All Chapters of THE WILD ROSE: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

You could smell the sea salt from their home and sometimes hear the waves crashing at night. Rose stood on the porch of the pack house, squinting down the road that wound out of Stonehaven.She would be eighteen in three weeks. The pack would throw a celebration whether she wanted it or not, and she would finally get her long-awaited wolf. That should have been enough to fill her thoughts, but it wasn’t. What mattered was that Xavier and Chris were coming home.Her two best friends.She could still feel the river mud from Spouts Bridge, the way it had squelched between her toes when she and Xavier and Chris had hunted frogs at dusk, the three of them laughing till they cried.The pack had called them the Three Musketeers then. She had been a year younger, always trying to keep up; they had fit together in a way that had never needed explaining.They had run the clifftops, played along the beach, swum out past the break, even when they knew they shouldn’t, and raced to the waterfall wh

They dragged her to the packhouse dungeons before she even had a chance to speak. Alpha Callans' howls haunted the lands of Stonehaven. I would never have paid that price, he had cried. By the time she was dragged to face the pack, faces she had known all her life stared at her like she was a stranger. “Why didn’t you fight beside him?” Alpha Callan’s voice cracked like dry wood. “I tried, the roses, they hid me. I couldn’t move, couldn’t even scream.” The words sounded insane even to her. Someone produced a note, Xavier’s handwriting, but the one she had received, now folded to look like she had written it, luring him to the waterfall alone. It was a trap with her name on it. She told them the truth about the mate bond. Told them how he had chosen her. Brittany stepped forward, eyes wide and shining with tears. “He never said anything like that to me. We were together. Everyone saw it.” Lying bitch, she screamed, breath tearing out of her. Rose’s heart was broken, and she

Damn him, looking like a beautiful Viking hell god. That face and body made me wanna lick him from head to toe.You’re pissed at him, I reminded myself.Why did he have to look like that, like something carved out of sin and confidence, standing in my bar?“I’m working,” I said, forcing my voice steady even as something hot and reckless sparked low in my stomach. “I don’t have time to drop everything for someone who already has a mate.”The words came out hoarser than I intended, edged with more than just anger.His look didn’t waver.If anything, it deepened.“You look pale,” he said, his voice quiet.“Probably because I’ve been around your kind too long,” I shot back, leaning into the bar like it might steady me.Chris made a strangled sound beside me, caught in the crossfire.“I, uh… I think I’ll go check on your dad,” he muttered, already sliding off the stool, scraping it back as he made his escape.“I told you,” Kaelyn said, his attention snapping straight back to me, “she is n

“Listen to me carefully, Rose. I want you. All of you. My blood is like a drug.”Kaelyn’s voice was low, but there was no softness in it. His eyes held mine, steady and unrelenting, and my body answered him before my mind could catch up, heat still coiled through me, restless and searching.“What you’re feeling right now isn’t your true feelings,” he continued. “It’s the blood. It creates a pull. It makes you think what you’re feeling is real.”“But…” I started the word catching.“No,” he said quietly, cutting me off without raising his voice. “You need to get control of yourself. When you come to me freely, when it’s your choice and not this…” His gaze flicked over me, taking in everything. “Then I’ll take you, but never like this.”My breath hitched, frustration and desire twisting together.“Your father is downstairs,” he added, his tone shifting. “He knows exactly what my blood does. You don’t strike me as someone who wants to disappoint him.”“Will you stay?” I asked, the words

My eyes locked onto Luke the second he stepped through the door. Whatever he’d seen out there, whatever he’d found, it wasn’t good. “Rose, my office now,” he said as he walked past me. “Watch the bar, Hale,” I called over my shoulder, already moving. “What if the cops show up?” he asked, glancing up from the half-poured beer in his hand. Arthur was already sliding behind the bar like he’d been doing it his whole life. “I’ll handle the cops,” he said, his voice calm but carrying weight. “Just don’t start another fight; those patrons were still outside planning a coup.” “That wasn’t my fault,” I muttered, even as I followed Luke down the back hallway. The noise of the bar dulled behind us as he pushed the office door open. Once we were inside, I bombarded him with questions. “What happened?” I asked. “Did you find them?” Luke dragged a hand through his hair, pacing once before answering. “No sign of them,” he said. “Not a trace.” My stomach dropped, that hollow feeling settli