About Face (Wolf Within) Read Online Free PDF Page A

as my thoughts. I hadn’t participated in many Regional hunts, but when I had, I’d always shifted away from everyone else and gone the opposite direction, with Grey, Vaughn and Elena, my former pack mates, chasing after me.
    Now my wolf was theoretically normal, and Scott, unwittingly, proposed the same basic concept. Screw that.
    “I don’t know.” I took another sip and watched as his gray eyes filled with both compassion and exasperation. “What about Faith?”
    “Have you seen her?” he said and then laughed. “She’s not shifting again until after the twins are born. She says it’s too uncomfortable.”
    There was no medical reason to avoid shifting during pregnancy, but most women did prefer to avoid it after they got bigger.
    “Why don’t you go with someone who you know will be a good hunt partner,” I suggested.
    His seductive mouth twitched. “That would be you.”
    “We may be good Advisor partners, but I don’t know about hunting, Scott.”
    “Well, I do.” He put his hand on my arm, and the weight of it was so soothing I wanted to melt.
    “You smell good, you know that?” I didn’t mean to say it, but the words escaped me anyway. He did. He smelled like Pack.
    “Faith got me this new cologne. Made me wear it tonight.” Scott rolled his eyes.
    “Pussy,” I said and he grinned.
    “Hey, if it gets you to agree to hunt with me, I’m fine with it.” He gave my arm a squeeze. “At least give it some thought, Stanz, okay?”
    I nodded, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t do it.
    “You’re going to have to do it sometime,” was his parting shot before he walked away. “Why not do it with a friend who understands?”
    “I thought you were such a dick when I first met you.” I shook my head in amazement.
    Laughter was his only response.
    I turned back to the bar and squared my shoulders. Maybe Scott was right. Hell, he was. I had to face my wolf. If the worst happened and she wouldn’t come out, Scott would be the only one to see it. And he understood. He was Alpha of Mayflower. He knew how my father’s pack bond had dominated the pack for thirty years and made everyone who’d activated the bond into slaves. I’d run from my birth pack and never activated the pack bond. It had remained an invisible wall between my psyche and my wolf. The reason she’d been childish and stubborn and so different from everybody’s wolves was because she couldn’t get past the pack bond.
    For years I’d let her do whatever she wanted. I’d never tried to reach her. I hadn’t known about the pack bond. I’d just thought she’d been different and hadn’t wanted to force her to be like other wolves because I didn’t think she could.
    Then I’d met Murphy and he convinced me she could be changed. From the start my wolf had adored his wolf. For him, she’d tried to change, but had been so frustrated because of the unactivated pack bond. The more we pushed, the more she suffered. She’d been so mad at me and her circumstances. She refused to come out the last time I’d tried to shift. But there was nothing holding her back now. Scott was right.
    If we hunted together, she’d come out, she’d be normal. And what the hell would that be like? Even if she did look for Murphy’s wolf and he wasn’t there, she could handle it as a normal wolf. After all, I was handling it as a normal human.
    I snorted and drank more of my damn beer.
    * * * *
    “Can I talk to you?” Jason Allerton approached the dessert table at the same time I did. Neither of us was aware of the other until we both reached for the same piece of cheesecake.
    When I spoke, he let his hand drop away in an indication I should take the cake.
    “Please?” I added when he didn’t say anything.
    Behind us the dance floor was full of couples moving sinuously under flashing strobe lights. Faith’s laughter rang out above the music as she and Scott danced together and he whispered crazy, naughty things in her ear.
    Alan hadn’t left