WARNINGS: This is a sexy fantasy romance story meant for adults. At no point is anything that happens in this book real. It occurs in an imaginary alternate world, with fictitious characters living out imaginary lives and following their own moral code of consent and non-consent. Do not do this at home. Lots of imaginary, fictional things take place in this story. This is not a safe read. Bought By The Wolf is a short, quick, hot read ending in a cliffhanger with many more seasons ahead. If you like it please review it. Thanks for reading.

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Chapter 1

Half shift

When Mother handed Onya the market baskets and told her to take some jars of last summer’s strawberry jam to the town center to sell to the baker, she eagerly accepted the task. Her younger siblings, three sets of twin kits, had been bickering all morning. No matter what task Onya gave them to do, the little kits kept fighting and making messes every time she tried to leave the room to take care of her chores.

She put on her favorite sandals, the only ones that fit her rabbit-sized feet and grabbed her woolly sweater to cover the thinness of her old worn-out day dress.

They were a poor, hardworking family with too many mouths to feed. Everyone but Onya was able to hold a full fur shift. No one had time to think about decent clothing except her parents and properly married siblings. They had to have something to wear when they left the house in their human shapes so that they could deal with other human shapes.

Onya’s clothing was not a needs-must, her father decided. After all, she wasn’t supposed to be showing herself off outside in town, anyway.

She’d also outgrown her last bra years ago. It hhad recently fallen to pieces. Maybe if the baker gave them a decent price this time for the summer’s best strawberry jam, they could afford something new. Mother might let Onya pick a dress or a pair of fashionable jeans from the market for herself. Fall was coming to their valley, and the snow soon after. Her sweater wasn’t going to be enough. All her old winter clothes were now rags to use for the babies.

“My beautiful girl,” her mother said to her at the door. “Why don’t you unbraid your hair and let it hang down your back? It’ll be nice to be outside and get some fresh air, won’t it?”

Onya put the baskets down and followed her mother’s instructions. She only braided it to keep the twins from yanking on it all day long. She watched Mother bend over the basket on the floor. Was she counting the jars?

“I only took what you said, Mother.”

“Just making sure,” Mother told her.

Everyone treated her as if she was stupid and helpless. She tried not to be offended. It was true that sometimes she didn’t pay attention to things, put the wrong socks in a drawer, or miscounted the spoons when setting the table. Everyone did that from time to time.

When Onya looked down to count the jars, she noticed that her mother had left behind a tattered and stained pink velvet ribbon tied around the handle of one of the baskets. That was odd. Was that the one that Onya had worn as a bracelet before she got stuck as a rabbit?

She started to ask, but before she could, her mother pulled Onya into a hug. Mother was a sturdy woman, half a foot taller than Onya. The unexpected hug squeezed the breath from her.

This woman was not known for showing affection to her children. The hug was quick but fierce. She wiped her eyes as if something upset her. This new concern made Onya forget to ask about the ribbon.

What on earth could be wrong?

There was no time for that question. She was pushed out the door when they heard screams from the kit’s playroom. Someone had done something again. It sounded like another emergency.

“You better get going. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.” Mother shut the door with a bang as soon as Onya was clear of it. Her mother’s strange behavior made Onya wonder if it had to do with another pregnancy. It was about that time.

That must be it, then. More brothers and sisters were on the way. Her mother was acting strangely because she was going to have another batch of kits.

Letting her questions go, Onya decided to be thankful for the time out of the house and the cheery sky overhead. Last week’s rain would have drenched her to the bone.

Their village town was old. The countryside vista in front of her had looked the same for a hundred years.. Like most rabbit shifters, Onya and her family lived on a small farm allotment just outside the town center’s main cluster of homes and two-story businesses.

She walked past sheep and rock-walled gardens to the road that led to the market, enjoying the sounds and smells of the countryside. The scents of cut clover, green grass, and almost ripe wheat hung rich in the air before the scent of the town overtook it.

It was so good to be outside. Perhaps if she hurried, she could take the path to the dark wood and escape for a bath in her favorite icy waterfall and then sun herself dry in a patch of afternoon light.

The last time she’d escaped to do that, Mother came to find her.

Face red and spitting with fury she hissed, “I told you never to do that. Are you nothing more than rabbit trash, just a little slut? Can’t you control yourself? Do I need to tape and wrap your hands every time I leave you alone?”

Shamed to her core by the words, Onya wanted to run away and hide in the woods where no one would dare follow.

“You are just a half shift, you’ll never have kits or be a proper doe, girl.”

