Awakened by the Wolf Read Free Page A

breaths before, they now came in rapid-fire succession. In zero to five, she went from starving for oxygen to drowning in it.
    Wolf drool on the back of her neck was imminent if she didn’t get moving. She swallowed two giant mouthfuls of air, the way she did when plagued by hiccups, and locked her elbows to push up. All the adrenaline that helped her run had tanked.
    â€œNo, no, no.” Frantic, she patted the ground, searching for a rock, a branch. Anything.
    Out of luck and out of time, Cassie faced the wolf with the only weapons she had. Her hands and sheer grit.
    He approached, head hunched lower than his shoulders. His thin black lips mocked her with a menacing grin.
    â€œNice wolfy,” Cassie panted over her heart’s rampant beat.
    His ears perked up and he tilted his head, taking his sweet-ass time to assess the most delectable spot to munch first.
    A low rumble rolled through the woods. His hungry gaze lifted and a snarl drew back his snout, revealing very large, very pointy teeth.
    Cassie had no hope of winning an outright wrestling match with an animal of his size and bulk. Gouging his eyes might give her a slim chance of survival, and slim was much preferable to none.
    Before his nerve-numbing growl chased all her bravado into the pit of her stomach, Cassie steeled her thumbs.
    The wolf sprang.
    Cassie screamed. She didn’t mean to, but some invisible force seized her vocal cords and wrenched loose the armor-piercing shriek. Apparently the same malevolent force also screwed her eyes shut, because she had to pry them open to see.
    The wolf now paced behind her. Ears flat against his head, he snapped at the woods. A strip of fur bristled along his spine, and the fluff of his tail stretched behind him, arrow-straight.
    With his attention diverted, Cassie scooted backward to get away from the wolf. Her heart pounded so hard and loud that she feared the drum would draw the wolf’s attention from the rustle in the woods.
    The wolf hunched forward, ready to pounce at whatever emerged from the forest.
    It was now or never. As she labored to stand, an ear-shattering squeal sliced through the night.
    She jerked toward the commotion. A huge blur barreled past the snarling wolf and skidded to a halt at her feet. Hot breath steamed her bare legs.
    Cassie didn’t move.
    Neither did the angry sow.
    The wolf, however, plopped on his haunches, and the tips of his fur shimmered with silvery light.
    Poof!
    Just that quick, the wolf vanished. Hunched in his place appeared a fully-grown naked man.
    Not just any naked man.
    The naked man whose balls she’d coldcocked.
    This isn’t happening.
    Obviously she’d whacked her head and was suffering from a massive delusion. That was good news, right? Delusions couldn’t hurt her. They weren’t real. Just figments of her imagination.
    Well, um, her naked delusion stood. Displaying all his glory.
    Cassie squinched her eyelids shut. He isn’t real. He isn’t real. He isn’t real.
    Satisfied her temporary insanity had passed, she drew in a calming breath and opened her eyes.
    The naked delusion limped toward her.
    Whether he was real no longer mattered. Cassie sprang to her feet. The startled sow danced around her legs. The lack of traction on the soft, damp earth caused Cassie to lose her balance. She landed on her hands and knees, face to snout with the hog.
    Cassie sucked in deep, measured breaths to slow her erratic pulse. Unfortunately, her heart and lungs were running a marathon. She swayed from a wave of lightheadedness.
    â€œLeave her alone, Cybil.” The soft, tantalizing command of the wolfman’s Southern baritone hummed through Cassie’s body with the hypnotic power of the Pied Piper. That fairy tale hadn’t ended so well. Cassie didn’t want to share a similar fate.
    The hog pivoted toward the wolfman. A twitch of her curly tail, a determined squeal, and she charged with the gusto of a matador’s