Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles #2) Read Free

dropped an octave.
    She looked quickly around. “Who else is here?” she demanded.
    “The alpha’s nervous about you,” Justin said, ignoring her question. “Our kind are born werewolves. We hardly ever bring in humans changed with a bite. Uncle Lee said the last time someone was bit in without permission was in ‘the homeland.’ That’s Scandinavia. The fjords. In the seventeenth century.”
    Four hundred years ago? That lent weight to Cordelia’s refusal to believe that a Fenner werewolf had bitten Katelyn.
    “Was he there when that happened?” she asked.
    A fleeting smile appeared on his face, but just as quickly disappeared. “Oh, man. You don’t know anything .”
    “Then enlighten me,” she retorted.
    He raised a brow. “Don’t you have the sense to know you shouldn’t speak to me like that? With such disrespect? You know how high-ranking I am. Do you do it because you’re scared?”
    She said nothing, just tried to look as if she wasn’t afraid. She didn’t want to appear fragile or needy in front of him. Werewolves despised weakness.
    “You need to learn so much.” Even in the darkness, she could feel him studying her, assessing her. “So much.”
    She remained silent, and he did, too.
    “We’re not immortal, Katelyn. Of course Lee — our alpha — wasn’t around four hundred years ago,” he said finally. “We heal up quick, as you’ve already noticed, but we do have a normal human lifespan. We make the most of the time we have, though. In ways you can’t begin to imagine.” He pushed away from the tree trunk and ambled toward her. “Kat.”
    Her name on his tongue was like a caress. Silky, sexy. She could feel herself reacting, and she glided out of reach.
    “I’m not here to hurt you,” Justin said, and she thought there was just the slightest emphasis on the first word in the sentence.
    She scanned their surroundings: the woods, the road, the front of the cabin. Was that someone creeping through the shadows beneath the overhang of the second story? A person, or a wolf?
    “Who else is out here?” she asked again.
    “You need to get used to being watched,” he said, still evading her questions. “You need to remember that Lee’s got to look out for the safety of the entire pack.”
    “Then he needs to remember that someone did this to me. Without my permission, or his.”
    “Listen to me,” Justin said, leaning forward. “You know about his dementia, that he’s losing touch with reality. He knows it, too, and he’s running scared. He can’t be seen as losing control. He’ll be challenged. He was going to pick Cordelia to succeed him but that’s out the window now.”
    Katelyn couldn’t believe Cordelia would have become the new alpha. Cordelia was just seventeen. Cordelia’s two older sisters had bullied Cordelia mercilessly, and she spent half her time apologizing for things that weren’t even her fault. How could Lee Fenner have ever thought she would be able to lead the pack?
    “I thought it was odd, too,” Justin said.
    She knit her brows. “I didn’t say that.”
    “You didn’t need to. I read it. You’ll get better at reading body language, same as us.”
    Us . She would have to be doubly, triply careful around him then. Just like with Trick. Justin could read her; Trick somehow just knew her.
    “What happened to you happened on his watch,” he continued. “Something so counter to our moral code it’s never happened here in Wolf Springs, ever. You’re proof that he’s not in complete command of his pack. A source of shame. It might be easiest for him just to get rid of you.”
    Threatened, she reared back, and he lunged forward and caught her by the shoulder. His head lowered toward hers and she knew he was going to kiss her.
    “I’m standing between that decision and your life,” he said huskily. “You need me, Kat.”
    And you need me , she thought, fighting not to let him kiss her, ever. I’m the only one immune to silver, and you’re