Hood's Obsession (Kingdom, #9) by Marie Hall
Dedication
For you guys…
Lilith Wolf ran like her life depended on it.
Mainly because it did.
They were closing in fast.
Two from the left side, three from the right, and they were catching up. They were men, but covered in fur, and they were coming in hard.
“Keep running, girl,” the leader growled. “We love it when they run.”
His voice was a bassy rumble, a mix between man and beast. Heart in her throat, she called to her animal, the wolf that lived and breathed inside of her. It pulsed, hungry and violent. Ready to defend her.
The men laughed. Great wolf, they were gaining. They were so close. Way too close. She could practically feel their breath on her neck.
Her skin shivered, throbbed with the energy of the shift and then…the wolf exploded out. She shed her skin, becoming nothing but muscle and fur, and the woods were alive.
The wolf was wild, free, unhindered by things like emotion. Fear, anger, pain…none of it mattered except the need to run.
Her muscles bunched and gathered and her giant paws practically tore up the ground beneath her as she swerved around giant weeping willows whose branches soared into the heavens.
The sun was setting; soon the moon would be the only light in the sky. If she could just reach home, then she’d be safe.
She had never expected when she’d planned her trip to her girlfriend’s house that tonight, of all nights, her body would suddenly explode into heat. She was two weeks off from the date she and her family had expected.
Which wasn’t terribly shocking, it happened, but for it to happen now…on her way home, all alone in the hollers of the shifters’ den. This was bad.
Very, very bad.
Panting, she urged her body to move faster, almost blinded by the pounding adrenaline rolling through her. Her vision had narrowed down to a pinprick of light; all she could see was one paw going in front of the other. One tree flashing by on the left and then the right.
Her keen hearing though could sense the pending footfalls of alphas on the hunt.
For her.
Her hackles rose at the thought. As long as she could stay just a couple hundred steps ahead, she’d be out of range of their call.
But her muscles were quivering and the adrenaline was starting to turn to shock.
And then, like an answer to a prayer, she saw the top of her family’s chimney just ahead, and the sight of it lifted her flagging spirits, giving her muscles an extra jolt of speed. She was so close. So unbelievably close, and just as she was about to release a yip of relief she felt the heated waft of breath brush the side of her sensitized ear.
And then a giant body plowed into her middle, knocking her senseless and tossing her to the ground. Snarling, she jumped to her feet, snapped her jaws at the red-haired leader who’d still not fully shifted, and darted away.
“Run, but I’ll get you,” he called out with his hands cupped around his mouth. “I’ll always get you, Lilith! You will be mine.”
Then he howled, and if she’d not been half-human and capable of reasoning, if her human side didn’t hate St. John the way she did, she’d have turned back around. She’d have gone to him, because he’d thrown out the mating call and her wolf wanted it.
But even as her human side knew to keep going, her wolf whimpered inside her. Because the wolf was in heat and that was basic and elemental, St. John was a strong alpha male and that was the only distinction her wolf needed.
Then another howl, and another. Three more, all joining in chorus, and she whimpered, her claws gouged into the earth as she stopped, pulled up short by the instinctual need to go to him. To crawl to that vile, repulsive male.
She whined as the call grew louder.
No. No. She screamed it at her wolf. Don’t go. This is a trap.
But the drive was just too strong.
Brain and body at complete odds, she turned and whimpered her way back to the circle of men. They stood, holding hands, the alpha drawing his strength from his pack. His brown eyes glimmering with the threat of violence and sex.
Violent sex. The claiming of a wolf. They’d all wanted her, daughter of the Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood—she was a conquest, sport. A notch on their belt, that was it. They wanted to take what was hers and turn it foul, tarnish it, ruin her for another.
At least her family would be expecting her return anytime now. They’d come looking for her. Her brothers would kill St. John if they ever discovered how he’d used pack magic against her. She crawled on her paws and belly, screaming at the wolf to stop.
“That’s right, you beauty,” St. John cooed. “Come to your master.”
She snarled and he laughed.
“You cannot deny me, Lilith, I am an alpha.” And the moment he said the name, the collective power of the pack slammed into her like a rolling tide and she knew this nightmare was real.