It was a risk, a huge risk, but Jolie needed to take it if it kept Liam from going out there. From getting shot.

She hot footed it as quickly as she could along the wall of the waterfall, coming out behind it on the rock.

Liam didn't follow her, which was good. All eyes were currently on her. She even felt Liam's stare as he watched her through the water. If he came any closer, he would be seen.

His stare was the hottest against the back of her neck, but that was fine. As long as he stayed where he was, he would be fine. He could be an alpha, and a huge wolf on top of that, but shifters were not immune to bullet holes.

"Hello, Jolie," Dempsey said. His hands were pressed firmly on his hips, and his lower lip was split and red, though not bleeding.

It looked as if it had been not too long ago, and a lot. The fact that both of his eyes were also black added up to how much he looked like complete shit. That was a hard thing for a guy who was normally good-looking to do.

"Hi, Dempsey." Red was back with him, and so was Dustin, but Carl was there as well as Patrick. None of them had guns pointed at her, or in hand, but she could see the holsters. "Are those really necessary?"

"Maybe." Dempsey shrugged. "Depends on where he is."

Jolie took two steps down the damp rock, keeping herself away from the water. She didn't step onto the grass, however.

It was as if she was still safe on the rock, as though stepping on the grass was a form of surrender, which was not what she was doing.

"Well," Dempsey asked, impatiently. "He in there with you?"

She shrugged. "Go inside and see for yourself."

Dempsey managed to keep his expression fairly neutral, considering he looked very much as if he'd been having a bad couple of days. "Now you know that is hardly fair," he said. "Come on, I came all the way out here to get you, to save you, really, and you're gonna be all sarcastic?" Dempsey shook his head. "You know, I usually think it's cute and all, but when we get mated, that shit's gonna stop."

Jolie blinked wide. She was honest to God shocked that he would still keep it in his head that there could be even a remote chance of them being together.

"I thought I made myself clear when I left," Jolie said.

"You're special," Dempsey replied. "We have one fight, and you think that's it? Come on, if we're gonna make this work, you and I are gonna need to put in some more effort than that. I can even get us a marriage counselor if you like. Huh? Does that sound good? Get all your feelings out in the open with a nice psychiatrist. I'll find one that's a shifter, too, so you can say whatever the hell you want, and I can get to work on providing like a good alpha."

She couldn't stop looking at him as if he was crazy. He wasn't, he was perfectly sane. She knew that much about him, but the fact that he wasn't letting this go suggested there was definitely something unhinged with him.

"You don't look impressed. Does she look impressed?" Dempsey looked to Carl as he pointed to Jolie.

Carl shrugged. "Not really."

He looked so uncomfortable to be asked that. None of the men with Dempsey looked happy to be where they were. They shifted from foot to foot, mouths pressed in firm lines, as if they were trying to hold back some unpleasant gas.

Jolie felt the pity in their eyes, and as much as she didn't like it, she understood it.

These were good shifters, but good men did bad things when they had to, and shifters in a pack were no different.

Jolie was going to have to work hard to make sure Dempsey couldn't take her. Not just for herself, but she knew Red. She knew Dustin, and Carl, and Patrick. She didn't want them to feel guilty for the rest of their lives that they'd brought her in against her will, so her mission was to just make sure she wasn't caught.

"What if I said I wanted a marriage counselor, but didn't want to marry you or mate with you until after I was two hundred and ten percent satisfied with the way things were going?"

She hoped Liam didn't hear that, and if he did, she also hoped he would understand why she'd said what she had.

"Two hundred?" Dempsey asked, his eyes popping wide.

"And ten," Jolie added. "A year, possibly two years of therapy, and I don't believe in sex before mating or marriage, so you would have to keep your hands to yourself, and I would need an escort if you wanted to take me out."

"Bullshit!" Dempsey said, half shouting and half laughing the words. "How do I know you didn't—"

He cut himself off, lowering his hand just as he pointed at the waterfall. He looked away from her and backed off, and she could see the clench in his cheek right before he smiled.

"You know what? I'm not going to let myself get worked up over that. The point is that I’m here now, you’re here now, and as soon as we take care of that asshole, we can wipe the slate clean. We’ll make it as if this whole thing never happened. That’s a good thing, right?”

