Awakening the Wolf Read Online Free PDF Page A

collected himself. His face went blank, and his eyes returned to normal. It seemed he barely even saw her, that he was staring right through her the way so many had done throughout her life. He touched her face and cupped her cheek. She tried not to get her hopes up. Maybe he was coming to his senses. “Whatever this farce was between us is over. You need to fly away and never come down here again. We can’t see one another anymore. It will only make this worse. Do you understand?”
    Tears slipped down her cheeks again, and she could not stop them. He can’t mean it. “No! We’re friends.”
    He backed away from her. “Not anymore. I don’t know how I could’ve been friends with such a thing as you. Even your flock doesn’t want you. Oh, they might have branded you as one of their own, but you’ll never be one of them.”
    Each word stung her. Illiana tried to process what had happened. The wind whipped around her, urging her to lift into its currents and wing away, but she slipped to the ground after losing all sense of balance. It was difficult for her to draw breath. Christopher was the only one who had never treated her differently. Now he was turning his back on her. She covered her face and tried to catch her breath. It did not help. It seemed her heart had been torn from her chest by strong jaws, and yet she could not feel the pain. Within the shadowed part of her mind, the otherness stirred. It told her to run. At first, Illiana tried not to listen to it, but it became stronger and stronger until she caved.
    A forlorn cry parted her lips, and she dashed through the woods, not paying attention to where she was going, just running, trying to escape the world that had become a blur around her. Soon Illiana ran faster than she had before. It felt good to give into the shadowed side. Whatever it was, it knew that she had to escape the heartache haunting her and the harsh words she never thought would come from her best friend. It did not matter now because no matter how long and how fast she ran, the words were burned into her mind and would always cut at her soul.
    * * * *
    Christopher watched Illiana dart into the woods. When she was gone, he collapsed to his knees and hung his head in hands. The words he had spoken to her ran through his mind. He could not believe he had said them. He never wished to hurt Illiana’s feelings. She was the only one among all his friends, family, and the pack he could truly be himself with. All the others expected him to be the tough son of the alpha. But she understood the man he was. And now he had shattered the one good thing in his life.
    “What did I do?” he whispered to himself.
    The urge to chase after and follow her gripped him. Her dejected expression after he had said those things plagued him. It would never leave him. Nor would how she felt against him. She was soft, and they fit together so well. Seeing her tonight in her dress showing off her breasts and all her wonderful curves, it was like he saw her in a different light. It tugged on his desire for her, and he needed to claim her. That was all he had wanted to do. The wolf inside of him agreed that it wanted her as well. They might have been friends for all these years, but the one thing he could never truly admit to himself was that he had feelings for her. It did not matter she was a raven or if she ended up being some shape-shifting vole. All he wanted was her in his arms. But that could never be. He knew it, and so did Illiana. And Jalisa had only made things worse when she’d burst in on them.
    The only reason he was with Jalisa was because it was expected of him to take a mate among his own kind. Her family was powerful within the pack and had trading connections with other packs outside of their territory. His father wanted him to cement a union with her so that they could expand their horizons. For the last year, Jalisa had been hanging off him, trying to claim him for her own. But he kept her at