The Stone Wolf's Rejected Mate by Cate C. Wells

Author:Cate C. Wells [Wells, Cate C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-11T18:30:00+00:00

I wake up on the dirt floor of a dim room that smells like blood and old fear, and my heart nearly punches through my chest. I leap to my feet, my wolf and I searching the shadowy corners for danger, but we’re alone. My pulse pounds in my ears, and my breath is harsh in the damp silence.

There’s a heavy wooden door. It doesn’t have a knob. A piece of board has been nailed over the hole where the knob should be. I rush to it, trying to open it anyway, pushing with both palms and then slamming my shoulder into it, but it doesn’t budge.

There’s a small rectangular slat at head height, and I pry and shove, but I can’t open it.

I’m in a basement. Black mold creeps up the walls from rotting baseboards. The room is fairly big, as large as the supply shed, but there’s only one high glass-block window. Although it’s thick with dust, it lets in some light. It’s morning. How long was I out?

Where’s Clay?

My panic swells, and I grab for the bond and pull and pull. I know he’s there. I can feel him, his fury and anxiety, but I can’t tell if he’s close or if he feels me.

My jaw throbs. My face is swollen, my right eye puffed into a narrow slit, and I’m scared.

The room is empty except for a pile of stained sheets in the corner. Something terrible has happened there. It’s clearly a nest, but it’s been fouled. Instead of one male, it smells of many. The cotton reeks of terror and pain. It’s been ruined, everything intentionally kicked out of place. There are small dirt footprints, no bigger than my own, stomped into a pale-blue thermal blanket.

I don’t smell death. The female who made the nest survived. She walked out of this room. I will, too.

I try the door again, turning to kick the bottom with my bare heels, but it doesn’t give. The window is too high. I still jump for it, but I’m a good foot away from reaching the ledge, and even if I could break the glass blocks, I’m not sure I would fit. My wolf could squeeze through it. Maybe she could leap to the ledge.

I eye the distance from the door to the window. Maybe twelve feet.

My wolf dashes around inside me, yowling up a storm. She wants to try. She’s so very small, though. I don’t think she has the strength to break the glass, and if Eldrick and the others come back, I would be even more vulnerable. The blow I took to the face would have killed her, without doubt.

I’ll try the jump again myself. I back up to the door and take a running leap, and this time, my fingertips skim the ledge, but I can’t get a grip. I back up, try again, and fall. Then I pound on the door again until my shoulders and my heels are bruised. I can’t stop. If I give up, this is real, and I can’t let that be.

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