Shelter Me (Sawtooth Shifters, #6) Read Free Page B

you?”
    “Of course.” Dallas offered me his hand. I didn’t know if it was the champagne, that she-wolf, or what, but this night was making me feel crazy. He squeezed my hand as we walked over to his truck.
    The air was thick between us on the short ride. Kiera responded with a screen full of smiley faces when I texted her to let her know I left.
    “You can just drop me off,” I said when he parked behind the hardware store we lived above. The town was so still, you’d never know that just minutes ago we’d welcomed in a new year. It had already lost its luster and Granger Falls had gone back to sleep.
    “I’ll come in and wait with you until Kiera comes back.” The streetlight hit Dallas in the face, making him glow like the fallen angel he was. He meant well, but he had a way of fucking things up. I needed to go easier on him, because I did the same exact thing.
    “That’s it, though.” I jumped out of the truck before he had a chance to reply.
    “I know that, Lyssie,” he called to me, still at the truck.
    “Shh,” I hissed at him when he caught up to me. “You’ll wake the neighbors.”
    “They’ll get over it.” That heat seared me again. “One of these nights, you’ll be the one waking the neighbors, and I’m not going to tell you to be quiet.”
    “Charming.” I flipped the Twilight Zone on and tossed the remote on the couch before settling in. “Is that how you got that girl to bite you?”
    Dallas groaned. Settling on the opposite end of the couch, he picked up the remote and shut the TV off.
    I glared at him. “Hey! I was watching that.”
    “You’ve seen them a million times.” Dallas’ gaze locked with mine. “Do you remember the first night I came here?”
    “I’ll never forget it,” I said. Dallas had been sent here after someone attacked Trina. Shadow feared that either Kiera or I would be the next target. Dallas stayed with me that night, telling me silly stories, and stroking my hair until I fell asleep. Now that threat was gone; ripped to shreds, and buried in the cold, hard ground. That feeling, the fear mixed with the longing, had settled deep in my bones. It wasn’t the winter air that made me shiver when Dallas was around.
    “Me neither.” His words softened. “Can I tell you another story?”
    I turned toward him, and goosebumps broke out over my skin. I’d been with him for the last couple hours, but it didn’t matter. He still had that effect on me, catching me off guard. No, he wasn’t human—he was so much more than that. His dark hair shined and those eyes—bright blue, flecked with gold. If they were gemstones, they’d be considered flawed and maybe they were. But it didn’t make them any less beautiful.
    “Please.” Maybe it would clean the slate, clear all the weird energy between us, and we could start fresh.
    “All the she-wolves disappeared from the forest just in time for the guys to notice. You know that already, but it happened at the worst possible time. When the play turned to something more heated and we knew we needed mates, they were gone. Not all of them went quietly, and it caused an uproar. After that, they took the little girls away sooner, before anyone missed them, except their parents. But we knew they were gone.”
    “Does that mean the woman from the bar is your mate?” I asked.
    “No. Wolves choose their mates. The stories say there’s someone out there for all of us, and we know it as soon as we meet them. Once the bond is formed, it can never be broken.”
    “That’s beautiful.” If more humans thought that way, the world would be a better place.
    “It is, but for us, it was total bullshit. With the she-wolves gone, all of us wolves left behind were pissed off, restless, realizing we had no future. We fought and caused trouble. We were in a rage, inconsolable. Our family had been peace keepers for generations, but I couldn’t keep that promise. Because the promise of the forest had been broken.
    “Major started