Chapter 3
RIDING ROUGHSHOD
LUKE
The girl looks fucking feeble. Pathetic. I’m surprised she took out five of my better fighters, including my Beta. She was strong enough to disrupt my plan and force me to take action myself.
Now, she’s throwing everything out of kilter again, this time with her weakness.
She’s barely moved since we knocked her out, although the tranquilizer we injected will have kept her unconscious during the trip. She hasn’t woken up and the pack doctors are concerned. They’ve given her fluids through a drip line and she still hasn’t roused.
I’m getting fucking fed up with being forced to ask for the bedsheets to be changed.
The girl is an inconvenience and I haven’t even spoken to her yet. I despise her more than I despise her father, and I wasn’t sure that was possible.
She snorts and it’s unbelievably cute.
“Is there no way to hurry this up?”
The medic glares at me as my scathing tone offers little regard for the girl lying strewn across the bed. Her arm twitches and my gaze focuses on her, praying she’ll hurry up and grace us with her presence.
She returns to whatever deep sleep she’s in and my wolf growls in annoyance. He’s riled and unusually uncertain, unsure of what to make of the fragile thing lying in front of him. Lawson is on edge and he can’t make up his mind about why.
He doesn’t like others coming close to the girl but doesn’t want to touch her. He wants her to wake up but doesn’t want to disturb her. Most concerningly, he isn’t sure about her smell, or her hair, or the irritatingly adorable way her nose crinkles as she sleeps.
Maybe we just need to find out if the Elders were right about her. Or rather, we need to know that they are wrong. It wouldn't be the first time they read the divinations wrong, and there isn't a chance that the pathetic, weak girl in front of me has any significance in my life.
I won't accept it.
I won't allow it.
“We could have restrained her without using a tranquilizer,” Cole says, stepping away from the wall he’s been leaning against. “Stop harassing the medic for something you chose to do.”
My hand clenches before I turn to face my Beta. Cole knows better than to speak out of turn in front of others and he ought to know that now isn’t the time to fuck around. My mood hasn’t improved since we carried the pitiful excuse for a she-wolf off my plane and he’s skating on very thin ice.
“She’d have freaked the fuck out on the plane.”
“Are you suggesting you couldn’t have handled it?”
My jaw ticks and the medic excuses himself, scurrying away now that his job is done and the tension in the room is rising. Cole watches him leave and exhales loudly when the door catches on its lock.
“She’s pretty, Luke.”
I tilt my head and admire her curves. “She’s a total mess and she’s small. She’s weak. She’s under-developed. Just look at her skinny little legs.”
Her lithe little legs that go on for miles and would look fucking stunning spread open for me. Or wrapped around me as my cock thrusts into her so hard she can feel it at the back of her throat. Or wrapped around my face as I eat her pussy.
I almost groan.
I bet she tastes like heaven. Soft. Sweet. Delicate.
I bet she sounds like heaven. Lost. Frantic. Oblivious.
Cole smirks and my wolf doesn’t like it. Lawson’s even less pleased as I watch Cole’s eyes wander over the girl on the bed, taking in the same curves and lines I’ve failed to ignore.
He’s right. The girl is pretty if small is your thing.
I tell myself it isn’t. I tell Lawson we need someone else.
I remind myself that I don’t like her blond hair reminding me of the first rays of dawn and I loathe the way her lips appear to pout almost all of the time.
I hate the curve and swell of her breasts and her stomach, and the way her legs don’t seem to end.
I hate how she doesn’t smell at all and how that alone makes me more irritated than ever.
“She took me out just fine.” Cole takes a step forward and my muscles tense. “Most men wouldn’t complain about legs like those. Lawson’s been remarkably quiet. What’s he got to say?”
My eyes narrow and Lawson decides he isn’t going to take the bait.
“He’s waiting until she wakes up.”
Cole’s eyebrow arches and I sense his wolf coming to the fore.
Cole is calm and collected, while Elias is prone to action, often choosing to act rather than wait for things to happen of their own accord.
Cole’s wolf lacks the patience he has in abundance, and they’re so opposite it’s hard to see how they could work together.
I’ve known him long enough to realize they’re perfectly balanced and they wouldn’t be nearly as effective if they were paired with anyone else.
“He seems rather protective, if you ask me.”
I didn’t ask my Beta and the snarl etched over my face tells him to shut the fuck up.
