Wolf and Prejudice (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 2) by Theodora Taylor Page B

loved her wolf, but today she’d do anything to rip the animal out of her body before her heat cycle came back around, before her wolf made her throw herself at Rafe again and possibly again after that. Never-ending until she was impregnated with his cub.
    “Alisha,” Rafe said outside the door. “You’ve been in there for three hours. You need to let me in.”
    “No,” she called back, even as she felt her heat release at just the sound of his voice. The smell of her arousal filled the room like a canister of tear gas, and she squeezed her nostrils shut, clamping her hand over her nose.
    Outside the door, she heard him curse. “Alisha, I can smell you. You need me. Let me in.”
    “No.” But her refusal sounded weak, even to her ears. She buried her nose in her knees and for only the second time ever, tried to reign in her wolf, as opposed to unleashing it on anyone who pissed her off.
    However, it was all for naught. The door had a human lock and Rafe had inhuman strength. There was a crash when the door hit the wall, then the bathroom’s lights came on overhead. Rafe came to stand over her, now dressed in a pair of flannel pajama bottoms that did little to hide the massive erection underneath them. She shrank away from him, turning her face to the wall, so the sight of him wouldn’t trigger her wolf.
    “Alisha…” she heard him say behind her. Then the sound of the bath’s knob being turned, and a few seconds later, warm water, began to rise around her huddled body.
    “You’re probably sore,” Rafe said, above her. “You should take another bath.”
    “How long?” she asked, keeping her face to the wall. “How long was I like that?”
    “Three days,” he said. He poured Epsom salt into the bath for her. “It would have been less, but it took me a while to realize you were on what my town doctor called ‘wolf pilot.’”
    Shame coursed through her and she asked him, “There are so many wolves you could have mated with. Why me? To get back at me for writing my book about Chloe? Is this some kind of punishment?”
    The water switched off and his voice sounded grim when he answered, “No. I don’t consider mating with you for life ‘some kind of punishment.’ If it was, I’d be a very stupid king.”
    She felt him bend down next to her, and she jerked away, not wanting to give in to him even though she knew on a practical level she would literally die if she didn’t join with him. Her nervous system was pumping an inordinate amount of adrenaline through her body in anticipation of being mated. If she didn’t have sex with Rafe, her heart would give out—the science of the current situation was cold and hard and not on her side in this. But she couldn’t bear to look at him right now, much less…
    “It’s okay,” he said behind her. She heard the sound of him swishing something in the bath water, then he pressed a warm washcloth against her back. She didn’t realize just how badly she’d overworked her poor muscles until he started massaging them, kneading them with the small towel.
    “My mom used to do this for me after full moon nights when I was a puppy,” he told her. “I’d let my wolf take control and run myself ragged, not thinking that my human would have to pay for it later.”
    The massage felt so good, she lowered her knees, uncurling her body, so as to better enjoy his ministrations. But then the cloth moved to her breasts…
    And she froze, wanting to knock his hand away and shield her body, which was so much larger than Chloe’s, from his sight. Rafe’s body… memories of her wolf complimenting him on it made her cringe. Rafe was all hard, lean muscle, like Louis-Ernest Barrias’s statue of Spartacus come to life—he clearly worked out on the regular. Whereas she was more like an African fertility sculpture, all breasts and hips and thighs—same medium but miles apart.
    “I’ve seen every inch of your body over the last few days and it’s looked beautiful