The Wolf's Mate Book 5: Bo & Reika Read Free Page A

over his head and threw him into the courtesy desk with a sickening crack.
    Regaining her senses, she raced out an exit just as the airport security came running to the scene.  She waved frantically at a taxi that was about to pull away.  When it stopped, she jerked open the back door, threw herself inside, and slammed the door.
    “Where to, honey?”  a woman driver said.
    “Anywhere!  Just get me out of here!”  Reika panted.
    The car pulled away quickly, and Reika watched out the back window as Eli, Josef, and Adam ran out of the building and looked around.  Their eyes locked on hers, and she knew they had seen her in the taxi.  She was glad for the momentary reprieve when police cars with flashing lights pulled up in front of the terminal and she saw the lynxes scatter.
    As the scene faded into the distance, she knew that they would only be temporarily detained from finding her.  They would maim and kill anyone who came between her and them; she could see that clearly now.  She had no idea how they followed her, except that they must have been watching her home.
    Saying a silent prayer for the two wolves who fell trying to help her, she took in a deep breath and focused on her situation.  She faced the front of the taxi and looked at the middle-aged woman.
    “Can you take me an hour south and drop me off somewhere public and well-lit?  And push the speed limit, please.”
    “You in trouble, honey?”  The woman met Reika’s eyes in the rear-view mirror as she pressed her foot on the gas.
    “I don’t know,” Reika answered honestly.
    She didn’t imagine her bid for freedom potentially costing two men their lives, and she hoped they had survived and she would, too.
     
     

 
     
     
     
    Chapter 2
     
    Bo fidgeted in the booth at Jake’s bar, his hazel gaze roaming over the Friday night regulars.  He was positively bored stupid.  He’d rather be cleaning his house than sitting in the bar.  There wasn’t a damn thing to do in Allen on Friday night except hang out at Jake’s, and it was the responsibility of the older wolves in the pack to make sure the younger wolves kept their heads on straight.  Alcohol lowered inhibitions, which in a human was not necessarily a bad thing.  But add in the ability to shift into a werewolf, and a few beers could turn a mild-mannered person into a raging beast.
    Bo drank, but only to dull the pain in his right leg.  The effects of the alcohol were working less and less, though, which was good news for his liver, but not for his leg.  Nights spent walking the floor in an effort to stretch out the cramped muscles meant he was exhausted more often than not.
    Logan, fifth ranked in the pack, sat across from him and stared into the bottom of the tumbler that was half-full of whiskey.  Logan had joined the pack a few months ago in the summer, and he was proving to be a good wolf to know.
    Bo was going to be thirty on March 1.  He hadn’t really thought he would be in his late twenties and not mated to some hot, little she-wolf, but here he was … alone on a Friday night.
    Running a hand through his short, black hair, he sighed and checked his watch.  It was nearly midnight, and tomorrow was the full moon.  Each full moon, one of the high-ranked wolves watched over the younger wolves who were responsible for cleaning and preparing their full moon gathering place for their celebration.  Normally, Bo watched over the younger wolves during the summer months because the cold aggravated his leg, but it was Linus and his mate Karly’s anniversary, and he’d asked for a favor, so Bo was stuck.
    He could call his alpha, Jason, and tell him that his leg was bothering him too much.  He knew Jason would tell him to take it easy and call another wolf to do it, or even do it himself, but Bo refused to give into the pain like that.  If he couldn’t handle sweeping off snow and unloading firewood, then he needed to step down from his rank.  And damn it, he’d worked