Accidentally Wolf by Elle Boon

his Harley crested the
last hill to the clinic, he was having problems keeping his beast in check. The
scent of Cora’s fear rushed him within seconds of him pushing the kickstand
down on the bike. His senses were more acute in wolf form, and he allowed the
change to take him without a second’s hesitation.
    Niall, along with four other pack
members, stood in their shifted forms. All were waiting for Zayn to catch his
bearings and lead the way.
    He let his nose sift through all
the different smells, zeroing in on the one scent he most wanted to find. The
cloying scent of one of the men he recognized as Tom overlaid Cora’s. All
around the building he was able to differentiate over four other shifters.
Meaning five shifters had been there, five men he would have to kill. The
scents shifted and left three different trails leading away from the building.
    Niall, Torq, and Bronx waited for
Zayn to point out which trail to follow. Afraid that the other wolves had done
a bait and switch, Zayn decided they should split up. He’d follow the one with
Cora’s scent, and his pack mates would follow the two other trails.
    At the last moment, he reminded
them of the traps that had injured Nolan. The possibility that there were still
more out there waiting for a victim, or a wolf, made his hackles rise. While
the cub had escaped without real injury, the adult wolves wouldn’t. Upon
further inspection of the trap, Niall had found it wasn’t an ordinary trap, but
one with a silver core, meant to kill werewolves. Luckily they could scent
silver if they knew to look out for it.
    Each group turned in opposite
directions, taking the other trails.
    Zayn kept his nose and senses on
Cora’s scent, kept calling out to his mate to answer him. He came to an abrupt
halt. The tiny almost nonexistent whisper of sound off to his left had his
hackles rising. He dropped into a crouch, ready to pounce.
    Paul, a member of their pack,
stalked into the underbrush. You were
right. The trail led back into a circle this way. They tried to fake us out.
    Zayn reached out to Niall. Did you send Paul out to search for Cora?
    No. Paul was supposed to be helping watch the cubs.
    He’s here pretending you sent him. I’m going to allow him to think I
believe him and see what he does.
    Zayn fed him a line of bullshit,
hoping he was in turn relaying it to the bastards who had his woman, hoping it
would buy them more time. Thank you,
Paul. I appreciate your help. I’m fucked in the head, thinking what could be
happening to my mate right now. She can’t even shift.
    I’d be the same way, man. You lead the way, and I’ll follow you.
    Now that he was really listening,
he could hear the sneer in Paul’s voice. Paul had a thing for Niall’s mate Emma
before Niall came along, even though she hadn’t returned the feelings. When
Niall and his brother came to Mystic with Jett, Paul and several other pack
members had tried to scare them away, which was normal in shifter societies.
They’d challenged, all three of them, Niall, Zayn, and Jett in not so fair
fights, and lost each time. Again, it was normal in their world. Niall had to
prove he was alpha enough to be mated to the previous alpha’s only daughter. He
was.
    Up until that moment, Paul had
never shown any signs of not being satisfied with Niall being the alpha. Never
did Zayn think Paul, or any other member of the Mystic pack, would ever harm a
woman or child considered part of their pack. Now, he had to wonder if others
from his pack were part of the attempt on Nolan’s life, and who else he was
going to find holding his mate who were part of his
pack too.
    Gods, this was going to kill Emerson
and Payton. They loved each and every man, woman, and child like their own
flesh and blood.
    Zayn blocked his thoughts from
Paul, other than showing the man a mass of confusion. The other man on the
other hand, didn’t have the same control, and Zayn picked up his sense of
triumph. Zayn wanted to turn around and rip