Pack or Prey (Wolfblooded book 1)

Chapter 5, Part 3

I jumped to my feet so fast that Frank barely managed to grip his fingers into my shoulder.

"They won't hurt you. I've ordered them not to touch you," he said.

He was making disapproving sounds behind me but I didn't pay him any attention. My attention was all for the people in front of us. If I could call them people anymore. One by one, friend after friend turned into impossibly large wolves until the last of them, Theo, shifted into a particularly menacing white and grey wolf.

The two black wolves shot off into the woods, followed by one, then two, then the rest of the beasts that had changed. Even a few people, who were still people, ran with them as if they bore two extra legs. Just as quickly as the wolves had appeared, they were gone.

My chest hurt. My brain shut down. I was too afraid to even scream. This was impossible. Impossible! Every fiber of my being, that wasn't trying to convince my brain that it had just been tricked, was shouting at me to run, to get the fuck away from this. Fast.

"Harley," Frank said. "Harley! Look at me."

I did.

"They're... it can't…" I couldn't even form a simple sentence.

"I told you," Frank said, cupping my face in his hands. "You had no idea. Now you do. Harls, you were never supposed to find out about this. You weren't supposed to last that long. You have gone against everything I consider normal in my life."

Did he just say his life was normal?!

"I need you. I've needed you the moment I found you, and I still need you now. I know this shit is insane, and I don't expect you to be okay with it right away, but you are a part of my life that I cannot let slip through my fingers. I won't."

I just stared up at him. His voice had gone dark and edged with a deadly growl. Or maybe those impossible wolves were still playing with my head. He hadn't gone all fury and four-legged. He was still human. And still, there was more danger in those brown eyes than the entire pack of wolves that had just run off. It was frightening seeing that much raw emotion in them. It went beyond happiness, sadness, or even insanity. It was aggressive, possessive, and deadly. In that moment, I wanted to get away from Frank. Not the wolves, not Joy Anne's bullshit, but him.

"You're mine," he said, pulling me closer to breathe the words against my forehead, "and you ain't goin' anywhere. Are you?"

The heat of his touch fought against the cold chill his words brought me. It wasn't really a question or a request. In his mind, he already knew the answer. As far as he was concerned, I was here to stay.

What would he do if I called him a freak, a lying bastard, and told him to go to hell? Would he sic his wolves on me, or would he kill me himself? Would I be able to pull out of his arms and make a run for it? Probably not. If I tried, with his hands cradling my face like this, he would probably snap my neck. I honestly didn't know how he'd react if I told him what he didn't want to hear. That scared me most.

If I had any chance at getting away from him without getting hurt, I had to put space between us. He pulled back enough to look down at me, his eyes imploring. I knew what he wanted to hear.

Even with my heart threatening to leap out of my throat, I forced myself to smile up at him—to hide my newfound aversion towards him. I smiled and shook my head slowly, not trusting my own voice.

That seemed to satisfy him. He smiled at me and pulled me into a slow, deep kiss. Once upon a time, that kiss could make me want to give him anything he wanted. Now, all I wanted to do was pull away from him and scrub my lips. When he finally released me, he brushed his fingers across the side of my neck, pulling my hair away from it with his other hand.