I turn around and move to the window, staring at anything I can to distract myself from the offending presence behind me.
I cross my arms and try to focus on the open landscape, finding myself wondering if it’s colder here than in England.
It shouldn’t be and I have the good sense to stop myself from asking Cole to check or reaching for my phone to do it myself.
“She’s a problem.”
Cole’s mouth snaps shut.
“Look at her, Cole. She’s slept for four days and the doctor thinks she might be sick. They’re concerned enough to warn me about it before she even wakes up.”
“That’s not…”
“Don’t defend her. She doesn’t deserve it.”
She sure as fuck hasn’t earned it. The girl is a menace and she’s taken up all of my time since we took her from her home.
She was surprisingly awkward to carry, despite her petite frame, slowing down our retreat from Bastan’s territory.
Her arms flailed and perpetually got in the way and tranquilizing her was supposed to make my life easier.
Admittedly, I got some work done but I’ve spent the rest of my time fretting over a girl who’s sleeping like she’s in a goddamn fairy tale.
I’m fretting over a fucking feeble woman.
“She is pretty.”
Lawson isn’t helping. He rouses and he’s far from happy about anything that’s happening in the room.
“You’ll enjoy fucking her. She’d learn to enjoy it too if you let her.” He growls and a pulse of his arousal washes into me. “We could enjoy her.” The wolf stalks through my mind like a hunter homing in on its prey. “The pack needs us to do this, Luke. The Elders are sure.”
“The Elders are cunts, Lawson.”
We find something to agree on and he laughs.
The pack Elders are cunts of the highest order and we’re both fed up with them acting like they’re the ones in charge.
They’ve got far too much power and my father’s weakness only emboldened them.
It’s taken me years to rein them in and even now they’re still too influential.
The pack is still too reverent to them.
To the idiotic priest who leads the Elders in all but name. Silas is calculated and cunning, and he spreads his influence like whispers in the wind. It’s impossible to pin down what he’s said or how he’s done it, but I’m sure he’s working against me at least most of the time.
This whole shitshow is because of him. He’s convinced he had a vision.
Worse, he convinced everyone else the Moon Goddess bestowed her wisdom when she visited him.
It’d be fucking funny if it wasn’t so irritating, and it’s laughable that almost no one else questions why the Moon Goddess would waste her time on a twat like him.
“Wake her.”
“It’s a bad idea,” I reply.
“She’s got to eat. She’s slept for too long.
This wouldn’t have happened if you’d followed my fucking advice in the first fucking place.
” Lawson practically salivates at the thought of finally meeting her wolf.
“We can start having some fun with her, Luke. Think how good she’ll feel wrapped around your cock. ”
I shake my head and Cole moves to my side.
“She’s going to be confused when she wakes, Luke.” He pauses and stares out the window. He’s looking at the same landscape as me, but our views couldn’t differ more. “She’ll be scared. She won’t understand this. I’m not asking you to forgive her, I’m asking you to show her a little consideration.”
I’ve shown her more than a little compassion.
She should be locked in my fucking dungeons, chained in silver.
Instead, I’ve carried her like I give a shit about her and placed her in a soft, warm bed.
She’s had medical care. She’s been fucking fussed over by some of my staff and I’ve even turned Silas away, refusing to let him meet her until she was conscious.
“Admit that you like her.”
My teeth grind together. “She’s hot. That doesn’t mean I like her, Lawson.”
“You don’t need to like her to fuck her, Luke. You just need to like her. I bet her cunt is warm and wet. Don’t you want to find out how fucking good it feels?”
“You haven’t even met her wolf, Lawson.”
He smirks. “I don’t need to meet her wolf to know I’ll enjoy her cunt, Luke.
We’ve fucked enough women for you to know that I enjoy fucking them until they shatter.
If she’s strong, then I’ll enjoy it more, and if she fights, then I’ll enjoy bending her to my will.
But a passive wolf isn’t a problem for me. You’re the one resisting this.”
Lawson’s lying. He’s unsure about her. He’s trying to figure her out and his bravado is a mask to cover his indecision.
The wolf thinks she might be different, but he isn’t sure he’s ready to find out.
He wants the Elders to be right about this and yet he doesn’t want to face the consequences of everything that entails.
Despite his insistence that I wake her, he’s now hoping that she stays asleep. For at least another day. It’s another thing we agree on, and it’s another thing that’s not going to happen.