“Shift,” Axel said, his voice even deeper. There was a tug in my middle, like something was trying to climb out of me. I focused on that tug and tried to give in to it, but nothing happened.
“I guess I'm not a werewolf,” I said.
“No,” Axel said. “You're a werewolf. I can smell it. You just…Your wolf isn't responding to the alpha voice.” He cleared his throat. “I'm going to have to walk you through this.”
I felt beyond exposed at this point, on all fours on the cement floor, my ass in the air. Axel wasn't ogling me, in fact, he was facing Clarissa, but it didn't make me feel much better. “Just tell me what to do, because I'm not feeling very wolfy.”
He grunted and I waited. I waited and I waited, my knees getting progressively colder and sorer. My nipples were hard enough to cut glass at that point. “Are you speaking telepathically?” I asked. “Because I have to say, I'm not feeling anything.”
He coughed. “Right. No. I'm thinking.”
I got to my feet and faced him, fully nude. I was way beyond caring at this point and he was still facing Clarissa. “Please tell me you've done this before.”
“I've never done this before, but I had it done for me. I didn't respond to the command to shift either, and I had to be helped along.”
“Okay, so help me along.”
He rubbed his jaw, eyes still on Clarissa. “The thing is, I was a little kid when I was walked through it. I was barely eight and my alpha, she…She made it a kind of game. I'm thinking that won't work for you.”
I sighed. “Probably not, but do you remember the goal of the game? What made it click for you?”
“Uh, yeah,” he said. “But I don't think you're going to like that part.”
“I haven't liked anything about any of this so far, why change now?”
He nodded once and turned to face me. I slapped hands over my boobs and my snatch. He didn't take his eyes off my face. “You need to get close to me, to smell me. You need to breathe me in, past my cologne and soap, and smell my wolf. You do that, tap into that one sense and your other senses will leap on board, your wolf will take over.”
I looked at Clarissa but she didn't appear to be stifling a laugh at my expense. I didn't know her, had no reason to trust her, but I took it as a good sign that she wasn't about to laugh her ass off. “Is he for real?”
She met my gaze and nodded. “I've seen it done.”
“Fine,” I said. “Get over here.”
He leaned against the bars and stuck his arm in.
“Seriously? You aren't going to let me out or come in here with me?”
“New wolves are unpredictable and vicious. It wouldn't be safe.”
“Oh,” I said, wanting to poke at him, to make me feel better about being naked and unable to get furry. “So, you're an alpha by default then?”
His expression hardened. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
I shrugged. “I thought you had to fight to the death to be alpha, but if you can't handle little old me, you can't be very tough.” So, I'd watched a few werewolf movies.
He didn't flinch. “I'm tough. I'm not an idiot. Smell my arm.”
I snorted, and considered not smelling him just to be ornery, but I was dying to find out if I could really go wolfy. I should probably have been scared of my body contorting and growing fur, but I'd been hit in the head more than a few times. I'd stopped being normal years ago.
I bent over his arm and sniffed. I kept my nose there and tried to get past the light scent of his cologne and deodorant. At least I think it was his deodorant. It might have been his soap. I didn't smell anything else. I lifted my head. “Um, what is wolf supposed to smell like?”
“You'll know it when you smell it,” he said. “Keep trying.”
“So helpful,” I muttered. I dropped my head back to his arm and I breathed him in until I felt like I was tasting his scents as much as I was smelling them. I was about to lift my head when I smelled something different, something that made me want to pull him through the bars and wrap myself up in the scent. It was pine needles and warm blueberries and green grass. Clear mountain water and freshly turned earth. A strange sound, a cross between a purr and a growl rumbled up from my chest. I didn't even know I could make that sound. I rubbed my cheek against his arm, trying to get closer, trying to rub his scent on me.
He groaned and the sound made me press harder against his arm. I wasn't thinking about his scent anymore, I was thinking about him naked with naked me doing naked things. Fun naked things.
Pain and pleasure sliced through my midsection simultaneously and I dropped to my hands and knees. Axel didn't let me go, he slid his arm away until he was cupping my face. “Don't fight it,” he said. “It feels wrong the first time, but it's the most right thing you'll ever experience.”
