Page 69 of Bound

“Don’t let her out of your sight,” Bain warns Maddox, who just shakes his head in return, clearly not amused with the order.

I follow Bain and Chase outside, where we toss our clothes to the side and shift. I’ve taken to fur more times in the past month than I ever have before. It feels nice, but mostly because my wolf loves to be around Red in her wolf form.

Bain takes off toward the forest, and Chase and I follow, side by side. We follow Bain’s blond wolf toward the location Maddox gave us from Kane.

I can feel the tension coming off‌ Chase. Like me, and the rest of our pack, he’s clearly preoccupied with the current state of our little wolf. But I hate seeing my twin like this.

Suddenly, he nips at my leg, and the tension leaves me as I nudge him back. He’s clearly not as distracted as I had thought. He barks playfully at me.

I can tell it’s just an act, though. He’s not really relaxed. His brain is probably going crazy right now, trying not to thinkabout the dangers around us. He’s been doing it since we were little.

We may have been born identical and see eye to eye on pretty much everything important, but we are two very different people, and sometimes it’s hard to get him to stop being my protector. For as long as I can remember, he’s been standing up for me and putting himself in front of any danger that comes our way.

Iwantto stand beside him. I want to be his equal, but he’s always taken our protection on his own shoulders, just because he was born a few minutes before me. When Maddox found us and took us into his pack, that protection extended to all five of us. And even though Bain is the official head enforcer, Chase wanted to be right there beside him. He trained hard and built an armor of humor as his best defense.

Sometimes I worried he didn’t know how to truly relax and be himself. Until Red showed up. I’ve seen more of the carefree brother I used to know in this past month than I have in years.

She’s good for him. She’s good for all of us.

“I can smell it,”Bain says, interrupting my internal ramblings.

I lower my nose as we start to slow, and sure enough, I get a whiff of it. It’s foul and smells a bit like a spoiled egg.

“That’s gnarly,”Chase comments as we continue to follow Bain to a clearing where several other members of the Westgrove patrol are waiting in human form.

Bain shifts to speak with Hendrix, the pack's head enforcer.

“You smelled it?” he asks, wasting no time on small talk.

“Yes, it gets stronger in this direction,” Bain tells him.

“There’s a second scent,” he tells us. “We’re going to follow the other one,” he says, gesturing to the three wolves with him. “You three take the one you scented. As usual, don’t follow itbeyond the pack lands. We just want to make sure they’re gone. Hopefully, they were just passing through.”

Bain nods and shifts back quickly. We follow him through the clearing as Hendrix shifts and leads his group in a different direction.

We spread out in a line as we move through the woods so that we don’t miss any change in direction. The smell is gross and reminds me of a rogue we found several years ago. Sometimes, feral wolves have this distinct rotten smell, almost as if their scent changes to match the state of their mind—decay.

It was one of the reasons we knew straight away that Red wasn’t even slightly feral. She’s always smelled delicious. Like a cherry pie with a hint of smoky vanilla. And those few times when her scent has grown extra thick? My wolf has been tempted to take more than a bite out of her.

“I think it’s changing directions,”Bain says from our right as he starts to turn. Chase follows him, but I get a fresh whiff of its scent from my left.

“I smell it over here,” I tell them as I follow my nose around a large tree.

Just as I reach the other side, a searing pain goes up my leg, making me howl. I whip my head around and find a large wolf with its jaws clamped around my back leg. Its eyes are red, and straight away, I know this rogue has gone completely feral. There’s nothing left in there of the shifter he used to be.

It’s the curse of not having a pack. Your humanity is drained by your wolf until all that’s left is instinct and a desire to hurt and kill.

I try to nip at him, but I can’t turn with his jaw on me.

Then Chase is there, on the rogue’s back, sinking his teeth into its neck. Its jaws open, and I quickly pull my leg free, limping away as Bain joins in, taking the rogue down with Chase with only a couple of well-placed bites.

I collapse to the ground, panting heavily as they finish him off. Chase quickly comes over and licks my leg.

I yank it away, and the action causes pain.“Fuck,”I hiss through the bond.

“Shit, sorry. How do I help you?”Chase asks as he stares at my injured leg.

“I just need to wait for it to heal.”