Jolie spotted their paws before they turned into feet. Running shoes.

Made sense. Even though the clothes didn't make a difference when a shifter was in their animal form, some thought that if you were going to go out for a run in your animal shape, then it was best to wear good running shoes before the shift. As if that was going give luck, or help with posture.

Jolie spotted Dempsey's shoes, and she groaned, pushing herself to her knees. She didn’t have to pay attention to the two others who were with him, just to the one guy who had it out for her.

Dempsey reached out and touched her wolf ear.

Jolie yanked her head away, her tail waving angrily, as if she was a cat instead of a wolf.

"Get a little scared, did you?"

Jolie looked away from him. Her ears and tail came out when she was high on adrenaline, not just scared, but he liked to tease her about that. No one else in the pack could make their wolf ears and tail appear when they were otherwise in their human shape. She'd been able to do it since she was a little kid. Dempsey had always liked it, so she'd tried not to do it too much after Liam was kicked out.

Dempsey sighed. He reached out, touching the soft fur of the wolf ear on top of her head again, stroking it gently between his finger and thumb before pinching down hard.

Jolie grit her teeth. Her eyes burned. She couldn't help it. It hurt!

She glared at him, showing her teeth, and her small fangs.

Dempsey smiled at her, as if that was the thing he'd been waiting to see. "There you are. Now, it's one thing for my mate to run away from me, but it's something else entirely for me to hear you calling out that name."

"I wasn't calling for anyone—ah!" Jolie let out a sharp shriek when Dempsey didn't just pinch her ear, but also dug his fingernail into the sensitive skin. As if he was getting ready to tear out a strip of flesh.

Oh God, she really didn't want him to do that to her.

"I heard that name. You're not supposed to say that name."

Jolie absorbed the pain, felt it, acknowledged it, and then pushed it down as she showed off her fangs one more time. "You say it all the time."

Dempsey's eyes turned red. The standard alpha color. It was always a little different when those red eyes started to glow.

He was mad, and he was definitely hurting her, a lot more than he'd ever done in the past.

In a way, Jolie was glad for it. She was glad to know this was who he really was. She was glad to know that she hadn't been wrong to run away from him. Why would she ever in a million years want to be mated to a man like this? Let him hurt her, he was just proving what an unworthy asshole he was.

Dempsey's eyes continued to glow, but he cocked his head to the side just a little, as though trying to figure out what was going on inside of Jolie's head.

"Now what do you have to smile about, I wonder?"

Jolie didn't answer that. Sweat from the pain was starting to bead on her forehead, but somehow, it was kind of funny. She was glad for this. She was glad Dempsey was such a thick moron, because then he could never really break her, even if he did take her.

Then the thin flesh of her wolf ear almost felt as if it popped where his fingernail, no, his claw had been piercing her.

And she realized he'd put a hole on her.

"Oops, now look what I did," he said, pulling his hand back. There was blood on the tips of his fingers, on the claws of his thumb and forefinger.

Jolie was definitely not smiling anymore. She lifted a shaky hand to her ear, felt the heat of it, and then was sure she didn't want to confirm what she already knew.

Well, her wolf ear had a hole in it, and her palm had a slice in it. She could handle that.

"Shit, someone give me a rag," Dempsey demanded, as if he'd made the puncture wound by complete accident.

Jolie didn't think she believed that for a second, but she was smart enough to realize that it didn't matter what she believed in that moment. She was pretty much done for.

One of the betas, Dustin, pulled a red and white rag from his back pocket. Jolie yanked her head away before Dempsey could touch her with it. "Don't even think about putting that filthy thing on my ear."

"Oh?" Dempsey looked amused again. Sometimes he liked it when she fought him on certain things. Other times, he despised it. "Why is that? You're bleeding."

"He probably blew his nose in that, or wiped his hands on it when he changed the oil in his truck. Don't touch me with it."

Dempsey looked down at the rag with renewed interest, then handed it back to Dustin.

"Right, well, I don't see any black marks on it, but now you've got me grossed out enough that I hate that I've touched it."

Jolie wished she could make him stop touching her. The instant he wiped his hands on his jeans, they came down on her shoulders, his thumbs stroking her skin.

