Wild (Wolf Ranch 2)

Fuck. She saw. She knew. There would be no coaxing her to the truth. It had hit her on the head like a piece of falling roof. I hadn’t wanted her to find out this way. Fuck.

“Shift, Liam!” Rob commanded again. Marina looked up at me in confusion, but I didn’t say anything. This time he infused so much command it exploded through the barn. My body shuddered in response. More pack members shifted, whimpering and tucking their tails. “Shift now.”

It worked.

The boy’s body moved of its own accord, joints snapping and rearranging, clothing tearing until he lay on his side, a panting young wolf.

Audrey stroked her hands down the wolf’s spine, like she was checking for breaks. There had been no bleeding when he was in boy form, so I had to assume he’d been hit on the head from falling debris.

“Now isn’t that a sight? Liam’s got black fur, Mama,” Boyd said calmly, looking up at the boy’s mom from where he knelt beside Audrey. “Give him a little bit. He’ll be okay now.” While he wasn’t a doctor, he assured the weeping mother. “I snapped my neck more than a few times riding bulls and pulled through just fine.”

“Oh, thank you,” the mother exclaimed, dropping down on the other side of her shifted son. Clarinda, I think her name was. I remembered her from high school.

Rob took charge. “Everybody out of the barn. Clearly, it’s not safe. If you can get home, go on. If not, we’ll put you up in the bunkhouse for the night. Johnny, Levi, pick up Liam and carry him to a bunk so he can recover.”

Everyone moved at once, Johnny and Levi doing as told, Clarinda following them out into the rain. Audrey and Boyd stood. He set his hands on her shoulders as he spoke to her. She nodded and then was pulled into his arms.

Boyd looked to Rob. “If you don’t need us, we’re leaving. I want to get to the cabin before that small stream between here and there rises. The last place I want to be on my wedding night is with you guys.”

“What if someone else is hurt?” Audrey asked.

Boyd tipped her chin up, wiped the rain from her face. “Everyone’s fine. You and the baby are on my watch. It’s time to get you home. The only one who can’t shift and heal is Marina.” They looked our way. “And I’m sure Colton will take good care of her.”

I squeezed Marina close, but I didn’t have to say a word. There was no fucking way anything was going to happen to my mate. I’d had a moment of sheer terror when she wasn’t by my side when the roof collapsed. It only confirmed my plans. I was staying. She was it. I just had to wait it out. Hell, maybe I’d even go to LA to be with her. Whatever the plan was, she was in it. Front and center.

Audrey’s glasses were speckled with water, and her face was marred with concern. She didn’t care that her dress was wet and muddy or that her hair was dripping wet or that the party was ruined. She was thinking about others like a true member of the pack.

Rob nodded. “Go.”

Boyd didn’t waste a second, steering Audrey out into the storm and to their wedding night at their cabin in the hills.

Only Rob, Marina and I remained in the barn. Rob looked to me and nodded again, giving me silent permission to tell her. Although, that fucking cat was out of the bag.

I turned to Marina and cupped her face. Beneath my skin, my cells vibrated with the need to claim her, but I forced the sensations down. “Remember, yesterday, you surprised me in the kitchen?”

She looked up at me from her tucked spot against my chest. “Yeah.”

I wiped her wet hair back from her face. Just like I had that first night. “I’ve got one of my own. Surprise. I’m a shifter.”

18

MARINA

* * *

I’m a shifter.

No, not just a shifter. A wolf.

They all were wolves.

Colton was part wolf.

WOLF!

Holy shit.

I felt like I was trapped in a Twilight Zone episode.

Audrey hadn’t been surprised.

She knew.

Of course, she knew. Her husband was part wolf.

That meant she knew Colton was part wolf, a shifter, and didn’t tell me.

I was going to kill her.

Yet, her knowing and being okay with it enough to marry one of them—and have his baby—was the one thing that kept me from totally freaking out. Like, if she’d already accepted it, I could, too. Right?

I saw a boy, unconscious, turn into a wolf. Like a transition in a movie. Could Colton do that? Could all of them?

“Surprise? This was what you were going to tell me before… ” I pointed up.

It must have reminded him where we were, for he led me out of the damaged barn and tugged me beneath one of the overhangs, so we were out of the rain.