Wolf, Shifted by Rebecca Ethington
Nova
Kat could swearup and down that Mr. Greyson Dillon didn’t want to get in my pants, but one look around this room and it was clear that he really, really wanted to get in my pants.
I had been on the run for twelve years. My father and I had jumped from trashy hotel to trashy hotel until the day I found him dead in the alley behind one. The types of rooms we often found ourselves in were the used condom in the toilet, mold in the closet, half eaten edible lingerie in between the sheets type of rooms.
That’s what I was used to.
This room was the kind that the prince gave the girl from the city that he fell in love with to impress her. Which, I realized when I woke up the next day to two maids lighting a fire and one making me coffee, was exactly the kind of fresh hell that I had been kidnapped into.
‘You were here before, any chance of escape?’I typed to Hiss from where I sat on the sill of a window that was taller than me. Hell, all of the windows were taller than me, and there were a lot of windows because for some asinine reason I had been given a room that had other rooms attached to it. And a kitchen.
It was all a bit ridiculous seeing as I was still wearing the same clothes from two days ago.
Although that was mostly because I had been locked in my room and had no way out. I mean, they had provided me with clothes, but they were all button up shirts and skirts.
Skirts.
Someone needed to tell Greyson Dillon that I was not a 1950s housewife.
‘Not that I know of, but I wanted to be there. I mean, it’s a good thing you are there… isn’t it?’I rolled my eyes. She hadn’t been worried at all about the fact that I had been kidnapped by the High Alpha. In fact, she seemed almost giddy with excitement that I had been taken to his estate by force. I think the words ‘lickable alpha abs’ had been used to describe my captor.
Those abs would have to be plated in solid gold and covered in honey to be worth all of this. And even then, I still wouldn’t be licking them.
‘I’m locked in a room, Hiss. Good guys don’t lock people in rooms.’
‘Okay, fine. I’ll give you that. But you’ll have to tell me if you are still singing the same tune after you meet him.’
I rolled my eyes and threw my phone on the bed. I had no interest in continuing that conversation right now. Next thing she would be telling me that he could bench press a truck with his mighty pecker.
I opened the window further and peaked out, trying once again to decide if taking a flying leap out of a fourth story window would end well.
The door creaked open and I turned, knife already in hand as I prepared to once again scare the maids as they brought me my dinner.
Instead, I faced Kat.
“No wonder the maids refuse to come up here,” she said, grinning as she set a large dress box down on the table near the door.
“If they are scared of a little knife they aren’t very skilled shifters.” I turned back to the window, knife still in hand.
“Either that or they see the strength in you.” It was clear she was trying to pad my ego, be all buddy-buddy. No go, darlin. I rolled my eyes and turned my back to her, propping my legs up on the other side of the windowsill.
“What you mean to say is that they have heard the stories. The zombie wolf has come to play. Ooo!” I waved my fingers at her before I began flipping my knife, the snick of metal the only sound in the room as she plopped herself down in the chair at the table, leaving the massive box between us.
“No one knows who you are, Nova.”
“Everyone knows who I am,” I chuckled at her, still flipping my knife.
She shook her head, hair swinging and eyes flashing. “No, they don’t. They know horror stories, and rumors. That pack was massacred twelve years ago. They don’t know your name, they don’t even know what you look like. The Rabid Wolf of High Bend has been diluted to nothing more than a story of some feral child that hunts pups in the woods when they refuse to go to bed.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that, even though something was gnawing at my gut.
“Is that what I am now? An old wives’ tale?” Kat didn’t even smile at that. She just nodded.
Damn. She was dead serious.
I don’t know why, but it made me angry. Really angry. I had been in hiding for years, my father training and preparing me to fight off the very man who held me captive. He had died because he was trying to protect me, and now I was a ghost story. None of that needed to happen. He didn’t need to die.
I ground my teeth together and leaned back against the window frame and did what I did best, deflected my rage with snark.
“So, your maids really are pathetic bastards.”
“Yes, they are,” Kat said, and I turned back to her, knife falling to my lap. “Because you are strong and they can sense the strength in you.”
Strangely, her wolf didn’t flash in her eyes that time, even though mine did.
“Are you going to submit to me then?” I was taunting, but she just smiled.
“No, I have already submitted to Greyson. I am just here to invite you to dinner.” She stood, placing her perfectly manicured hand on the box and smiled.
Stage two in romcom hell, handsome prince captor invites his prisoner to dinner.
“I’m not wearing that.” I didn’t need to see it to know that there was no way that was going on my body. I wasn’t the only one to think so, either.
