by Ellen Lane
Even Hunter was in on it, doing his best to shove Solomon in the direction of any female he deemed the least bit worthy. His brother had even tried to convince him that he and Tempest would suit.
The very idea made him shudder.
Solomon readily acknowledged that it was very unusual that a wolf of his age - especially an Alpha - should remain unmated. Unlike humans, his kind usually mated early, and for life. They developed bonds that surpassed those of their human counterparts, and mating was not taken lightly. It was for this reason that Solomon hated when his uncles mentioned a return to forcing males on females. When he’d become Alpha, Solomon swore that any female in his pack would always have the right to choose.
As his mother had chosen his father.
Christ.
Solomon didn’t often like to think about his parents. Not because they had mistreated or abused him, but because they were both long dead - and they carried with them a secret that threatened everything that he was.
His parents had adored one another. This, of course, was hardly surprising. When allowed to mate with who they chose, and when both partners were willing, there were few things that could outstrip the strength of a mating bond.
It was that bond, however, that had ultimately destroyed them.
If Solomon had his way, he would remain a bachelor. As things were, he’d put off his mating for far longer than most members of his pack. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have needs - if the desire to rut a woman into the ground overcame him, there were plenty of willing females. But rutting was where the interaction ended.
Solomon would be damned if he destroyed a female the way his father destroyed his mother.
While he had endless respect for the mating bond, his parents had been different. The bond that should have joined them until death had been the end of them...which made love one of the most dangerous things that existed. Solomon was much better off alone. As the Alpha of his pack, he had far more serious matters to tend to than attaching himself to a female. Certainly, he would eventually need to produce pups, and he would cross that bridge when he came to it, but the council would never force him into a pairing.
Solomon would never know the mating bond, and that was his one salvation.
Chapter 4
Though she’d had a restless night, Georgia forced herself out of bed when her alarm went off. When she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror above the dresser, she grimaced. She looked about as good as she felt - green eyes ringed with dark circles, blonde hair unkempt, face still flushed with fatigue.
With a groan, she dragged herself into the bathroom. A few cold splashes of water to the face and she was decidedly more alert. After spending half the night up talking with Everly, she was surprised she hadn’t decided to use some of the mountains of the sick time she had piled up. Instead, here she was preparing for a daily jog her heart most certainly wasn’t in.
When she made her way to the living room to check on Ever - her sister had passed out cold on the couch around two in the morning - she was surprised to find the blanket she’d left neatly folded beneath a torn piece of notebook paper. Everly’s spindly handwriting spelled out a short note.
Went home early - Doctor’s appointment at 8. Do NOT work overtime tonight. We have a dinner date.
Love,
E
Georgia’s lips quirked upward into a small smile. Of course, Everly would threaten her into getting off early. Today, she couldn’t say she minded. She was exhausted, and the week had already passed in a blur of overtime shifts that practically had her seeing sideways.
Despite all this, Georgia refused to neglect her morning jog. It was her private time, where she could let her mind wander as she strengthened her body. She’d been so busy lately that she was lucky if she got to jog once a week - she wasn’t about to give up her little slice of heaven.
The autumn morning was chilly, but Georgia knew she’d warm up after five minutes or so of exercise. She locked the door to her apartment behind her, inhaling the crisp air deeply as she gazed over the apartment complex. It was barely seven - everyone was still sleeping and the world was quiet.
A narrow jogging trail led beyond the three squat apartment buildings that made up the complex and up the entry drive to follow the road towards town. In the mile or so that she remained on it, Georgia only saw two solitary cars. Dockery was an old town - and it behaved like it, the occupants rarely rising before ten or eleven in the morning. She turned her feet away from the major road and along with a series of bare fields at the base of the mountains.
And what mountains.
It was the offseason for crops, so nothing blocked her view of the majesty before her. The Dockery mountains were part of the Adirondacks, the range running right through the town. They rose high before her, the green blanket that covered them obscured by mist halfway towards the sky. They had always existed - as had their controversial inhabitants.
As she ran, Georgia’s mind jerked back to her encounter with her ex-husband the previous week.
They’re coming.
She repressed a shudder, even as her breath misted before her. Vincent didn’t know what he was talking about. He and his family were the last vestiges of a breed of dying fanatics. Now, free of his grip, she tried to convince herself that there was no way he knew as much about shifters as he claimed.
After all, they rarely caused trouble for the people of Dockery.
While Vincent was busy teaching her to hate them blindly, Shifters helped the town’s economy. They took tourists on day-trips and provided a safety net for the logging community. On the rare occasion that they did come close enough to town to be seen, the most intimidating thing about them was their near-perfect, nude bodies - as they weren’t very modest people. She had never seen them perpetrate the violence Vincent warned her they were capable of.
Even so...the way he’d looked when he issued that warning...Georgia had never seen him quite that crazed.
She followed the jogging path past the fields until it pushed right up against the base of the mountains. In high tourist season, gaggles of shifter-groupies lined these trails in hopes of getting a glimpse of the demi-humans. The people of Dockery themselves tended to keep away for the most part. Unless the Shifter in question was Duke Dozier, the people themselves tended to put the town entirely on edge.
