Taken In by the Pack: Second Chances by Alana Hart, Jazzmyn Wolfe Page A

sitting, several were clumped together talking in very hushed tones. From the more casual attitude and the way they were more spread out now, I got the impression that while they were still attentive, they wouldn’t stop me from leaving now if I tried.
     
    Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, that served to calm me down somewhat. There’s nothing quite like being told you can’t do something, particularly something like leave a place, to make you desperately want to do just that.
     
    It didn’t calm me down very much, though. Enough that I was able to actually get myself away from the wolf I was irrationally sure was going to devour me. As the space between it and me increased, the wolf sat up slowly, ears pricked forward, and head tilted to the side slightly, seeming curious to see what I would do next.
     
    In a move I doubt would shock anyone, I began to cry, yammering quickly, much of it fragmented and not making sense even to me.
     
    “What— No, how— Impossible! Crazy—” Words started and aborted as thoughts flitted through my head like swarming insects, cutting off each question before it even finished let alone received an answer.
     
    Several of the gathered people looked worried, and a few even started to move towards me, but then stopped. The large wolf, however, flattened his ears down and whined softly, a regretful keening sound, before the air began to quiver like clear jello around him again. I looked away, quite certain I could not hold down my dinner if I watched the process of transformation again.
     
     
    ❖ ❖ ❖

 
     
    “Adalyn?” It was Bryson’s voice once more a few moments later, raspy from strain, worry and pain. That tone tugged at the strings of my heart in unexpected ways, and I turned my eyes back to where the wolf had been.
     
    Only to immediately avert them again. He was naked . I suppose it shouldn’t have shocked me, his jeans were right there on the ground in plain sight, if I hadn’t been too oblivious to notice such details.
     
    But… but he’s naked!
     
    It was the first time I’d seen a real live adult male —not photos or on TV — fully unclothed, and ‘uncomfortable circumstances’ was a laughable understatement, given both the audience and the setting. Stranger still was the fact that no one else seemed to find it strange.
     
    I guess if this is a regular thing for them, and they’re always naked afterward, they wouldn’t find it strange at all? It was one of the most coherent thoughts I’d had in what felt like hours. I stood carefully, teetering a bit, but keeping my gaze adamantly away from Bryson’s direction.
     
    Even with my eyes completely turned from him, however, I could still sense him move up slowly behind me. ‘Bryson is naked’ and ‘Bryson is coming up behind me’ did not connect as related thoughts in my addled mind.
     
    He reached out to me, and tentatively, gently slid his arms around me, clearly trying to be comforting. It almost worked; the tension began to fade slightly, and his arms tucked me tenderly against his broad chest, wrapping me in strength and warmth.
     
    Against his broad, naked chest. Sure, he had been shirtless before, too — I understood that now, the wolf could step out of jeans, but a shirt would have been much more awkward — but all that skin reminded me that the rest of him was also now bare.
     
    With a snarl that shocked me, as if it had come from some other throat, I spun on my heel, tearing out of his half-formed embrace, and my hand connected with his face for a second time in a slap that echoed around the quiet moonlit meadow. No, it wasn’t merely quiet, at that point; it was silent, as if even the crickets and other night animals had frozen in place from the sound of that slap. The humans — or whatever they were — were as still as statues, most of their eyes practically bulging from the way they stared.
     
    Except the elderly lady, who was snickering under her breath and trying