He seemed to be waiting for an answer. Another shock since something like that came off as being a rhetorical question.

“I honestly don’t know what you want me to say to that.”

Dempsey clapped his hands together, a smile on his face. “That’s better than a full on no.”

“You haven’t been listening to my nos.”

“Whatever, someone go help my princess down from those slippery rocks and check behind that waterfall. I smell food cooking and one asshole wolf that needs to be put in his place. Get him out here, or just shoot him. If you think he’s about to attack you, shoot him.”

“No, wait, Dempsey.” Jolie struggled to quickly get down from the slippery, rocky ledge. It was only about a foot or so off the ground and she didn’t need the help. Or for anyone to put their hands on her, but she wanted them searching the waterfall even less.

Red bypassed her by walking through the water, getting ready to go through the falls.

“Red, come on,” Jolie begged.

He barely glanced at her before pushing through the water.

Jolie turned back to Dempsey. “He’s not here anyway. He left.”

“Then why are you so worried about having your hidey hole checked?”

Jolie wished she was a beta. She wanted to leap on him and claw his eyes out so badly, but she wasn’t strong enough for that, and it didn’t matter how much Dempsey liked her, or thought he liked her, she doubted he would be willing to put up with her attacking him.

Patrick stepped forward, reaching out and taking her by the elbow. His grip was tight, but not enough to hurt her.

She looked at him, and she was definitely getting tired of seeing that pitying expression on people’s faces.

“Come on, this doesn’t have to be so hard.”

Jolie glared at him, then punched him in the stomach when she couldn’t contain her rage.

The force of her fist hitting him in the gut made him cough and constrict a little, but then he was glaring down at her, and Jolie had a fist of throbbing knuckles.

“Patrick, just bring her over here. I’m sure she didn’t mean it,” Dempsey called.

Patrick did as he was told, yanking her along, probably a little harder than he really needed to. Jolie walked, but only because he had to.

Dempsey smiled as she approached, as if he was having his favorite toy returned to him.

“There, now this doesn’t need to be hard, now does it?”

Jolie yanked her arm out of Patrick’s hand, though she knew she was only able to get away because he loosened his grip and allowed it. “You know, if you really want me to be your mate, you should probably stop with talking to me like a fucking child. Makes a girl wonder what you’re actually into.”

Dempsey barked a laugh. “There! You see! This isn’t going to break you. I’ll let you get away with that one because it was a zinger, but otherwise, sweetness, you’re going to have to zip it.”

“But I—”

“Shh!”

The way he hissed it at her took Jolie aback.

Dempsey lifted a single finger, a warning for her to say nothing else.

“You can’t just—”

“Shh!”

“I won’t be—”

“Zip it!”

“Will you stop that!”

“Okay, darling, I’m going to need you to do less of this right here. See this?” He flapped his fingers and thumb together again and again, a pair of chatty lips. “Less of this, and more of this.” He closed his fingers and thumb together.

Jolie clenched her hands into fists, and she didn’t care if it hurt her palm.

“You see that? Less of this…” The flapping fingers. “And more of this.” Closed again.

Jolie glared up at him. “I get it.”

“And yet you’re still talking.”

She wanted to tell him that whoever was unlucky enough to mate with him, a real mating, was going to be annoyed to hell and back for having to put up with his bullshit, but she didn’t want to get hissed at again.

Red came back out of the falls, shaking the water from his red hair. “There’s no one in there. Just a campfire and some clothes. He’s been in there before. I think he lives here.”

“It seriously took you that long to get in there, have a quick look and sniff before you decided to come out here and tell me that? What were you doing, marking your territory?”

Red glanced away just long enough for it to be clear he was embarrassed.

Jolie struggled to hold back a laugh. “Are you serious? You were marking your territory? Can’t you control yourself?”

Betas were known to mark their territory for the alphas they worked for when there was a rogue alpha nearby. Supposedly, it was instinct. Jolie wasn’t so sure about that. She always thought it was a convenient excuse for the men to whip it out and take a pee outdoors whenever the urge hit them. Mostly she thought this because, as far as she knew, she’d never seen a female beta squatting down against a tree or building to mark her territory.

That was insane, and gross enough, but the sudden heat in Jolie’s gut pulled her attention to something else. She looked to the side, into the trees.

