The Wolf’s Forbidden Mate by Layla Silver

Chapter 14 — Waverly

Inky black spots dotted my vision as I blinked. I was dizzy and my vision swam with amorphous blobs of light as I tried to focus on my surroundings. The chill in air bit my cheek and I registered how cold it was despite the fact that I was wearing a sweater. As soon as I registered my surroundings, panic gripped me.

The room was bare except for the chair I occupied and the windows flanking either side of a pale green door. Snowflakes drifted past the cloudy glass, dancing in swirls as the breeze whipped in to pick up the flakes, casting them in every direction. A fresh wintry scene occupied the land outside—I must have been in the mountains.

By the splitting headache I had, I knew I was higher up than usual. I wasn’t at the ski resort, that was for sure. And I wasn’t anywhere close to my pack. I was convinced I was alone.

My senses returned slowly, inspiring me to shift around. I tried to move my arms, but found my wrists were bound behind my back, rope cutting into my skin and burning when I tried to twist out of the expertly tied knots. White clouds puffed from my mouth as I huffed, trying to draw a single breath to help me calm down.

How could I calm down at a time like this? I was tied to a chair up in the mountains in a cabin that had zero heating capacity and it was snowing outside. The thick humidity of Florida seemed so much more appealing now as I wiggled my fingers, the tips of them so frozen that I was positive I had lost circulation.

It was hard to tell how long I had been sitting here. My headache pounded harder as my blood rushed through my veins, my wolf clawing at the walls of my skin to make an appearance. Shifting right now was a bad idea. I wiggled my toes and glanced down to find my boots were missing and my ankles were strapped to the legs of the chairs. Yeah, shifting was a horrible idea. I would only hurt myself if I tried.

So, I did what I knew I could do: I screamed.

The screech cut through the silence of the cabin, practically rattling the windows with my fear. The pale green door launched open and two men rushed into the room, inviting the blistering cold along with them. I struggled against my restraints as they marched toward me.

Their scent was familiar. Panthers. And my memory slammed into me as hard as my car had smacked that tree trunk. A truck had run me off the road. I crashed. I hit my head on the steering wheel and lost consciousness. These guys must have picked me up from the crash site and taken me here. But where was here exactly and how the hell was I supposed to get out?

As I sucked in air to scream again, one of the men towered over me and demanded, “Shut the hell up!”

“No!”

I knew better than to talk back, but I also wasn’t going down without a fight. If they wanted to hurt me, then fine, they could hurt me. But I would bite and scratch and claw like the animal I was deep down. I would let her take over. I would let her help in our fight for survival.

One of the men grabbed my mouth. His grip was like steel, his icy skin burning my hot mouth and making me whimper. I opened my mouth as wide as I could and chomped down on his hand, listening with satisfaction to the resulting yowl he released as he yanked his hand back.

“The bitch bit me,” he complained while shaking his hand. His eyes glowed with anger as he snarled, “You fucking bit me!”

“And I’ll bite again,” I warned, controlling the fear that laced itself in my words. “Let me go!”

The other man shook his head as he regarded his friend. “Should have slapped her.”

“I dare you,” I snapped.

When the guy turned to me, I regretted the retort, working on collecting another scream to release. There had to be other people up here—shifters or humans. I didn’t care who found me as long as I was found so I could make a run for it. All I needed was a proper distraction. Just one distraction to—

The guy raised his hand, palm open. I knew a slap was coming. I knew he would try to knock me unconscious. I let another scream fly, surprised at the growl that came with it. But the guy had paused mid-swing to look behind him.

A black panther had stepped into the doorway, muscles stiff as he crouched and prepared to pounce. The growl was coming from him, not me. And when his eyes met mine, I knew exactly who I was looking at.

Hope filled me up. “Travis!”

Another low growl echoed from my mate. The sound vibrated through the room, filling me with so much pride that I teared up. My lower lip quivered as I recognized how exactly I had referred to him: my mate. The doubts that had originally occupied my body were gone in a singular moment, snuffed out like an avalanche of snow crushing a collection of trees. That doubt didn’t stand a chance anymore. I knew now. I knew it deep in my bones.

“My mate,” I repeated quietly.

The men who had been guarding me were silently stripping away their winter clothing. As soon as they were free, they both shifted, becoming two snarling panthers who challenged Travis to step farther into the room. And my mate, as brave as I knew he was, met that challenge easily.