She wouldn’t have kits, but the drive and needs were still there. Caught touching herself, Onya had one hand in the folds between her legs, circling the little bump as the other had played with her ear, petting the secret spot near the bottom. Wonderful trills had ran up and down her spine as she bit back the moans caused by the awful pleasure of it all.

It had been sharply raw. Intimate. Painfully lonely. And it felt so good.

Mother dragged her home and rapped her hands and feet with a ruler. Twenty times each. She must be an awful kind of girl then, for she still craved to escape for some privacy and satisfy the constant itchy ache that lived under her skin. It might be worth the risk of punishment if she could find some relief. Maybe she could finish this task quickly enough and find a quiet place for herself before her mother missed her.

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Chapter 2

Town

She shook herself, not wanting to have those types of feelings around the townspeople. Everyone already gawked and stared at her even though they’d known her since she was a child.

Main Street had a few people outside. Onya tried to smile at the familiar faces of the town’s women when she walked by them. They nodded back, mouths turned down in frowns. The people inside the stubby rock walls of the town center lived better than her family and didn’t hide their pride in it.

They remodeled their houses years ago with indoor electricity, plumbing, and functional toilets. No outhouses or water pumps for them. They were all very proud of themselves. Onya knew they saw her as poor rabbit trash. Though they didn’t seem to mind the other shifters hopping about. Sometimes, she heard them whisper ugly things about her when she walked by them.

Most of the women wore nice store-bought pants and jackets. They wore make-up fancied up to look like women in the city magazines. Onya had learned not ask them any questions about what else was in those magazines. They wouldn’t tell her, and her mother wouldn’t let her read them. She’d wait and sneak them from her sisters when she had the chance.

“Onya, how are you, dear?” Mrs. Ragnor called out from her doorway.

The eighty-something-year-old woman was a local human. Her family had lived in the town for centuries. Her children left home for the outside world before her husband died. She was alone now, only receiving a yearly Christmas card with photos of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Mother complained she’d seen the same card five times. She thought the family had enough money to buy stamps and send new ones, but they hadn’t.

Mrs. Ragnor wasn’t the only elder in that situation, either. Many of the younger generations had left in the last two years. Onya had overheard her parents say that there were just a handful of humans left in the town. Her father had said that it wasn’t safe for younger humans with a new alpha in place, but hadn’t explained what that meant.

Mrs. Ragnor was taken care of, however. After her cleaning girl and cook left, Mother offered to send help. Onya volunteered. She was good at both, but her mother told her she was needed too much at home and offered the job to one of her sisters.

“I’m good, Ma’am.” Onya should have gone the longer route, taking a side road. Mrs. Ragnor could talk and talk. “I’m just running an errand for Mother.”

“Are you? What have you got in those baskets? Is that your mother’s strawberry jam? You and your mamma always make the best strawberry jam. Why don’t you leave a jar here for me? I’ll give the coin to your mamma when I see her next.”

Onya took out a jar and handed it to the older woman. As soon as she got close, Mrs. Ragnor reached up to pet the white fur of Onya’s long ear.

Onya bit her lip. She hated it when anyone did that. Even when people didn’t like her, they always wanted to touch her. Her ears, her hair. One terrible rascal had lifted her dress when she was younger to see if she had a tail. Back then, she’d had underwear, thankfully. She didn’t know what she would do if it happened again.

Humans didn’t understand how intimate a touch it was to her. She hated it. A shiver crossed over Onya’s shoulders, and she hopped back.

“So soft. So pretty. You might be a strange thing, girl, but you are the prettiest girl in town.” Mrs. Ragnor hobbled closer, looking Onya up and down with a friendly appraisal. “I don’t know how you get so plump eating vegetables all day, though.” With a wicked grin, she poked the round fullness of Onya’s breast with a bony fingertip.

“Oh,” Onya’s hop back was just a moment too late. “I’m sorry, but I must go, Mrs. Ragnor.”

“Wait, child. Stay a moment. You are getting a bit old to live at home and do your mamma’s errands, aren’t you? Don’t you have four married sisters and two married brothers who are all younger than you?”

“And five that are older,” Onya admitted.

“That’s right, girl. But I wasn’t thinking of the math. Your sisters say that you are at least eighteen years old. Grown now, aren’t you? That’s old for rabbits. Why aren’t you married? You have a body made for babies. Even a blind old lady can see that.”

Onya tugged at the hem of her ragged sweater and looked down at her feet.

“And why don’t you have babies? You could bring them around here. I’d watch them for you while you were selling your mamma’s jam.” Mrs. Ragnor gestured at the jam, using her hands to talk.

