Wishing for a towel, he decided to let himself dry off naturally. As he stood in the calm and listened to the water flow, he noticed the sudden silence around him. Too quiet. Not good. As if thinking about trouble conjured it, Fenris suddenly found himself surrounded by unfamiliar wolves, a few foxes and one huge-ass grizzly bear.

“Shit.” Several of the wolves had reddish fur. Red wolves encroaching on his clan’s territory? “What the hell are you assholes doing on Silver land?”

He didn’t expect them to answer, nor was he surprised when they suddenly attacked. Shifting into his wolf, he dodged one set of claws and rammed into another wolf, knocking it back. Teeth tore into his hind leg before he kicked himself free. Turning, he met another pair of attackers and narrowly avoided getting his throat ripped out. With a vicious bite, he ripped into the ear of one wolf and shoved a fox away by gouging down his belly.

Then a large, red wolf hit him in the side and knocked him down. He fought back for a split second before the strangest feeling settled over him. He took the wolf’s scent deep into his lungs and smelled female…and something more.

Animalistic desire knifed through him. Between one heartbeat and the next, his anger turned to lust. He sprang to his feet and shoved the female down. When she rose, he mounted her, his instinct to mate overriding his senses. Fenris forgot everything but the need to release deeply inside the quivering wolf beneath him.

Just as he readied to thrust, something knocked him to the ground. A massive grizzly snarled and razed a blow to his head that stunned him. Other red wolves turned on him, biting and gouging, until he lay covered in blood. Still, the desire inside him throbbed, growing with every painful breath he took of that beautiful, red wolf with the strange, yellow eyes.

She barked at the others. Cease. Leave off. This one is mine. Then she pounced and closed her jaws over his throat. Despite the danger of the situation, Fenris sighed with a strange contentment before blackness overtook him.