Hannah Pole - Song Of The Wolf

“You will talk. Or I will make you,” he growled at the rotting bastard’s sneer.

“Seriously Dax…” Raught moved, wrapping a strong arm around Dax’s.

“What the FUCK?!” Dax roared spinning around, ripping his arm out of Raught’s grip so harshly that the male almost staggered over.

“Don’t ever fucking touch me.” Dax was on his pack elder in a heartbeat, wrapping a fist around the male’s throat and pointing a finger in his face.

“Fuck, Raught,” he spat, the heated red of sheer anger filling his vision, soaring through his veins like fire.

Another heavy set of hands landed on his shoulders, tugging him backwards.

“HELL NO!” Dax spat, launching himself across the room, eyes so blurred he barely saw who he was swinging at.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” he roared, burying his fist in the stomach of whoever had grabbed him. Another set of hands grabbed at his arms hauling him backwards.

“Get the hell off!” Dax caught the wrist of whoever was holding him and thrust them away with enough force to send them clattering into the wall behind.

A deafening growl assaulted his eardrums making his already tense body ripple in anticipation of the coming fight. Dax did not like to be touched. Not ever.

Someone moved behind him, something he felt rather than saw, and in less than a second he was crushing the assailant’s windpipe in his fist, the idiot’s body dangling from his death grip. That growl rippled out again and it took a few seconds of doing nothing but breathing for Dax to realise that the deep vicious sound was actually him. Blinking rapidly, his vision cleared, the red haze retreating and sanity returning. This shit with Alison really had him geared up. Everyone knew he didn’t like being touched. They knew that.

As the world came back into view he could see Raught crushed up against the wall, choking against Dax’s own hand. Leyth and Taevyn, his pack brothers, had a careful grip on each of his shoulders and were desperately trying to pull him off their pack elder. And Dax was just stood there growling like a rogue wolf, attacking members of his own pack.

“Whoa there, wolf.” Raught, the pack elder, held his hands up, his silver hair swinging over his shoulder as he struggled against Dax’s grip to shove his face into his line of sight.

“Chill!” he spluttered.

“Fuck,” Dax spat, quickly loosening his grip on the male.

“Dax, I am not fighting you on this.” Raught dropped to the ground but caught himself. Squaring his shoulders and gingerly rubbing his raw red throat, Raught carefully stood outside of Dax’s reach.

“You’re coming with me, like it or not.” His grey eyes locked onto Dax’s, the strength and compassion behind them made him actually want to calm down. Yet Raught’s pity made him feel sick at the same time. Dax handled sympathy about as well as he handled being touched.

He was a grumpy arsehole. Everyone knew that. Hell, he knew that. But since Alison had been kidnapped he was worse than ever. No one was safe around him. He needed to question these tombs, get some answers, find Alison and return to his almost normal life. And he couldn’t do that from pack land.

“I’m staying.” He cast a sideways scowl at the tomb on the ground, who was still laughing.

“Look, mate, you need to go check your systems. If Alison’s chip shows up you do not want to be here and unprepared,” Raught reasoned. Dax could see him treading incredibly carefully around the words he was saying. All of the pack were like that around him. They all treated him like a ticking time bomb ready to go off at any moment.

“Come on, Dax. You know Leyth will question him.”

“NO!” Dax barked.

“Mate. I’m more than capable of questioning a few tombs,” Leyth assured him.

Dax didn’t say anything, just started walking towards the rotting zombie.

“Hell no, mate. I damn well said…”

“Don’t start with me, Leyth,” Dax snapped as Leyth stepped in front of him, puffing his chest out and curling a tight fist. Dax’s whole body tensed, ready to take his friend and pack mate down if necessary.

“Males.” Raught carefully stepped between them. “Leyth, you know Tamriel will kick the shit out of both of you if she finds out you’ve been fighting. And Dax. For Maker’s sake, check Alison’s GPS, eat some damn food and then get back out in the field. You need to update Julian anyway.”

Dax sighed. He knew the wolf was right. He did need to check his computer systems. Alison had a GPS chip in her neck but they had taken her so far underground that it had lost signal. And Julian, his pack Alpha and Alison’s brother, did need an update.

“Fine. Let’s go.” He stalked forward leaving Raught jogging to catch up with him and climbed into his beat-up old Ford to get back to pack land.

Eventually Dax found himself stalking the length of Julian’s office.

Maker only knew he’d spent most of the last three weeks doing exactly that.

“You could have died , Dax,” Julian spat at him; the male’s long blond hair was tied into a thick braid that swung violently over his shoulder as he slammed a heavy fist on his desk, cracking the wooden surface.

“Like I give a crap,” Dax hissed. “We need to be in the field, constantly.” He locked his eyes on to Julian’s. “Alison is still out there.”

“Don’t you think I know that!” his Alpha roared, “She’s my goddamn sister. I’ve been out every damned day looking for her, I can’t sleep at night because I’m so worried –”

“Then why don’t you come hunting with me at night?” Dax cut him off.

“Because,” Julian barked, “I’m not an idiot. We need to sleep and eat, Dax. Otherwise when we do finally find her we will be too weak from the lack of sustenance to fight to get her free.”

“Well, I can’t do it,” Dax growled. “I can’t be here, lounging, living, when I know she’s out there. I just can’t do it, Julian.”

Dax slumped his tired body down in the giant leather chair that sat on the opposite side of Julian’s oversized desk. Resting his forehead briefly in his hands he took a deep breath. They’d had this argument over and over again. Julian was working himself into the ground looking for Alison and Dax knew it. The problem was that he couldn’t physically stop.

He rarely returned to pack grounds unless he was dragged back by one of his pack brothers. He spent every minute of the day and night out searching for that female.

Why? Because she was pack-kin and that was all there was to it.

He just couldn’t stand the idea of the new High Lord with his hands all over her. He hadn’t slept in weeks. He hadn’t eaten in days.

He didn’t care. He needed to get back out there.

He had to find her.

“For Christ’s sake.” Julian heaved a great sigh and waved a hand at him. “Go and have a shower. You stink. Go and eat something. And if you have to go back out, take the Djinn with you. Don’t kill yourself, Dax, you’re no good to Alison dead.”

Dax nodded at his Alpha, stalking out of the huge room Julian called an office. The blood-red walls and gold trim weren’t exactly calming anyway. He quickly made his way through the foyer to the mansion and into the kitchen.

“Hi, Dax. Want me to fix you a sandwich?” Sarah’s happy face appeared in front of him. The female’s bouncy curls framed her face and she looked a little flushed. She’d obviously been stood over the cooker for a while.

“Hi, Sarah. Nah, I’m just gonna grab something from the fridge,” he grunted at her, avoiding eye contact. The long stainless steel worktops suddenly became incredibly interesting. So did the tiled floor. In fact anything that wasn’t that female was better to look at.