Onya didn’t tell her that half shifts were different. She was a human. They didn’t understand.

“My girl, you would make beautiful babies,” the old woman continued. “Red-headed twins and triplets full of laughter, I imagine. You should have a man of your own. Why haven’t your parents found you a strong young buck yet? You know, there are at least five of them over at the Johnsson house.”

Onya shook her head. How did she answer that question?

“Your good mamma doesn’t want another randy, cheating buck in the family? How about a fox? There are no good men in town anymore, but, there always them other shifters isn’t there? We don’t see them much. Those foxes are some pretty folk, yes?”

They were. Her mother hated foxes so much that it made Onya’s ears twitch to hear the human mention them to her.

Mrs. Ragnor wasn’t finished. “I have to admit, girl, I do like them wolves the best. Have you seen them? Wouldn’t you like to be knotted by a great big handsome wolf? It would kill me, for sure, but I bet you would survive it.”

The elderly always said things they shouldn’t. But Mrs. Ragnor was the worst. Her voice was loud enough that people were starting to stare. Onya wanted to disappear into the ground.

“Predators have teeth.” Onya didn’t know what else to say.

“Some of them Johnsson boys have the biggest teeth I’ve ever seen.”

Big teeth meant a fertile buck, but Onya didn’t say that out loud. She wanted a buck of her own, too. Her own house. Her own little kits. But she wasn’t a real doe, as everyone liked to remind her by touching her ears or checking her backside to see if her tail was still there whenever she walked past them.

She’d shifted on transition day, when she turned thirteen, into a perfectly white doe bunny with a pink nose and blue eyes, the same as her mother. When she went to shift back, it hadn’t worked. She stayed stuck in her fur until she turned sixteen and gave up trying.

One day, when everyone else was tromping into the house from a hop, shifting from fur back to skin, Onya suddenly changed too. But not all the way. Her feet were too big and too long. She had ridiculous, noticeable rabbit ears, an extra fluffy tail at the base of her spine, and long fingernails.

She got her human face back, at least, but her hair had changed from a sun-bleached platinum to a dark glossy red hanging in waves to her waist. Her little girl body transformed into one with so many curves that it embarrassed her as her feminine body parts bounced in all the non-rabbit-human-only types of ways with the slightest of movements.

Her parents explained that she was half-shift. She would never change into her fur or fully human form again, and Onya was devastated.

“You are too pretty to be so shy. If I had ever looked like you, I think I would have picked five husbands to keep me fat and sassy. Making lots of babies, but I couldn’t keep up with your mamma, no, I couldn’t. Mr. Ragnor would have had to work much harder to keep his turn in line, though.” The woman laughed at herself, showing the pink of her gums.

It was hard not to smile back at her.

“Send your mamma by. I’ll pay her a coin for the jam and tell her myself. Your parents aren’t doing right by you, keeping you locked up and using you as an extra pair of hands to tend their brood. You wouldn't need to do that if your father stayed home more and out of the pub. I’ll tell June Bunny that too, I will.” Mrs. Ragnor turned to go back inside her house.

She could tell mamma, but it wouldn’t do any good, Onya knew.

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Chapter 3

Market

Hurrying on her way, Onya quickened her step. She could be fast when needed but didn’t want anyone to see the hop-run that helped her win races against her brothers and sisters. The baker always left the market after lunch hour. She didn’t want to miss him. She did her best to stay focused on her task, but there were so many new and exciting things on the market tables t for display.

The weekend in the town center on sunny days was the best thing in the world. Like in the olden days, the village people crafted or grew most of the items they sold. Only supplementing with hard-to-get ordered things from the outside world. Phones and digital devices were useless here. Onya knew what they were, but she’d never seen one outside of a magazine. The other imported things, like spices, wrapped candies, kitchen gadgets, and game boxes, teased Onya with a picture of an outside world she’d never gotten to experience.

A rabbit shifter could hide from predators. With such big ears, a fluffy bump, and big feet, Onya would forever be exposed. People watched her, then looked away when she glanced back. Every time she stopped to browse a table on the way to where the baker was, she noticed a prickle on the back of her neck.

It was as bad today as the first time. Was something new wrong with her? It felt almost as if a predator were watching her, stalking her. She stopped, turned, and did a quick full body shake that fluffed her ears and tail, and hopefully knocked away the spider web feeling. Mrs. Ragnor’s outrageous behavior and talk of creatures with big teeth and claws must be lingering more than it should.