“That's what she said,” I said. The words came out garbled, because something strange was happening to my mouth, to my face.
“Your jaw and your teeth are shifting,” Axel said in a soothing voice. “It will be over soon.”
A weird feeling, like the all-body shudder caused by nails scratching on a chalkboard, started at my toes and shivered up and over my body. I squinched my eyes shut until the feeling had passed. When I opened them, I looked down to see two furry paws on the cement floor. My fur was dark brown, like my hair, thick and gorgeous. I turned toward Axel. “Take a picture,” I tried to say, but it came out like a sort of bark growl.
“Shit,” Axel said. “I can already hear you.” He pulled a cell phone from a pocket and tapped on it. He looked at me before he took the picture. “You okay? Do you feel angry or frightened? Are you in pain?”
I felt amazing, but I decided to test this new body out before I committed to anything. I bounced around on four feet, which was way fun. I could get so high. Then, I took off and ran increasingly tight circles around the interior of the cell. It probably looked like I was chasing my tail.
I didn't even feel dizzy. With a squat and a push, I leapt from the center of the cell, bounced off the iron bars, and landed on my feet back where I'd started. This wolf body was more fun than my human body.
“Guess she feels pretty good,” Clarissa said.
Her voice brought me back to face the two of them. “How do I shift back?” I howled.
I thought I saw a smile tickle Axel's lips but it was hard to tell with all that beard. “You don't have to vocalize,” he said. “I can hear you in my head. If you want to shift back, just visualize yourself turning human again, it might take a while, but just—”
He stopped because I'd already shifted back. I grabbed my clothes and yanked them on as quickly as I could. Enough being naked in front of them. “That was amazing,” I said, practically bouncing in place as I pulled my shirt on and hopping around as I yanked on my jeans. Joy and excitement were zinging through me, like I'd just discovered the very thing I'd never realized was missing from my life. “Holy shit. I can't wait to show Shelly.”
“You can't show anyone,” Axel said. His words were a decided buzz kill, but his voice was more than somewhat pleasant. I wanted to go over there and feel that voice rumble against my bare skin and then I wanted to wrap myself around him until he stopped sounding so grumpy.
“Shelly won't tell anyone.” I sat on the bed. I stretched and flexed my knee. It felt amazing. “It's not like it can be that much of a secret anyway.”
“It is a secret,” Axel said. “Do you know what would happen to us if it were revealed that we can shift into wolves? Our ancestors were hunted and massacred…”
I tuned him out, because my arm, my arm that had been broken before I shifted, was now completely healed. I swung it around and clenched and unclenched my fist. No pain. No tendon damage. I rolled my shoulders and rotated my right one. No pain, no weird clicking noise. It was as though I'd been reborn. I hopped to my feet. “I've got to get back to LA. I'm going to make that Leclare fight after all. Coach is going to be so—”
“No,” Axel
said. “Have you been listening to anything I just said?”
“Nope,” I said. “Unless it has something to do with you letting me out of this cage, I'm not interested.”
Axel's hands balled into fists and his face got fire-engine red. Now, I'm a tough woman and I have what some would call an exaggerated sense of my own…Alright fine, they'd call it cockiness, but even with years of fighting experience, years of self-defense training and years of therapy, an angry man still scared the shit out of me a little. Especially an over-sized angry man who had me locked in a cage.
I took a couple steps back before I could stop myself and blank my expression. It was too late, Axel must have seen the fear on my face, because his expression softened and his fists loosened.
“You can't leave, Julie,” Clarissa said in a gentle voice. “You belong here now.”
“Nope,” I said. “I belong in LA. I belong in a UFC cage, not in this sad excuse for a jail cell.”
“You're a young wolf,” Clarissa said. “Untested, inexperienced. We can't let you go out there.”
“I think I handled going wolfy pretty damn well,” I said. “I can clearly control my wolf and, with this new ability to heal, I'll be unstoppable.”
“You're also ten times stronger than you used to be,” Axel said, his tone a bit less gruff. “You'll kill the first fighter you go up against.”