But Georgia had been running these trails for years. She wasn’t about to give up her solitude on the off chance that she ran into a shifter. Despite the atrocities that Vincent had burned into her brain over years of indoctrination, she didn’t really think they would hurt her.
...At least, she hoped not.
There was a portion of the trail that looped away from the flat, packed earth of the fields and wound through the base of the mountains for a mile or two. It was the most challenging part of her run - twining around tree stumps and through dense foliage - but she enjoyed getting her blood up. When she ran like this, her mind emptied, and the most important thing was the path in front of her.
Georgia had just rounded a familiar bend that would flatten out back towards the fields in another one hundred yards or so when her foot connected with an unseen obstacle on the path. With a surprised cry, she went down hard, sprawling into the dirt. Thanks to the leggings she wore, her knees were spared but the first layer of skin came off her palms, making her wince.
A low curse escaped her as she shifted onto her side, catching her breath. When she raised her hands to examine them, she hissed at the torn, ragged skin. Christ, why hadn’t she watched where she was going?
“You gotta be more careful, babe. This trail is dangerous.” Startled, Georgia looked up to see someone standing to the side of the trail, just beyond the tree line. She squinted at his thin figure before blowing out an irritated breath.
“Yeah, I got that.” He couldn’t be anyone from town. Dockery folks might have at least offered to help her up. “Thanks.” She tossed the scrap, if not the accompanying sincerity, his
way, before dusting herself and standing. She’d rinse her hands before she went to the hospital, but she didn’t seem to be any worse for the wear.
“You all alone out here?”
Another interruption from the stranger had her turning to face him warily. “Just like you, apparently.”
He seemed to take that as his cue to step from the shadows. Georgia was surprised to find he was hardly more than a kid - maybe in his early twenties. Dressed in leather, with spiky dark hair and more tattoos than she could count, he leered at her, giving her a once over that made her feel as if she were wearing half the clothing she was.
Scowling, Georgia turned, preparing to leave him in the dust -
Only to find that he wasn’t quite as alone as she was. Another guy stood in the center of the path, blocking her way. He was quite a bit larger than his friend, but their expressions of glee were almost identical.
Georgia really didn’t like this.
Dockery was usually a safe town - boring even. But since Shifters had come out to the world five decades earlier, they’d attracted their fair share of tourists, some of whom were rather unsavory. She usually felt pretty secure on her morning jog, but now she was beginning to regret not texting her sister before she left the house.
Thankfully, the path behind her was clear. Turning, Georgia darted away from both men, thankful that she wasn’t too tired to sprint. Unfortunately, that was about where her luck ran out. A leg shot into the middle of the path, tripping her up for the second time. She might have been able to save herself, but the first signs of fear made her unsteady, and Georgia found herself on the ground once more. This time, she barely felt the sting of her torn palms.
Before she could get up, the three men had surrounded her. If it were one or two, she was pretty confident she might have been able to fight back. But three?
Swallowing thickly, Georgia tried her best to remain calm. “What do you want?” Her demand came out with a surprising amount of venom, considering how fast her heart raced.
“Oh, I think that should be obvious, sweetheart.” The first guy crouched down in front of her, tossing his dark hair back lazily. His eyes were cruel for someone so young, but even so, the snick of the knife he pulled was enough to shock Georgia into the realization that she was in very real danger. “Now,” He waved the unsheathed blade - about five or six inches long - before her perspiring face. “You’re going to be very, very still while we have our fun with you. And if you’re still conscious when we’re done, I might think about leaving you alive.”
Part of her refused to process what was happening. She had to be back asleep in her apartment in the midst of some sort of nightmare. This was Dockery they were talking about. The crime rate was near nonexistent! “Hey.” Georgia inhaled sharply when the knife very suddenly pressed against her jaw, just beneath her ear. When a sliver of pain pierced her senses, any notion of dreams evaporated. “Are you paying attention, baby?”
It took her roughly two seconds to decide to act.
While Georgia was, without a doubt, terrified, she wasn’t about to just let herself be the victim. After her divorce had finally gone through, she swore she would never let herself, or anyone she loved, be victimized ever again. If it came down to living in fear or fighting back, Georgia assuredly fought back.
Even with a knife at her throat.
When she lunged backward, kicking out powerfully, the blade sliced a jagged cut down her jaw that made her hiss in pain. Thankfully, she caught her attacker in the gut and his shout of surprise gave her the distraction she needed to bolt away. She stumbled only briefly before shoving through the foliage as she raced from the path.
She would be safer this way. They could catch her more easily on the path, and she knew could lose them in the forest. She’d explored these woods enough as a kid that, with some luck, she could find her way home once she lost them.
The execution of her plan, however, began to unravel almost immediately.
Georgia considered herself to be in good shape, but she was already winded from her run so far, and terror didn’t give her any extra stamina. The incline of the mountain started gently but grew increasingly steeper the further she ran. As there was no path, Georgia crashed through foliage and cut herself on branches and thorns in an effort to put space between herself and her assailants.