Other shifters were watching her because she was so weird. She should have tried a hat and an old pair of her father’s slacks. Hopefully, it wasn’t because the sun was shining through the simple white cotton of her skirt in a dress that wouldn’t serve as a dish rag. She didn’t need anyone noticing its awful condition and telling her how poor she looked.

Determined to ignore the sensation and get to the baker, she passed tables stacked with used books, a rainbow bundle of colored yarns, and three more booths with homemade soaps and cleaning supplies. One of the bucks, a friend of her father, tried to call her over. Onya waved and kept going.

She caught a smudge of something out of place from the corner of her eye. A shadow distorting the size and shape of a post from one of the sellers booths. It was too big—too wide. Was something hanging on it? Or was there a giant statue next to it? Giving it her full attention, she realized it was just a rack of men’s jackets. No one was there. Nothing was out of the normal.

It had been a long time since she’d last come to the market alone. Of course she was jumpy.

The warm shine of golden jewelry displayed on black velvet caught her eye. They once had a heart locket engraved with the word fly that Onya dreamed of buying for herself. She knew those people, too. They were her family.

Was it still there? It had been a long time since she had been to the market. It was probably gone.

Her younger sister, Berta, was with her husband William, and Lucas, his younger unwed brother and business partner, sitting in chairs around the table. Wearing their skin, they looked perfectly human, with blonde hair, summer gold complexions, and modern clothes.

Her brother-by-marriage was well off for a farmer. His family had embraced new ideas better than her own. Some of them had left the village for better fields. Every winter, Lucas went to stay with them. He returned in the spring, sometimes bringing raw parts for jewelry that William and Berta made into necklaces and bracelets. Lucas also brought tourists twice during the warmest months on guided vacations that had proven very lucrative for his family.

Father didn’t like any of it. That wasn’t how things were done, he complained. But he wanted the money and never hesitated to throw his daughters at their bucks.

Since they were all right next to the beautiful things they had made—maybe that locket— and watching her walk down the middle of the market, it would have been rude not to say hello. “Good day, everyone. Berta, you’re looking fine today.”

With the irritated disposition of a very pregnant doe, Berta frowned at Onya instead of smiling. Her belly was so full of kits that she couldn’t reach the table. “What are you doing here? Why did mother let you out? What on earth are you wearing?”

“I’m taking the jam to the baker. There’s no one home old enough to come along since you and your twin married.”

“What’s wrong with what she is wearing? I think she looks very sexy,” Lucas said. His lustful eyes roamed all over her. The buck was every inch the lying rascal his type was said to be. She knew he’d fuck anything with legs. They were all like that. It didn’t matter what she wore to them. She knew no one looked sexy wearing a dishrag of a dress.

“If your mother told you to get to the baker, then you had better get to the baker’s with the jam,” William interrupted with a frown.

“I could take her,” said Lucas.

“No, you can’t.” Berta reached for his arm before he could move around the table.

Trying to ignore them, Onya looked at what was laid on the black cloth. She’d been dreaming about that locket for years. The silver would fit in the cup of her hand and was about the size of a seashell.

But it was gone. Someone had bought it. Of course. She was so silly. In its place was a gray iron chain with a snarling wolf clasp. The wolf was biting a solid ring in its mouth between its teeth and curling black tongue. It was frightening to her. Heavy looking. Exotic. Did human women wear such ferocious things around their throats when they lived in the city?

Without thinking, she touched it.

“Not that one, sister,” Berta said.

“She likes it. I told you she would. It’s what her kind are born for,” William spoke to his wife as if Onya wasn’t there. Insult lurked in his words, but she didn’t know why.

“You’ve always been an idiot, Will. She was born for a lot of things.” Lucas scooped up Onya’s fingers, which still rested on the metal wolf’s muzzle, and lifted the back of her hand to his lips.

She tried to pull her hand away, but Lucas was strong, accustomed to his charm, letting him do whatever he wanted. The moment his lips touched her skin, she heard an outraged roar come from somewhere behind them.

Dangerous and loud, the sound cracked down her spine like a roar of thunder.

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Chapter 4

Predator

A cloud of heady, wild musk and body heat surrounded her. At the same time, a towering figure blocked off all the sunlight and cast her in shadow. Alarm bells went off in all her senses. The hair raised up stiffly on the back of her neck. Danger. Danger.

What was happening? What should she do?

Get away. Run.

Before she hopped away from whatever monster had come to eat her, she found herself lifted into the arms of a hard, tall, male—caught before she could take a step. Her feet left the ground; her body forcefully pulled away from the table as if she were being saved from Lucas’ unwanted touch. Easily picked up, her feet kicking, and held like a child by a man who had come out of nowhere.