"You don't really want me for a mate, Dempsey," Jolie said. Her last ditch effort to make him see at least some small amount of reason. "We're not good for each other."

"We can be. I like you. I like that you push my buttons, and that you're unique, and believe it or not, I like the way you're always mouthing off to Renzo. I think you're funny."

"Even when I was mouthing off yesterday at the pack meeting?"

Once again, Dempsey didn't exactly look too happy to be reminded about something like that.

That was the thing with him. He thought her snarky personality was cute and unique when it wasn't being directed at him. Every other time, he hated it, and now Jolie knew just what lengths he was willing to go to in order to make her stop.

Dempsey seemed to come to his own conclusions just then. He closed his eyes, took a breath, and when he opened them again, he was smiling at her, as if they were friends.

He dusted off her shoulders, picking a piece of lint from her summer jacket. "Okay, so here's what we're going to do. I'm going to take you home and we're going to get you cleaned up. Next week, we'll get the mating done and over with. I won't do anything to you tonight, it'll be nice and proper, just the way it's supposed to be. Does that sound nice?"

It sounded as if he thought he was being nice. Or at least making the attempt, but it wasn't good enough because Jolie still didn't want to do this. She especially didn't want to do it with him.

"Can't you just find someone else to have your pups? Why does it have to be me?"

Jolie definitely thought that would have been the wrong thing to say, but then Dempsey didn't have the reaction she expected from him.

He didn't look angry. He just kept rubbing her shoulders, as if that was supposed to be a normal thing.

"You and I, we're going to be good together. Okay? I've known that from the moment we first met, and I've given you lots of time to come to terms with this."

"You announced it yesterday."

"You knew how I felt about you. You always knew."

She did know; that was the thing she didn't like to admit to herself.

She'd known this was coming, and yet she'd been hoping that somehow it would never get to this.

That she could just continue living in the pack as long as she wanted, going about her life, doing her chores, getting her education, and maybe even a human job, and Dempsey would never touch her.

She'd been an idiot.

Dustin spoke up. "Dempsey?"

Dempsey ignored him. He kept his eyes on Jolie, his entire focus. "You're the one for me. Trust me on that."

And yet she couldn't trust him. She wasn't hard to look at, Jolie knew that much about herself, but she wasn't the best looking in the pack either. There were others—blondes, redheads, brunettes—who knew how to wear their clothes and makeup to make them look a thousand times better than Jolie did. She didn't understand this.

"You'll learn soon enough," Dempsey promised when she didn't answer.

"Dempsey," Dustin said again, and when two of the other betas backed away from the circle they'd made around Jolie and Dempsey, that was when Jolie really sat up and took notice.

They shouldn't have been doing that. They should have been protecting their defacto leader.

Dempsey growled at the lot of them. "Hey, what the fuck do you think you're..."

Dempsey didn't finish. Jolie didn't understand why until she realized he was looking at something. His attention was somewhere else, and she had to lean to the side in order to see what it was that made the words stuck in his mouth.

Jolie almost didn't see it. When she did, she thought it was a bear, and her eyes flew wide when her brain put together what it actually was.

A wolf. A big wolf. Much bigger than Jolie would have thought him to be.

The way Dempsey talked about him, Jolie would have thought he wasn't much bigger than Dempsey was when he was in his wolf form.

He was bigger all right. He might even be bigger than Renzo was.

And the hope that had flown away from Jolie renewed deep within her chest, and she smiled, begging whoever was up there that this was actually happening. "Liam?”

The wolf lowered his head, hackles raised up high, and his black lips pulled back to reveal his many sharp teeth. The teeth of an animal that didn’t want these intruders in his territory.

To Be Continued.......................

All right! I really hope you're enjoying this story so far :) All new chapters will come up on Fridays now, though again, if you were inclined to add this book to your library, I might just upload Chapter 4 a few days early :)

Thank you so much for reading. I really do hope you enjoy this story as much as I liked writing it. Please click the little heart button if you're so inclined as well, and I love reading comments ^_^

Hugs and happy reading!

Mandy