Running Wild

volition? I find this hard to believe.” Once Pete decided on a course of action, it had been hard to steer him away from it.
Ri paused.
“How did you learn about wolves and packs anyway?”
“They’ve made some effort to kill me, more than once.”
It wasn’t the first time Ri had talked about the wolves’ violence, yet Seamus still found it difficult to wrap his mind around the troubling statement. “Why?”
Ri lifted one shoulder. “That’s what wolves do.”
Somehow Seamus doubted it, but he didn’t doubt it had been Ri’s terrible reality. He intended to confront Pete-the-liar about that.
Ri’s entire body seized up with tension. Seamus frowned and Ri whispered, “We have to go out through the balcony.”
Seamus tromped down on his first impulse to placate Ri. Not the time to condescend when Ri knew more about shifters than Seamus did. “I can’t make that jump, Ri.”
A knock came at his apartment, and they both stared at the door, Ri’s fear ratcheting up while Seamus became annoyed they’d been interrupted. Pete’s apologetic voice came through, muffled by the thick door. “Shame, it’s me.”
Seamus glanced backwards, wondering if Ri would stop him, but he didn’t as Seamus marched over to the door and swung it open. “Pete, this isn’t a good time. Besides, I am pissed…” His voice trailed off as he noted Pete had brought company. Two other men. Large, muscular men. Seamus could feel his brow crease. Ri’s words about a pack didn’t sound quite so off track right at this moment. His heartbeat picked up.
“Uh, yeah.” Pete’s attitude was different than usual. Determined, grim. He looked over at Ri to say, “You have nothing to fear from us. We’re the good guys.”
Okay, that sounded promising if a bit trite. Even if Ri gave a snort of derision.
“Us?” asked Seamus, getting annoyed all over again. “Who is ‘us’? I’m not inviting you in.”
That made Pete hesitate. “I think it’s important that your boyfriend meet a couple of people. Honestly, we just want to talk.” Pete spread his hands to indicate he meant no harm, and it was at that point Seamus realized this wasn’t about him at all. It was about Ri.
“Ri?” Seamus asked.
Ri’s dark eyes bored into Seamus. “I don’t understand why he’s hanging out in the threshold of your apartment. Nothing adds up.”
Seamus turned to Pete to explain. “He thinks all wolves are psychopaths.”
“That’s why we should talk.” A tall, raw-boned man, thirty maybe, with startling green eyes walked in. “I am not a wolf.” He looked at Ri, breathing in through his mouth as he did. “And you, you are not a cat.”
Seamus’s annoyance collapsed. Ri no longer looked like they were both about to get eaten alive, though he did appear to be gobsmacked. So Seamus swept an arm wide to indicate Pete and the third man could enter.
“Trey,” said the older guy, who Seamus assumed was a wolf, while the first man was introducing himself to Ri as Jonah. Jonah read Ri’s body language well enough to not offer his hand to him, though he did turn on his heel and do so with Seamus.
“I told you he was a solo shifter,” said Pete with some satisfaction. He was speaking to his friends.
“I’m a cat, a giant lynx to be exact,” Jonah said to Ri. “We thought a lone shifter like you might also be a cat. We were wrong.” He turned and gave the man called Trey the biggest smile. “Then again, you didn’t think lynx shifters existed before you met me. And now we’ve met…” he swept his gaze back to Ri, eyebrows lifting, “…a horse shifter, correct?”
    Ri didn’t know what the fuck was going on here, except these guys didn’t appear to be out to get him. Their actions, their body language, all signaled mediation and negotiation, not an attack. It didn’t mean he could relax though.
    He hadn’t been in a room full of four other men before, not as an adult, and it felt very, very crowded. Then the oddest thing happened. While Seamus was scowling at the intruders, they all plopped themselves down—Jonah and Pete on the couch, Trey on the floor at Jonah’s feet.
    Ri tried not to have his mouth hang open. The last time he’d been human around wolves, Zach had been there and the grown men had taken great delight in looming over them, intimidating them.
    Of course, the assholes hadn’t realized then that teenage horses, once let loose in a chase, were never going to be caught, even if the wolves’ intention had