I snorted. “You think I don't know how to pull a punch? You think I'm some idiot rookie?” I spoke with a lot of braggadocio, but I was freaking out more than a little bit. Ten times as strong? I rolled my shoulders and shook it off. I'd figure it out. I had to fight.
“You belong here with the pack,” Axel said. “You're mine.”
I studied him for a minute, taking in his words. He was undeniably hot and the initial attraction I'd felt for him before had intensified to a molten lava hot level. I mean, the dude's eyes met mine and my panties got wet. He spoke with that deep rumbly voice and my stomach tightened and I throbbed all over with want. But I'd dealt with inconvenient attraction before. I could manage it again. “You mean I'm your mate?” I asked.
“Mate?” he asked, his body tensing further. I was on the right track.
“Yeah, like in the movies. The werewolf sniffs out his mate and, bam, they're it for each other for life.”
“Life?” he said, the word come out a bit raspy, making my nipples instantly hard.
“I get it,” I said. “That's your wolfy way, but it's not my way. I mean you seem like a nice guy…Actually, you don't really seem that nice. You're pretty damn grumpy and I don't think it would take much to send you into a killing rage, which is actually a little terrifying.” Okay, I was babbling, but I couldn't stop, because the matey attraction thing was in serious overdrive and I was one step away from rubbing myself against the bars and begging him to help me out. “And honestly, you aren't at all my type. I mean I'm sure a lot of women would find you attractive, but you just don't do it for me.”
“Not your type?” he asked. “I guess the band boy is your type? You like pretty boys?”
“Exactly. I like pretty boys. Boys who know how to shave and get regular haircuts and have abs—”
“I have abs,” Axel said, his expression more than a little miffed, but was that…Amusement glinting in his eyes? He lifted the hem of his shirt to reveal a six…No, an eight…No, aw hell, an incredibly impressive set of abs and huge pecs, both nipples pierced with shiny silver barbells. I wanted to lick those barbells, to suck them into my mouth and— No. Just no.
“Mm-hm,” I said, pretending nonchalance. “They're okay.”
He dropped his shirt and stalked over. “Just okay,” he said, pressing against the bars. “Because the lust I smell rolling off you says different.”
Shit, could he really smell that? I sniffed the air, but I just got another waft of his wolf smell that almost made my eyes roll back in my head with desire. “Look, just let me go. You and I would never work.”
“Too bad,” he said, his voice dropping another octave, so deep I could practically feel it. “You're my mate and I'm going to drag you back to my place and lick every inch of your body until you smell like me. I'm going to make you feel things you've never felt before.” His lips curved up, and he bit his bottom lip. Damn he had luscious lips. “I'm going to bend you over and—” He took a step back and broke out into a full-on, deep-throated laugh. It was just as rumbly as everything else about him and it made me…Wait, why was he laughing? Clarissa was laughing, too. And Jeremiah?
I glared at him, because he didn't get to laugh at me, none of them did.
“Can you imagine?” Axel asked, straightening and wiping a tear from his eye. He gestured from himself to me and back again. “You and me? Mates?”
“You'd be damn lucky to have me,” I said.
He smirked. “Sorry, sweetheart. I prefer my women a whole hell of a lot more submissive.” Damn, the way he said submissive made my toes curl. I hated him and his perfect rumbly voice. “And with a bit more to offer up top.” He cupped his hands to his own pecs and I looked down at my breasts, which were perfectly perky b-cups, thank you very much.
Clarissa hissed her disapproval, but Axel was unswayed. “She started it,” he said to the other woman.
“Just tell her what's going on, Axel. Quit being a jerk.”
He was the alpha, so I expected him to tell her to back off, but he just grinned. It wasn't a friendly grin. His teeth were white and straight and his tongue flipped out to wet his lips. I almost moaned aloud. What the hell was wrong with me?
“Wolves don't mate for life,” Axel said, his serious demeanor returning. “Wolves rarely even date for more than a couple weeks.”
“Speak for yourself,” Charlie muttered.