She saw nothing. Not really. There were the trees and bushes, the sounds of crickets and chirping birds, and then the whooshing noise of the waterfall itself, but there was also…something.

Yet she spotted no shadows between the bushes and branches. She caught no sight of movement that couldn’t be explained by the subtle breeze in the area, and yet there was something out there.

She knew what it was. Even though she couldn’t see him, he was there, and he was doing what she’d given him the chance to do.

Good.

Dempsey hardly seemed to notice. He was too busy being impatient and cranky. “Christ, whatever, can we just get out of here already? I’ll get some more betas out here to watch the place. If it wasn’t under a waterfall, I’d burn it.”

Jolie couldn’t believe it. “Dempsey, you can’t be serious. You brought two other people with you today that weren’t here when Liam thrashed you. Do you really think a couple of betas around here are going to keep him from coming back?”

“Some of these might,” Dempsey replied, lifting his shirt and pulling out the gun for her to get a proper look at it.

Jolie shook her head. “Dempsey, I’m not going with you, and I’m pretty sure you would need to sneak up on him for the guns to be worth it.”

Or for Liam to get stupid and think he could just charge out there and slash everyone to pieces when they had guns instead of playing it smart.

Dempsey smiled at her, his head tilting to the side just a little. “Sweetie, I thought we just agreed that you were coming with me? Okay? Best to not confuse me right now, I’m not in the best of moods.”

“Yeah, I can see that, but I’m still not coming with you.”

Dempsey’s head fell back. He heaved the heaviest sigh she’d ever heard from him. “Okay, why? What do you need now?”

“Nothing you can give me.”

She could slowly see the purple color rising up his neck. She was almost proud of him for trying to contain his usual rage, but at the same time, it was easy to remember that this was the guy who was trying to force her hand into a mating, so then that pride quickly vanished.

“You are so fucking…you know what? Forget this. I’m your alpha so I’ll just take you home.”

Jolie backed up as he walked towards her. “Don’t touch me, Dempsey.”

“Uh huh, we can talk about it when we get home. I’m sure after a couple of years of wedded bliss you’ll find it in your hard, cold heart to forgive me.”

He reached out, snatching her by the arm.

Jolie tried to pull back. “Hey!”

His grip tightened, and Jolie found herself walking into the water, pulling him with her, and he was clearly getting pissed off.

“Come here, stop making this so hard on us.”

“There is no us, you idiot!”

Jolie yanked on her wrists, getting one of them free, and then pulling back hard before slapping him in the face with all the force she had in her body.

Her palm cracked perfectly against his cheek, and that dark purple color of rage slid the rest of the way up his face, making his transformation into a grape complete.

He smacked her back. It didn’t hurt right away, though she felt it. Her body flew back. The only thing that kept her from going right in the water was the fact that he still had her by her arms and kept her on her feet.

Liam was taking his sweet time getting here, that was for sure.

“Now I promise,” Dempsey started “that I am not the sort of alpha who hits an omega, not often, and I don’t like doing it when it does have to happen, so that hurt me more than it did you.”

“Ow, I doubt it,” Jolie moaned, lifting her hand to her jaw. She definitely felt as if something as a little off center. She hoped that was just the ache she felt and not something that was actually misplaced in her jaw.

“Okay, well, whatever. We’ll put some ice on that when we get home. For now, just stop fighting me—”

The sound of Red’s horrified scream pulled Dempsey’s attention away from Jolie and towards the man who worked for him.

Jolie had to look, too. She couldn’t not look towards the source of that hideous shrieking sound.

Red trembled on the tips of his toes, held there in place by the four long claws that had punched right through his shoulder. The muscles in his face spasmed, and with the way his mouth was dropped open, it was clear he was still trying to scream, but just couldn’t get the sound out. Not through the pain.

“Shit,” Dempsey muttered.

Jolie acted fast, pulling his gun out of his holster and pointing it at his face before he could use her as a human shield. “Get back, right now.”

To Be Continued......

Sorry this is a bit late, I wanted to have this up on Friday, not Saturday at 2 in the morning, but here is your next chapter for Wild Wolf's Wife :)

I really hope you liked it! Like and comment below if you enjoyed it. I love hearing from you guys.

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Hugs and happy reading! Next chapter coming soon!

Mandy Rosko