Page 41 of Choosing the Rejected Mate

Not with pity or possession.But wonder.

“Beautiful,” he says softly.

The word lands differently like this.My wolf hears it.Feels it.Accepts it without the human need to flinch.Then Daniel strips out of his jeans and shifts.

His wolf is magnificent.Dark gold fur ripples over powerful muscle, deepening to brown along his spine.A white blaze cuts across his chest, bright beneath the moon.He’s bigger than me, heavier, built for strength, but his amber eyes remain Daniel’s.

Warm.Patient.

Mine,my wolf whispers, and I don’t correct her this time.

Daniel lowers his head slightly.Not submission but invitation.My wolf bounds forward and nips his ear, and Daniel jerks back, offended.

I dart away.Behind me, he huffs.Then he gives chase.For the first time in years, I run with another wolf and don’t feel watched.I feel free.

The forest blurs around us.Dirt flies beneath my paws.Branches whip past.The moonlight scatters across the trail, silver and broken.Daniel runs behind me, then beside me, then slows when I dart between trees too narrow for his broader body.

Show-off,his look says when he catches up.I bare my teeth in a wolfish grin, and he bumps my shoulder with his.The contact sends the bond humming through both of us, bright and fierce.I stumble, then recover, snapping at him for the indignity.

He sneezes.Actually sneezes.And I stop dead.

Daniel’s wolf blinks.I stare.Then I make a sound suspiciously close to laughter, and he growls at me.I drop my front half low, tail high.

Play.

His ears perk right before he launches at me.

We tumble through leaves, a mess of fur, paws, snapping teeth, and ridiculous growls.He’s careful with his strength, even in wolf form.I notice.My animal notices too.He lets me shove him down, lets me nip at his ruff, lets me pin him for one glorious second before he rolls and traps me beneath one massive paw.

I snarl.He looks deeply smug.I bite his paw.He yelps and leaps back, and I bolt.

The run stretches on until my lungs burn and my body sings.By the time we reach the clearing near the creek, I’m panting, exhilarated, and more alive than I have felt in longer than I want to admit.

Daniel slows near the water, and I pad beside him.The moon reflects off the creek in broken silver.The night is cool, wrapping around us.For a while, neither of us shifts back.We simply stand there, shoulder to shoulder, wolves beneath the same moon.

It should scare me, and it does, but not enough to make me leave.

I shift first.The transformation rolls through me, pulling fur back into skin, reshaping paws into hands, muzzle into face.I end up crouched in the grass, naked and breathless, hair falling around me like a dark curtain.

Daniel shifts a few feet away, and I don’t look.

That is a lie.I absolutely look.

He kneels in the grass, head bowed, broad chest rising and falling, moonlight sliding over every hard line of him.When his eyes lift to mine, they are still wolf-bright.

The air changes and the playful warmth of the run becomes something heavier.Hotter.

My skin prickles.My nipples tighten in the cool air, and Daniel’s gaze catches the movement before he drags his eyes back to my face.His control is visible, every muscle locked tight.

I should reach for my robe, but my robe is back at the tree line.A planning flaw, possibly intentional on my wolf’s part.

Daniel clears his throat.“We should head back.”

“Yes,” I say, but neither of us moves.

The creek murmurs beside us while the bond hums between us.My body still vibrates from the run, from freedom, from him.Desire unfurls low in my belly, warm and bold and impossible to blame entirely on fate.Because I know this man now.

Not all of him.Not enough.But enough to know he stops when I need him to.Enough to know he listens.Enough to know his wolf could overpower mine, and instead he lets me bite his paw and win.