Axel rolled his eyes. “Wolves in general tend to be a bit more lustful than humans, especially newly-turned wolves and especially this time of the month.”
“This time of the month?”
“The full moon,” Axel said. “Wolves get a little extra horny during the full moon and pretty much anything goes. When Jeremiah grabbed you, he was assuming you were a wolf out on the prowl. Once he sniffed you out as human he backed off.”
“He was awfully aggressive for a dude just asking if I wanted to go home with him.”
Axel nodded. “He was. Rules are consent is required before any touching occurs and no one gets to use their dominance to force anyone to do anything. That's why Jeremiah is in a cage. That, and because he bit you, but that will be taken up with the council.”
“Dude,” Jeremiah whined. “It was an accident. Can't we just pretend it never happened?”
Axel glared at Jeremiah. “No.”
I blew out a sigh of relief not to find myself mated to Axel. “So, if I'm not your mate, why'd you say I'm yours?”
“Because I'm your alpha. A new wolf can't stray too far from her alpha or her pack or she…Let's just say it's not good. You need to stay here. In a couple years, if you still want to leave, you'll be free to go.”
“A couple years? No. I need to go now. If I drop out of the fight circuit for two years, I might as well quit, my career will be over.”
Axel rumbled a low, grumbly growl. “You aren't listening to me. Your career is over now, anyway. You can't fight as a werewolf.”
“It's my life,” I said. “That's for me to decide.”
Axel stomped over to the cage and glared at me through the bars. “No more arguing. You will stay here and you will do as you're told.”
I glared right back. Sure, I wasn't totally unaffected by his scary glare and his deep alpha voice, but I wasn't about to back down. This was my life, my career. “I want to leave. Now.”
He continued to glare at me, but I didn't back down. I glared at him just as hard as he was glaring at me. I stepped right up to the bars of the cage until my nose was just about touching his. “Let me out.”
“Step away from the bars,” he said in that weird, deep voice.
My heels lifted from
the cement floor, a huge part of me wanting to do as he asked, but I stood my ground. “No fucking way.”
Something like surprise ignited in his expression. “Move to the far side of the cage.”
“Make me.”
His whole demeanor shifted and lightened and he smiled, a happy smile revealing fine lines around his brilliant amber eyes. “Fine. You're free to go.”
He pulled a key ring from his pocket and unlocked my door.
“You can't just let her go,” Clarissa said.
Axel turned his glare on her. “It seems everyone has forgotten who's the alpha here.”
Clarissa lowered her eyes and rolled her head to bare her neck. “Forgive me, alpha.”
Axel nodded. “You are forgiven. Your concerns aren't unwarranted, however—”
“Um, can I go?” I asked. Axel had unlocked the door to my cell, but he hadn't opened it or moved out of the way.
He looked over at me, as though he'd forgotten I was there. “Of course,” he said, with a cheeky grin. “You're free to go.”
I hurried out of there onto the quiet, but muddy, main street. There wasn't another person in sight, but I could see my rental truck about a block away, still parked where I'd left it. I fished my car keys out of my pocket and hurried down the street. I hit the button on the key ring to unlock the door, but saw the lock already popped up. I swung the door open and found my purse, along with my groceries, on the bench seat. I pulled my phone from my purse and checked it to see several missed calls and a text from Krista warning me to stay inside until sunrise. Too little, too late, my cousin.
I hopped in, slammed the door, and gunned it out of there. I wasn't sticking around and giving Axel a chance to change his mind.
CHAPTER THREE
I let myself into my condo and dropped my bag on the floor with a sigh of relief. It had been a long drive and it was good to be home and back in my own space. Even though I was mentally exhausted, I was thrumming with a pent-up energy that had been running through me like sparks down a live wire since I'd driven away from Mule Creek. My condo was tiny, but I wasn't big on owning stuff so I didn't need a ton of space. Shelly had helped me decorate and I had everything just the way I liked it, cozy and comforting, like a hot bowl of soup on a cold day. I pulled my shirt over my head as I walked toward my room, my clothing itchy and too heavy, my skin tingling with a need for some sort of release.
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