Don’t worry, I’ll let you rip it to shreds once she’s gone.
“You don't even know what it is.” Kat tapped her fingers on the top of the box.
“Unless it’s a crop top and shorts I’m not wearing it.”
Kat smiled, the forced grin looking more like a grimace as she flung the lid off the top of the box and pulled out my clothes.
My clothes, like from my apartment back in Chicago. My t-shirts and necklaces were wadded in her hands as she showcased them to me, not that she seemed too happy about touching them. You would think they were made of poison with how her lip was curling.
“You went into my place?”
“Yes.” Kat threw the clothes back in the box and closed the lid. “Seeing as you weren’t wearing the clothes we bought for you Mr. Greyson kindly sent someone to get your own. Now, get dressed, the dinner to open the Moon Year starts in an hour, and I am sure you are going to make quite a scene.”
Kat gave me that same forced smile before glaring at the box again and striding out of my room with her nose in the air. It was so cute watching her trying to be friends with me. She just couldn’t pull it off for longer than a few minutes.
She really had another thing coming if she thought I was going to be all buddy-buddy with the girl who had kidnapped me.
She also had another thing coming if she thought I was going to that dinner tonight.
After all, she had forgotten to lock the door.
I half expected thereto be guards outside my door, but the halls were surprisingly empty. It wasn’t until I had raced down three flights of stairs that I heard anything.
Voices were everywhere, they rose up in a flood of sound that in so many ways reminded me of all the cities where I had taken refuge. The busy streets, the wandering bodies that were easy to get lost in.
Well, it would have reminded me of Chicago if all of the voices didn’t come from wolf shifters.
I peered around the last pillar before the staircase opened up to the massive marble entryway I had been led through that first day, and the hundreds of wolves that were milling about there. All in what was clearly their fanciest dress.
Their smell was like a wall of warning and my wolf reacted, rising right to the surface. I felt my lips curl as my canines extended, my skin prickling as hair began to grow. Too much! She was too close to the surface.
Calm the fuck down!
I pushed her down, sending her growl into a low boil as she retreated. It was going to be hard enough getting through them without being noticed if my wolf was snarling and snapping at every shifter we passed. It really didn’t help that I was wearing bright pink cutoffs and a shirt emblazoned with just one word ‘MOIST’. Clearly no one was going to notice me.
Cue the eye roll.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome—” The greeting was cut off by grinding hinges as doors were thrown open and everyone began to wander into what I was sure was the ballroom.
Because of course this place would have a ballroom.
Crap. If they were already starting, then Kat would be on her way to collect me and find me gone. I needed to find another way out of here, and fast. Although looking around, this seemed to be the only way in and out of this place.
“Ash, let’s go the long way,” a booming voice echoed through the hall behind me and I jumped, my wolf pushing her way right back to the surface as footsteps echoed my way.
Okay, now or never.
Worst case, I would shift as soon as I got out in the forest and take off, assuming of course I could control my wolf enough to keep us moving toward our destination. After shifting once and being told that my wolf was an uncontrollable murderous beast, I wasn’t holding much stock in the whole ‘being one with my wolf thing’.
She was already jumping underneath my skin, ready to act. Except she wasn’t pulling me toward the forest, she was pulling me back up the stairs.
What the hell? Keep it together.
Heads turned as I hit the bottom of the stairs, the few stragglers to the dinner looking absolutely appalled at the trailer trash that had appeared in the midst of their glittery gowns.
“Uh, hi, nice night for a run,” I mumbled, giving a quick wave before I continued to race toward the door.
My wolf was still pulling at something behind me, her usual growl turning to a whine as I raced out the door. I only took one quick look back, smiling victoriously as I raced down the front steps and slammed right into someone’s wide chest.
I didn’t need to look up to see who it was. I could already smell him. I could smell all of the foul, rotten, hornyness of him.
Hank.
“You owe me five dollars Kat,” he sneered, that greasy smile taking over his face as he gripped my arms and pulled me into him. Kat stepped behind me, tightening another pair of bewitched zip ties over my wrists.
“How do I owe you money? I bet you that she would run. And she did.” Kat's voice was a snarl in my ear as she tightened the zip ties, cutting off the circulation in my hands.
“Is this your Alpha’s idea of foreplay?” I snapped as I fought the ties, even though I already knew they wouldn’t budge.
“Well, isn’t it about time you found out?” Hank asked, grabbing my wrists as he turned me back toward the door, shoving me towards the steps. “Mr. Dillon has asked to see you.”