Page 27 of Rabid
Without warning, without even his scent betraying him, the dark brown wolf bursts from the spot in a powerful leap as if he ripped himself from the very shadows surrounding us. He’s on top of us in an instant, but my wolf is ready for it.
She flips over onto her back and shoves all four paws into his belly, knocking him off. They begin to grapple, with careful bites and the swipe of paws. Her deflection is meant to shove him away, while his every move is with the intent to pin us down.
The more we fight, the more we’re able to evade his maneuverings, the more excited he becomes. His brown eyes flash, his delicious scent plugging our nose, and then as quick as a whip, he uses his bigger body to his advantage by sideswiping us and trapping us against the rocky cave wall. She snaps at him, going for his shoulder, but he knocks her head away with a swipe of his paw.
My wolf is panting even harder now, and he watches her, lips pulling back in a wolfish grin. It’s the fanged smile of a predator turned victor. He fought and ran hard, proved himself to my wolf that he’s strong and quick and cunning enough.
A worthy mate. Our mate.
That thought blares from her mind to mine, and then she shifts her hips with a whine, a clear invitation for him to mount her. The brown wolf reeks of smug satisfaction, while my female practically purrs, ready to move onto theclaimingpart of this claiming hunt as our pheromones hit the air in a seductive call.
He moves around, sniffing down her back, tongue dragging against fur, but then, without warning, or perhaps because we’re both too distracted to have noticed, two gray and white wolves crash into us.
The force of the hit sends me flying back, head smacking against the hard cave wall.
I hear ferocious snarls and snapping teeth in a vicious fight, but I can’t look to see how the brown wolf is handling the unwelcome male, because the other unfamiliar wolf springs on top of me in an instant. His body immediately responds to pheromones that weren’t meant for him as his teeth go for my wolf’s neck. He aims to bite us, to pin us between his jaws while he claims something he didn’t earn.
Flashes of Burke trying to do the same thing slash through our mind, his revolting scent filling our senses as though he’s the taker on top of us and not some strange unknown gray and white wolf. Rage shuts down the feelings of helplessness that try to swell in our chest. Everything around us shifts, all playfulness gone.
We snap.
My human consciousness bows and breaks, and those melded, savage, fractured parts of our spirits take over. We will never let another Burke break us even more or take what wasn’t offered. We were dumped here because we became rabid, because our beautiful joining was forced to embrace raw ferociousness in order to survive. Burke and my old pack want us to feel wrong about what we are now, like it makes us less than or damaged. But right now, my wolf and I welcome our mercilessly wild ways, happily give ourselves over to its tainted call.
Violet eyes burn crazed and bright, teeth sharpen like razors as our mouth froths with frenzied fury. Our vision, our need, all tunnels down to one repeated mantra—kill, maim, destroy.The only anecdote is to bleed this wolf until there’s not a drop in him and then offer his body to the earth in pieces.
We tear into him. He’s not prepared for the strength of our attack or our level of violence. My vision bubbles and dots with the surge of adrenaline and single-minded viciousness, and then all we know is his flesh in our mouth, the taste of his blood on our tongue. We kick and shake and bite and claw until his whines and yelps pour out of him, his pain bouncing around the cave and feeding our demand for vengeance.
The gray and white wolf is knocked beneath us, and we stand over him, teeth bared in a growl, eyes glowing as a drip of bloody foam falls from our mouth to his face. He flinches and whimpers, showing us his neck, submitting to our dominance, but we’re too caught up in the rabid bloodlust to let him off the hook.
We don’t realize that the brown furred wolf has already finished fighting the other attacker until he slams into us, knocking us off our prey and keeping us from executing a fatal strike. We counteract the big brown wolf’s charge, staying on our feet and fixing him with an enraged gaze and a snarl. Why would the male we chose deny us our rightful kill?
We drop our head threateningly, fangs bared and dripping with wrath and blood as we unleash the full extent of our spirits’ ruination. The brown wolf stills as though he’s just now understanding what he’s up against. As though our shattered, jagged pieces are on full display.
You’re a fucking stain.
A malignancy of our kind.
A disgrace to Totemic shifters everywhere.
An intensity enters his bright tawny eyes, and we glare at him, chest heaving, ready for him to deny us, to put us down now that he’s seen what we really are. It should hurt, the way he’s looking at us. The way his gaze confirms the horrible things spat at us by lesser wolves. But right then, there’s too much hate in our hearts to care. Too much violence. If he tries to kill us instead of claim us, we will go down in a fury of teeth and claws.
He stares at us, those bright brown eyes looking like they’re staring straight through our soul. Instead of going for my throat, he makes a noise low in his. With a clear order, the wolf I dominated and almost killed whines, crawling with his belly scraping the rock of the cave, ears pressed back and tail tucked as he slinks away slowly. We try to snap at him, to still go for that killing blow, and he yelps when we lunge, but we’re once again thwarted by the huge brown wolf.
The other one turns and races away as fast as his limp and trodden pride can carry him, and then it’s just the two of us again.
We snarl at the male my wolf thought was worthy of us, furious that he let those males get away, but he just watches us as though he’s puzzling things out. We snap at him, and he gives a warning growl, daring us to take our anger out on him. But instead of the warning putting my reactions in check, it drives my wolf harder to do just that.
Someone has to pay. It may as well be him.
Chapter Ten
In a split second, everything changes for me and my wolf. We stop pulling in the tantalizing scent of this male, stop looking at him as though there’s a future there, and instead, we view him as the enemy.
My wolf studies him, quickly assessing the best way to take him on. The tension in the cave rises, and the hair on our spine rises with it. There’s an electric charge all around us as though lightning is threatening to strike at any moment. And just when my wolf is ready to charge, to attack, tomaimhim in an unleashing of our savage ire, the brown wolf does something that makes us pause.
In a shift so fluid and seamless, he rises from four legs to two. His skin absorbs his fur, muzzle reduces until his jaw is squared and chiseled, his fangs now a row of straight white teeth. Eyes the color of tanned leather stare me down, and shoulder length carob-brown hair frames his magnificent face. He’s solid muscle, pure dominance, and sex on a fucking stick.
“Shift,” he commands, his voice deep, powerful, and undeniable.