She cried out, the sound sharp. Heads turned their way.

Steel bands tightened around her rib cage. Oh, he could squish her to nothing! Tipping her head back, she took in the sight of the gigantic male who held her.

A stranger. All her life, she’d heard about the dangers of people from out of town, and now a massive monster of a predator had her in his arms, carrying her out of the market.

Dark hair. So much hair! Yellow, enraged eyes, with black, blown pupils set between deep, wrinkled brows, and a broad, flat nose above a mouth full of teeth. He had a short beard that might have just been that day's stubble and needed a haircut. He left his top shirt button undone to make room for the thick column of his neck. Onya saw more black hair curled at the base of his throat. All of him was encased in fine, smooth cloth that she knew at once was the most expensive fabric for men she’d ever touched.

He was one of those rich predator outsiders, stamped with the smell of wealth, power, and entitlement. His nice clothes were rumpled and creased as if he didn’t care that the cost of his clothes could feed her family for a month.

As she examined him, he walked away from the table with her, carrying her off in long, fast strides. But he didn’t run, he wasn’t hurried. He didn’t smell like fear of the town constable.

She smelled something else entirely from him.

“Onya!” Berta yelled at her, waving. Not leaving her safe space behind her wares table.

Onya looked over the male’s shoulder, “Help me,”

“Do everything he says. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I told them to tell you. To warn you,” Guilt distorted Berta’s features.

No one moved to help her. Why would they? He was obviously some kind of scary, powerful shifter. Everyone must be too afraid to do anything.

“What are you doing? Who are you?” Her words came out like a whine. She was so scared. She pounded at the arms holding her and kicked her legs as best she could. But nothing happened. He didn’t budge.

The man growled. His mouth came closer to her, and he whispered, “Stop.”

One word. One command. Her limbs stilled. Terror filled her. And something else. Something worse than the terror that she would never have expected.

Her parents had told her she was special. Rare. Even valuable. That she could carry the kits of any kind of shifter breed. Even predators. But never once had they warned her of the worst thing of all: that she might like it. That she might want it to happen. That she might secretly crave this.

He could have taken Berta or any of the other full shift rabbits. But he took her.

What was wrong with her?

He was a predator. This man who had her was a predator—a wolf.

“Hello, Onya. It’s so nice to finally meet you.” His lips tickled her ear, making it twitch. Her body had started to shake. A helpless, fragile little burr beneath her skin, moving through her blood, scattering her wits.

“How do you know my name?” she asked him.

“I’ve known about you since you came out of your shift with this beautiful red hair.”

“What? Who are you? Are you going to kill me?”

“Kill you?” The way his voice went up in pitch surprised her. “I’d never kill you. My beautiful, fuckable doe.”

“You aren’t making any sense. Let me go. You must let me go.” She shook her head, confused.

“No. Never. I’m taking you home.”

“What are you talking about? You’re going in the wrong direction. Home is that way.” She pointed to the road out of town. She had to get away. His scent, his voice, that growl, the way he commanded her? It was all frightening and overwhelming.

She couldn’t believe anything he said. He practically drooled from his thick lips, his white teeth bared in the sunlight. That must mean he planned to eat her as soon as he got out of sight of the humans.

“Your home is with me.”

“With you? No. I have to go home—the jam. I’m supposed to take the jam. What about the strawberry jam?” It was stupid. Suddenly, that jam was very important. Maybe it would be a good enough distraction for escape.

“Matty has your baskets. And the collar I picked out for you. I’m glad you liked it.” He jerked his head to the side, and Onya noticed the other burly, slightly shorter predator behind him.

“My mother needs me,” Onya argued, trying to think of anything to say. It was like pulling her thoughts from a head filled with corn mush.

“You will do what I say. If you don’t, your mother and your whole family won’t be alive long enough to need anything. I’ve waited years for you. I’ve paid to save your fucking farm over and over while your parents did nothing for you. Your waste-of-space sire spent all my money on a vixen dominatrix and bad poker hands while your mother buried her woes in bottle after bottle of brännvin. Just give me one more reason to kill them all. Go back to them. I dare you.”

What was he saying? He’d waited? Who was he? There was money? A vixen? He spoke nonsense. Lies. That’s how they got you, how they ruined good bunnies. Telling lies that lured a girl away from the safety of the field into the shadows.

Her mother had acted odd this morning. Almost as if she knew Onya would never see her again. What had Berta said?

She wasn’t sure it mattered. Her instincts screamed rabbit trap. She just knew she was going to die.

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Devil May Care, Chapter 4 🌶️🌶️🌶️