Wolf Home: Paranormal Werewolf Romance Read Free Page A

grown up around wolf behavior and never really understood it. Not everything was instinct.
    Nicole smiled at him, careful not to show her teeth and maybe scare him, and he returned it confidently. “Adam,” Sheila continued, “This is Nicole Blackwood, the Blackwood pack's heir. She's been gone to school for a while now, but I remember her as a kid, and I think you'll get along okay. Just bring up your old job, and you should have plenty to talk about.”
    “It's nice to meet you,” he said, stepping forward and offering a hand.
    Nicole jumped slightly at the unexpected intrusion into her space and resisted the urge to snap at it. He hadn't even done anything wrong, even by wolf logic; she was just prickly. She managed to accept his hand before it looked too weird. “Nice to meet you, too.”
    Just as his fingers were closing around hers, the wind shifted, and Nicole was hit in the face with his scent.
    Oh. Oh . She breathed in slowly, flaring her nostrils to try to gather in as much as she could. He smelled like spices – curry and cinnamon, and overpoweringly of witch hazel, so strongly she wondered for a moment if he had been performing first aid earlier and failed to shower. She breathed in again, and verified that it was his scent. The spices mixed with the astringent plant to produce something that said home to her. She could imagine curling up with their pups while he cooked, something that actually had flavor. She'd grown fond of human seasoning while she was away, too.
    She snapped back to earth and registered his hand tight on hers. Watching her from below lowered eyelashes, he raised her hand to his face and sniffed at the pulse point of his wrist, investigating.
    Nicole was suddenly screamingly aware of their audience, particularly of her mother waiting to see if she'd jerk away from him and maybe bite him for the presumption. She didn't want to. He smelled like home. Her wolf wanted to shift and rub against his legs and feel his fingers scratching into their ears and neck.
    “Apricots,” he said slowly. “You smell like apricots. And wild honey.”
    “I know.” She waited a moment before tugging her wrist out of his hand. He whined reflexively, and when he stepped closer she slid to press into his side, feeling his arm around her. It felt right.
    “Well,” Sheila said. “That's finally some good news. Not much of it lately.”
    “What?” Adam said, disoriented.
    “Our wolves like each other,” Nicole told him, nuzzling into his shoulder. “That's what the feeling is.”
    “Oh. And that means, what?” Adam asked. His arms closed around her, holding her against his side.
    “It's hard to say,” Sheila said. “But they usually have more sense than us humans. Don't get caught so caught up in drama and romance. Chris'd never have married that girl if he was listening to his wolf.”
    “They like humans sometimes,” Nicole disagreed, breathing in again against Adam's chest, trying to memorize the scent. “And sometimes they hate someone and those relationships never work out well. My Mom thinks everyone has a wolf mate, but some of them haven't been made into wolves yet, so they can't be found.”
    “So they're like soul mates?” Adam said.
    “You could think of that way.” Nicole half smiled, trying to keep the bitterness from leeching into her tone. Five minutes of conversation and her choices had narrowed to one. She wanted to pull the bitterness around her mind like a sheltering jacket, but already she was losing grasp of it. “All wolves can feel each other, and for pack mates it's stronger, I'm sure you know that by now. For mates, it's stronger than that still, and our wolves already think of each other that way.”
    “Cool.” He grinned down at her. “I used to daydream about finding a soul mate in high school, you know, before all this shit happened to me.”
    Nicole giggled, imagining a young Adam doodling his name in hearts on a pink notebook. “Did you read romance