Wild Wolf, part 1

Wild Wolf copyright 2018 Bonnie Vanak

"Oh hell no, I'm not marrying anyone."

Jordan folded her arms and gave her most defiant stare at Tristan, the Silver Wizard. Clad in all black, his shoulder-length black hair fringed with silver, he looked intimidating. The wizard, judge and guardian over all shifters, including Lupines like herself, could fry her with a flick of his finger.

But Tristan didn't look angry, only resigned.

"Aiden found a suitable candidate willing to take you as his mate." Tristan perched on the edge of the balcony, never mind that it was forty stories in the air. "I suggest, strongly suggest, you take the offer. Shifter prison will break you, Jordan."

They sat outside Aiden Mitchell's lodge in Montana, her temporary quarters after Tristan had snatched her away from the crime scene in Wyoming. For three days she'd lived on the Mitchell Ranch under close supervision while Tristan decided upon her punishment.

Shifter prison was bad. But marriage? Worse.

From the time she ran from her pack at age 17, Jordan had vowed to never bind herself to a male. Not even prison would break that vow. "Can't be worse than mating with a male, having him order me around."

Tristan snapped his fingers and a translucent ball floated in the air, showing a scene of a Lupine trudging around a dirt yard, chains dragging on his feet. "One hour of fresh air and sunshine permitted."

She shrugged. "A day? I can take it."

"Per week for crimes such as yours. Per month for those who have committed worse crimes." Tristan closed his fist and the image vanished.

Her stomach somersaulted. Without her beloved outdoors and the chance to release her wolf, she might as well be dead. She tried to keep the horror from her face, and the fear from her eyes. "So? I've had worse."

"Which is why I've gone to the enormous trouble of trying to find a mate for you instead of sending you to prison." Tristan narrowed his eyes. "You're only 23, Jordan. Much too young to rot away in darkness. But your transgression warrants it."

Guilt flickered through her. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone."

"You set fire to the wood pillars of that Skin house and showed your wolf form running away. The boy saw you, Jordan. If I hadn't been watching you closely, the fire would have burned the house down and the Skins would have known your secret."

Never let humans, or Skins as Others called them, know of the existence of shifters and Others. But the humans who lived in the house were cruel.

"I had good reason. It was only to smoke them out, so I could snatch the boy and take him to the Skin authorities."

"Regardless, you will suffer punishment." Tristan's voice softened. "I know you meant well, but arson is a serious crime and there were alternatives to saving him. You should have called me."

And there was the problem. For six years she'd been self-sufficient, surviving on her own, refusing help from anyone. Always on the road, never settling. When she'd passed by in the woods and glimpsed through the window the Skins beating the young boy with a leather belt as he screamed and begged for mercy, her entire soul cried out for justice.

She walked over to the hummingbird feeder suspended from a bracket on a railing. "What happened to the boy?"

Jordan had been magically transported away by Tristan directly after her crime, held here at the Mitchell Ranch.