It never occurred to me that Travis was outnumbered. Something about the way he glanced between the two enemy panthers put me at ease. He looked in my direction for a brief moment, a silent exchange happening that only we could experience. The warmth glittering in his eyes told me I was safe, that he would protect me.

And I knew that because he had come to rescue me.

The two panthers pounced at Travis. I scooted my chair back away from the mess, hoping to avoid collateral damage, though sure that I would inevitably get swiped by someone’s paw at some point. I scooted until I hit a wall and pressed myself as hard as I could to the weak wood, listening to the dangerous creak that erupted behind me.

I ignored it. My mate had my full attention as he always should, as he always would from here on out. Travis launched away from the two panthers, landing gracefully just on the other side of them. He clawed at one as he bit into the hip of the other. The enemy panthers yowled as Travis lunged repeatedly, never giving them a chance to defend or attack.

As he kept swatting, he backed the two into the left-hand corner, sharply circling and clawing at them until they were trapped. At the last moment, he lunged at them both, slamming his paws into each of their heads and knocking them into the wall. The resulting thud that echoed in the cabin capped the beginning of a long stretch of silence, one interrupted by the sound of me panting.

Travis turned to me. He was hardly injured and he had wasted no time handling Allegra’s panthers. He shifted in front of me, black fur breaking to reveal freckle-decorated skin and the athletic body that I had become intimately familiar with. When his face came into view, his eyes glowed yellow for a second before fading into the hazel-green I had come to love.

“Wav,” he whimpered.

He was at my feet immediately, his arms wrapped around my body and his face planted in my chest. A shiver transferred from his body to mine and I shuddered violently as I realized he had just fought for his life—and mine. And he won.

“T-Travis?”

He lifted his head and cupped my face, drawing my lips to his. The lack of hesitation made me swell with affection, warmth spreading from his mouth to every inch of my body. Just like that, I wasn’t cold anymore. I wasn’t shivering. I was home. In his arms, I was truly home.

Within seconds, his gentle kiss became a force of passion, a fierce signal of how worried he had been. Each touch told me he hadn’t stopped thinking about me, that him finding me was most certainly fate, and that I owed fate a huge apology for having doubted her capabilities.

He broke the kiss and held my cheeks. “You’re cold.”

“I’m tired, too.”

“I’m so sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

I shook my head as a laugh broke from me, trembling now that I registered the cold invading the open doorway. “Shut up and untie me, you fucking idiot.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Soon, the bindings were gone and I was in his arms, fully aware of how little feeling I had left in my limbs from both the weather and the restraints. Travis stepped back and massaged my wrists. He dropped to his knees next and massaged my ankles, getting the blood flowing liberally again.

He stood to peer into my eyes, smoothing my mess of black curls away from my face. The whine that vibrated in his throat told me he was still worried, that he needed to lick my wounds and make sure I was okay. I laughed and hugged him tight, feeling the weight of him against me, that sturdiness of muscle and bone that belonged to me and only me.

“I had to choose,” he croaked. Was he crying? I drifted back to look into his eyes, finding them misty with emotion. The tip of his nose was red. “She forced me to pick between you and the shelter. I chose the shelter. But I didn’t want to abandon you, Wav.”

“I would have done the same thing.”

He nodded. “I know, but I’m sorry. I had to help the cats. I had to make sure Oliver wasn’t injured. She almost took every feline out of that place.”

“That’s wretched.”

“I’m so sorry. I almost failed you.”

I shushed him as I held his face, so happy to have his presence that I didn’t care what it took to get here. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

“We should get back. You’re cold, Waverly.”

I cocked an eyebrow as I regarded his naked body. “I don’t think I’m the only one who’s cold here.”

“He’s doing his best.”

“I can tell.”

He laughed and shivered, forcibly exhaling as he took a few more steps back. “It’ll be easier if you shift.”

“After that ridiculous fiasco, I’m happy to shift,” I said, “because my wolf wants very much to run.”

As I peeled off my clothes and bravely greeted the brisk cold, Travis smiled warmly, a pink blush taking his cheeks.

“What?” I flushed all over. “You’ve seen me naked. Stop looking at me like that.”

“No, it’s not that.”

I frowned as I knelt on the ground, preparing to invite my wolf to take over. “Then, what?”

“This will be our first run together.”

I smiled as I closed my eyes and called my wolf forward. Just as she began to appear, I whispered, “And hopefully not our last.”