Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 242728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1214(@200wpm)___ 971(@250wpm)___ 809(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 242728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1214(@200wpm)___ 971(@250wpm)___ 809(@300wpm)
She stiffened and sat on her haunches, yipping twice, summoning our alpha.
I scowled. “You had to involve him so soon?”
She cocked her head, her bushy tail swishing in rain-damp wildflowers.
A rustle sounded above and behind me.
I didn’t bother looking over my shoulder as claws scratched on stone and the soft thud of weight landed on the ground. A few other thuds as more females jumped after Salak, their hackles raised, all while they trotted around me, grinning with welcome.
Turning to face the monstrous alpha as he raised his head with his spiral-sharp horns, I placed the girl on the ground at his feet. “She’s mine. She isn’t a threat to you or your family, Salak. She’s my mate and I want her to stay.”
The alpha glowered at me, baring his fangs.
His annoyance fed through the air.
I couldn’t understand why he acted as if I asked too much. As if this girl was any more of an inconvenience than me. “You’ve already taken in one mortal and allowed me to become wolf,” I argued. “Why not one more?”
He barked, shaking out his fur.
I tried to make sense of his reluctance and read the cues he gave, but the girl moaned and twitched at his feet.
His ears flattened, and he lowered his head, pressing his nose to her belly.
She flinched at the wet coolness, her eyes flying wide.
For a moment, she blinked with the same dazedness of before, but then her head turned, and she yelped.
Scrambling to her knees, she raised her arms as if to shield herself from being eaten by a wolf that could’ve torn out her throat in a blink if he wanted. “Please...don’t—” Her voice was weak and still held some of its slur, but she didn’t pass out again.
Moving to stand beside her, I rested a hand on her trembling shoulder. The familiar heat between us warmed my blood, and Salak cocked his head, sniffing the air where I touched her. He stared into me, more intense than any other stare, before he shifted and stared at the girl. He moved so close, his paws trapped her knees between them, his towering bulk shadowing her on the ground as his nose pressed to hers.
The girl didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
The other wolves surrounding us never took their eyes off Salak and the girl kneeling before him.
I resisted the urge to let her go. Fear for the girl’s safety commanded I prepare to defend her, but my faith in Salak stilled all my stirrings of violence. He wouldn’t hurt her. I was sure of that. I trusted these beasts far more than I trusted any of the Nhil she’d once lived with.
As if she understood what Salak wanted, she bowed her head and presented her nape to him. Her hair was thick with mud and crinkled from drying trapped between her body and my arm. The beads of her spine stood out, delicate and vulnerable beneath the last remnants of ashy designs that’d mostly vanished in the rain.
My hand slipped off her shoulder as she breathed, “Thank you.” She bowed deeper. “Thank you for healing the stranger.” She flattened her hands on the ground, her fingers so close to touching Salak’s giant paws. “I thought he was dead, yet I wake to find you have magic. Magic that heals fevers and stitches wounds.” A small hitch in her voice as she added, “Perhaps you can help me and tell me how I’m here when my last memory was walking through a fire. Perhaps you can tell me if this is another vision or real.”
Salak lowered his head, nuzzling her chin, forcing her head to tilt upward.
She obeyed, raising her eyes to look at him. “You feel so real. You smell so real. Yet...none of this can be real.”
A smaller female wolf who was mother to six newborn pups padded forward. I hadn’t named her yet, but she held such sweet concern in her yellow stare that the word Kiu came to mind. It meant kindness in the language that I shared with the girl.
Kiu didn’t stop until she flanked Salak. Her gaze never left the girl’s, and with the sharpest whine full of hello and heartache, she folded herself over the girl’s knees, resting her head on the ground, looking up at the girl as if she was a long-lost littermate.
Salak stiffened.
He growled at Kiu.
The girl jolted, but with shaking hands, she stroked Kiu’s head, running her fingers between the female’s horns. “I would never hurt your family,” she whispered. “I’m no threat to you.”
I glared at the alpha, hoping he heard the same vow I’d already spoken spilling from her lips. Why had he saved my life when I’d begged for death, yet acted so coldly when I brought my own mate back to the den? To deny her sanctuary went against everything I knew about the caring, protective alpha.