But River doesn’t seem to care about what I don’t do.
“Hey,” he says, brushing back a loose strand of my hair, tucking it behind my ear, his warm hand on the curve of cheek. “I know you aren’t asking for help, but I’m giving it. Okay?” Then he leans down and lifts me off the ground. Without missing a beat, he carries me toward his friends up ahead. My body stiffens, and he notices.
“I don’t bite, you know,” he says.
I snort. “Says the wolf.”
“Touché.”
I lean against him because really, it’s impossible not to. He smells like pine trees and sandalwood and – oddly since we’re out in the woods -- a used bookstore. Like well-worn pages and favorite passages. I could dog-ear him, run a pencil under his words, and return to them time and time again. He’s a stranger but he feels familiar. And right now, after the day I’ve had, I need familiar. Even if the familiarity is a fabrication in my mind. I need to feel like I am not alone in the world.
“I got you,” he says as if understanding all my unsaid things.
“Thanks,” I say under my breath, not trusting myself to say anymore. And when we get to their cave, tucked behind thick pine trees, my eyebrows raise. River sets me to the ground, and I look around the intimate space. “This isn’t like any cave I’ve ever seen.” My eyes run over the walls carved from rock, and am relieved to see a large pallet on the ground, covered in old, Pendleton wool blankets. Against a wall there’s a shelf with some basic food items—trail mix and bottles of water, jerky. East lights a lantern sitting on a small table. While it’s a cave, it’s a cozy one.
“We come out here a lot,” East explains. “If we’re out on a hunt and need a place to rest.”
“In your wolf form or human form?” I ask.
“Both,” he answers. “When we’re human we appreciate some modern luxuries, like lighting, that our more primal side doesn’t need. Works well for us tonight, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” I murmur, trying to orientate myself to the situation. It feels impossible, yet here we are, living the impossible.
“Can I look at your arm?” East asks, stepping toward me. The space is small, and we are all so close to one another. But I don’t mind. Tonight, I don’t want to feel alone.
I nod, and he helps ease off my denim jacket. I wince as he takes it off.
“I need to take your shirt off, Remedy,” he tells me. “So, I can wash this up.”
Understanding the necessity, I use my good hand to lift the hem of my shirt. “I can’t do this by myself,” I tell them, realizing it’s near impossible to undress one-handedly.
“I’ll help,” East says. He pulls up my shirt, getting it over my head and past my arms. He looks me straight in the eyes, not glancing down at my breasts or bare skin. “You’re gonna be okay,” he promises. And I appreciate his gentleness more than he knows—more than I thought mattered. But it does. This man looking at my injury instead of the rise of my breasts. He reaches for a bottle of water, dampening a clean cloth, and running it over the dried blood on my upper arm. He isn’t soft like River. He is effortless though and his touch doesn’t make me tense. Instead, he has the opposite effect. With him, I relax.
“You know, you’re the first woman we’ve brought to the cave,” he tells me with a half-smile.
“Not even female wolves?”
“Hmmm, fair question.” He looks at River and Callum, consulting them before answering. But when he looks back at me, I’m surprised by the raw expression on his face. “No one but you, Remedy. We’ve been waiting, saving ourselves for you.”
“Saving your what?” I ask, eyebrows raised.
East wipes my wound, and I look at it, the cut now cleaned. “It’s not as bad as I expected,” East says, relief written in his voice.
“Are you avoiding my question?” I ask as he pulls off his own shirt. His muscles are taut, his abs a ladder of absolute perfection. I try not to stare as he rips the cotton into a long strip, and wrapping it around my arm. The swiftness with which he tends to me is a surprise. He’s very comfortable playing doctor.
“Kinda,” he admits with a grin. “I mean when we say we’ve been waiting… we mean… we haven’t ever been with a woman.” When I scrunch up my face he adds, “Or a female wolf.”
“You’re virgins, is that what you’re trying to tell me? Waiting for me?”
“Our Remedy,” Callum says.
At this, I laugh. “You guys are pulling my chain.” I shake my head. “Or you’re seriously tripping.”
But they just shake their heads, breathing slowly, as if this is a moment they have been anticipating.
But how?
“Why me?” I ask.
“Our pack is divine,” Callum says as if it’s the most obvious and logical thing in the world.
I cock a brow his way. “How so?”
“We don’t just mate,” East says. “We have soulmates… and you… you are ours.”
“Is this some vortex I fell into? Because guys.” I press a hand to my face trying to gain clarity. It’s like I’m in a fog or under a spell—I stepped into this forest and fell into another dimension. One where virgin-shifting wolves save women from danger. “You know how unreal this all sounds.”
“Yet here we are,” River says, still standing in front of me, now reaching for my hand. Our fingers thread together and my skin shivers.
“Tonight, we want to share,” Callum says. “It’s all we’ve ever wanted.”
“Three men sharing one woman?” I scoff. “No man asks for that.”
East brushes my wild hair away from my face, my collarbone exposed and my breastbone bare and my heart beats so hard I swear they can all see the thump-thump-thump.
I’ve never had much of my own. I’ve counted myself lucky the times I’ve had more than the clothes on my back. But my body is the one thing no one has taken from me. It’s something I’ve guarded. Whenever a man tried to get in my pants, I raised hell and somehow got them to back off.
And right now, I’m glad I put up a fight. Because this is the moment I have been waiting for--without even knowing it.
“I’m a virgin too,” I tell them. Then I roll my eyes, lick my lips. Defense mechanisms flaring. “I can’t believe I just told you that.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. You’re in good company,” Callum says, taking my other hand.
“I think I’m hallucinating,” I tell them. Earlier tonight, I literally killed a man and now I’m in a cave, hiding from bears and the police, with three sexy men who happen to be virgins.
“No, this isn’t a dream.” Callum smiles and adds, “But it is our fantasy.”
“And what’s your wildest fantasy, Remedy?” East asks.
I close my eyes. My deepest, truest fantasy is something these men can’t give me. I want a home. A family. A forever.
Knowing I won’t get that anytime soon considering I’m likely on a Most Wanted list, I open my eyes, seeing the next best thing.
“My fantasy?” I smirk. “Tonight, wolves, it’s that we all lose our v-cards.”