his voice. “First one woman, then more. Then there’s fucking cubs, and schools and playgrounds and fucking little league teams.”

Sanchez shook his head, growling. “We’re soldiers,” he repeated. “What matters is the missions. And now Gunn brought his woman here and they want everyone to hang out together and have fucking barbecues and act like we’re real people. We’re not.

“We fight. It’s what we do. Bring a bunch of women in here, and it will destroy the one thing that holds us together.”

All of a sudden, Breanna understood. In his own way, Sanchez was like her.