After ten terse minutes, she could still hear them forcing their way through the foliage behind her, as her breath grew more and more labored. When the hell were these creeps going to give up? Another ten minutes and her lungs were burning, every exposed inch of skin stinging from tiny cuts and abrasions. The mountainside went straight up, and she had no idea how much longer she could keep going before she was completely exhausted.
She caught hold of a tree branch to haul herself up, gasping for breath. Georgia slipped on the rocks and leaves beneath her feet freely now, and she could feel blood trickling down her throat from where she’d been cut. Behind her, her pursuers whooped in something horribly like excitement. “Come on baby! Make us work for it!”
“We’ll wear you down honey! We can’t wait to get to know you better!”
At this point, fear was the only thing keeping her going. When the next tree she groped for slipped between her fingertips, she gasped, sliding halfway down the hill towards her assailants. Georgia closed her eyes, unwilling to watch them gain on her. Jesus, had she really escaped one hell just to dive into another? She told herself she would do her best to endure it - that she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of hearing her scream -
But the yell of terror that suddenly rent the air wasn’t hers.
Georgia inhaled sharply, her eyes popping open as one of her attackers screamed again - this time in pain.
The sight that met her startled gaze tore the breath from her lungs.
A wolf had appeared. It stood at least as tall at the shoulder as a full-grown man, its fur gray and bristling. Powerful muscles worked as it tore at the shoulder of one of the men who’d been chasing her - the skinny one responsible for the cut on her face. Though he’d been out for her blood, Georgia couldn’t help but feel sorry for him now. The wolf was all but ripping his head off in a ferocious display of violence.
The mere sight of the gigantic beast was enough to send the other two men into hysterics. Completely forgetting about her, they fell over themselves to flee the monster, screaming at the top of their lungs.
Moments after the attack started, the man in the wolf’s jaws stopped twitching. The animal released him, backing away with a snarl. Large, golden eyes glared at the prone figure with intense hatred for a full minute before the animal finally straightened onto all four legs, licking its jowls.
Georgia wished she was too exhausted to panic. Unfortunately, her mind already ran wild with fear at the sight before her. She’d just watched this creature murder a man - and it certainly wasn’t your run-of-the-mill gray wolf. All at once, all the stories her ex-husband had told her - tales of violence and evil that she’d shoved to the very back of her mind - resurfaced with a vengeance.
Shifter.
It had come from nowhere and dispatched the man chasing her without a thought. The notion was so far from the people she caught glimpses of on the outskirts of town - from the mysterious but mild-mannered Duke Dozier - that she was having trouble reconciling the images in her head.
And then, all at once, the wolf turned its glowing eyes on her.
Georgia inhaled sharply, scrabbling backward a few feet until her already injured hand glanced off a sharp rock. She cried out, clutching it to her chest.
There was a long moment in which neither of them moved. Georgia stared at the creature before her, her chest tight with terror. It stared back, unblinking, before taking a few steps towards her. When Georgia whimpered in fear, it stopped.
As Georgia looked on, the gigantic beast shuddered, shaking its head once.
And then it changed.
Its fur rippled, shrinking into its body as it stood up
on two legs. Its waist shrank, shoulders widening as its snout receded into a now decidedly human face. Two full minutes of popping bones, stretching tendons and the most bizarre - and nauseating - transformation she’d ever seen, and a man stood before her.
Georgia found herself shocked into absolute silence.
At close to six and a half feet tall, he was larger than any man she’d ever seen. Broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist, and his entire body rippled with the kind of muscle she’d only ever heard about. He was, of course, totally naked, and at any other time, propriety would have kept her eyes above his waist, but Georgia couldn’t help but notice the network of scars that covered every inch of exposed skin save for his very generous endowments.
She had to be insane - she was miles from town and had almost been killed - but her body reacted. How couldn’t it? The man was built like something out of a renaissance painting.
A warmth that had nothing to do with her fatigue spread from her belly outward. She swallowed thickly, her gaze rising to his face once more.
And what a face it was - all hard angles, from his jaw to the sharp slant of his mouth. Dark hair fell to his shoulders, softening some of those edges, but his eyes were anything but soft. In oppose to the eyes of the wolf he had just been, the man’s gaze flashed a bright, emerald green, pinning her to the forest floor with its intensity.
She was terrified...and she wasn’t, all at once. It was probably the closest she’d ever been to one of his kind - at least, one in the wild. Back in town, Duke Dozier was a class all his own. He was the antithesis of this man - this wild, untamed male that made her feel more undeniably female than she had in a long time.
The loud snap of a breaking branch suddenly echoed through the underbrush. Immediately, the man turned, lowering into a crouch as an unmistakably inhuman growl rumbled from his throat, his eyes flashing yellow.
That was all it took for Georgia to remember what he was.
Her heart in her throat, she scrambled to her feet, drawing on her last reserves of strength to sprint east, doing her best to keep her footing.