Claiming His Need by Ellis Leigh Page B

keep breathing once I was done with him.
    “All the boys check in?” I asked as Sandman walked up behind me. I hissed as his rough fingers prodded my broken flesh, but I didn’t move away. Pain was good; pain meant healing.  
    “You’d have to ask Magnus since he appointed himself point person on this mission.”
    “I’m really getting sick of that little fucker.” I winced as he hit a particularly painful spot.
    “Hmm, he got ya good.” Sandman came around to stand in front of me. “C’mon man, let’s go find the guys and get you cleaned up so you can spend a little quality time with your new mate. Forget about den bullshit for a while.”
    I grinned. It was automatic and unstoppable as thoughts of my mate swirled in my head. I was going to look a bit deranged when we finally joined back up with our team, but I didn’t care. This day was supposed to be about battle, about bravery and vengeance and damage done. My mate had turned the purpose of the day around at first glance. Through the pain and the dirt and the death, I had found something utterly precious and made of joy.
    “I don’t even know her name yet.”
    Sandman smirked. “I do.”
    He tossed me the clothes I’d quietly taken off in the mine entrance. Watching my mate strip for the first time had damn-near been a religious experience. All that pale skin, all those soft curves. I’d barely been able to hold myself back from taking her right there on the dirty, rocky floor. I wanted to hurry through cleanup so I could come to her. I would need to prostrate myself before her father to show my respect, but hopefully he wouldn’t make us court too long before we could begin our Rites of Klunzad. Three days alone with a woman who had a body like hers? Sounded like heaven to an old iron-horse rider like me.
    Once I was suitably covered in jeans and my cut, we jogged over the embankment and down toward the scene of the main altercation. Men in various stages of undress cleaned up the evidence of the fight. Many of the pack wolves had worn their cloaks, but most of my brothers had simply stripped before shifting. Some had shifted on the fly, meaning there were a few naked asses running around. Happened every time. Hopefully they had extra clothes in their saddlebags.
    “So what is it?” I finally asked when Sandman’s smug silence got under my skin. “What’s her name?”
    “Oh, hell no, I’m not telling you.” He laughed and turned toward where Magnus stood. “But I’ll give you a hint. It’s fitting for her wolf and in her ancestral tongue.”
    “Ancestr...what? Why can’t you give me a straight answer?”
    “What fun would that be?” He kept heading toward Magnus as I stopped next to Rex and a group of the Valkoisus pack.  
    “I don’t know many Finnish names!” I yelled after him. “How the fuck do you know her name anyway?”
    He laughed again. “Because I know stuff. Plus, I’m old and shit; history is kind of my thing.”
    “I’m older, you cocky bastard.”
    He was smiling and flipping me off when the first wolf hit him, having jumped clear over the top of the rock outcropping. Two more followed, completely covering him in seconds. I shifted in the middle of my first running step, going from boots to paws in the blink of an eye. Three other wolves, none of them from my den, came out from a far corpse of trees, running flat out toward where Magnus stood.  
    I ran as hard as I could, barking to give Magnus a heads up as to what was coming his way. He and Sandman both needed help as either could easily be overpowered since they were so outnumbered. But Magnus had a number of pack wolves nearby, and Sandman had me.
    I raced across the forest floor, barreling straight into the pile of wolves attacking my Breed brother. Gunshots sounded through the air. I didn’t pause to figure out where they were coming from. I couldn’t stop fighting. Sandman lay in wolf form under the pile of biting, clawing animals. Not moving...not