“She’s not dangerous,” Ridge says, a note of warning entering his tone. “And she is not responsible for her heritage. The witch who created her was a cruel and evil man. He spent most of Sable’s life torturing her. The night she came to our pack was the same night she ran away from him. She was terrified and seeking safe haven, which we gave her. It just so happened in the process that she was found to be the mate of myself, Archer, Trystan, and Dare.”
Another ripple of concern flashes through the crowd.
“Four mates is unacceptable,” a voice snarls. I can’t place the speaker, but Ridge seems to find him in the crowd, his gaze narrowing furiously. “It goes against everything we believe. One man. One woman.”
“Would you like to question the magic that is the mate bond?” Ridge’s voice is hard. “Do you think yourself above the bond?”
The man doesn’t reply.
“How do we know she won’t hurt us, even accidentally?” another woman asks. I cringe, because that’s my worry too, but at least she sounds apologetic about asking.
The ripple of murmurs in the barn kicks up a notch, and Ridge has to raise his voice to cut over it. “Sable is not a danger to you. All four of us are here to help balance her powers.”
My heart slams against my ribs, pounding so hard and fast that it feels difficult to breathe. The noise level is going higher as more questions are shouted at him. Everyone is trying to talk over everyone else, and I turn away from the chaos, burying my face in Trystan’s shoulder and wishing it could all be over.
“That witch bitch doesn’t belong here!” a man roars.
I push down a sob, clinging to Trystan’s shirt. He’s right. That stranger is right, I don’t belong here.
Then there’s another sound, and magic ripples across my skin. Not my magic—the sensation of someone close by shifting. I straighten abruptly, craning my neck to see who shifted.
I don’t have to search for long.
Dare’s massive black wolf leaps into the crowd with a vicious snarl.
5
Dare
My paws connect with the asshole’s chest, and in the same instant, the sneer vanishes from his face. He goes down hard, his body slamming against the floor as I land on top of him, and I snarl, letting him see every sharp tooth in my muzzle.
Fuck this guy. Fuck his shitty attitude and the way he’s judging my girl without knowing a fucking thing about her.
Nobody is allowed to do that. Not on my watch.
I growl in his face, letting all my weight bear down on him as my jaws ache to snap open and closed.
Fury has taken up residence in my mind. It’s like a murderous inferno blazing through me, blurring the line between animal and man inside me more than ever. There’s not an asshole in this room I’m going to let even look at Sable the wrong way, much less call her “witch bitch” and get away with it.
Yeah, it’s fucking hard to look past the witch in her. I see it every time I close my eyes—the scars on her body turning black, the slender swirls of magic dancing up her hands and arms. But I’m getting better at dealing, at finding ways to understand and cope. Because I know Sable. I know how much goodness is in her heart. I know she’s a fucking saint compared to pretty much everyone in this barn, and not a single one of them is worth a hair on her head.
So nobody is allowed to look at her wrong or speak badly of her in my presence. There will be no judging her without knowing her. If they haven’t spent a week basking in the light of her presence, then they can fuck right off.
I snap my jaws at the edge of the man’s nose, less than an inch from his face, and he cringes backward like he could sink into the floor and get away from me.
I dare you. Run, motherfucker, run.
The scent of magic fills the air, and I know the man beneath me is about to shift. I’m ready for it, my lips curled back from my teeth and my body tensed to attack. But before either of us can do anything else, soft, familiar hands sink into my fur and fist my scruff.
“Dare, please. Don’t hurt him.” Sable’s voice drifts into my ears like a balm for my nerves. She tugs, and fingernails digging into the thick fur at my shoulders. “Please, Dare!”
She’s not strong enough to yank me off the fucker, and she knows it. Even if he shifts, I’m sure I could take this asshole. The wolf inside me, the part of me that was almost feral before I met my mate, wants to fight him. Wants to kill him.
But if I did that, I’d become a pariah—the angry, unpredictable alpha with no pack who can’t be trusted around other shifters. They’d banish me from pack lands. Banish me from her. Ridge, Archer, and Trystan would turn their backs on me, and this tentative peace and happiness we’ve found together would come crashing down.
I can’t do that to Sable.
Her grip on my fur pulls me back from that ledge, breaking the tight focus of my anger. I back away, putting my front paws back on the floor. The man glares at me as he sits up and rubs his chest.
Good, I hope I broke a rib, you fucking prick. Say something about my mate again and see what happens next time.
Fury is still burning white-hot through my veins, and I don’t trust myself not to launch myself at the man if he so much as breathes a word against Sable.
So before the shitbag can say another word, I turn and bound out of the meeting house. The feral wolf in me howls with disappointment, hungry for blood. But I already fucked things up between me and my mate by pushing her away after
