Beast Denied Read Online Free PDF Page A

held Tynan’s gaze. “Is she okay?”
    Catching his friend’s meaning, Tynan nodded. “They didn’t hurt her. Although I’m betting they did something she didn’t like, or else why did she come flying out of there like that? Shit. If I’d known, I would have torn their fucking throats out.”
    “You still got access to the guest log?”
    Tynan was already thinking along those lines. “Yeah. In case something happens with the security system, remember?”
    “Then why don’t we take a ride on over there? See if Seth’s had any more of those feelings. We could check out a couple of rooms while we’re there, just to make sure there are no bugs planted. Put Seth’s mind at ease.”
    Tynan returned his friend’s grin. “You read my mind.”
    * * * * *
    “Blood pressure’s normal.” Naomi slid on surgical gloves. “Why don’t you hop on up, and we’ll check everything else is in good working order.”
    Talia McLeod laughed, shaking her blonde hair as she hiked up onto the examination table. “Caleb would probably be the best one to ask about that. Seeing as he’s barely let me out of bed since the ceremony.”
    Naomi smiled, pulling the privacy screen around her friend so that she could get undressed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man move as fast as Caleb did once your divorce from Joshua came through.”
    Talia had been married to Caleb’s half brother when she and Caleb met. They had a ménage arrangement going until Caleb and Talia fell in love, and Joshua left to work overseas. They’d had a lot of problems in the early days when it was the three of them, and Talia had often confided in Naomi. But the seed had been planted, and the inclination to try a threesome for herself had steadily grown, culminating in her disastrous attempt to assuage her curiosity the night before.
    The rustle behind the screen signaled Talia had hopped up onto the examination bench. “Ready.”
    Naomi pulled back the screen and moved to the end. “This will be a bit cold…”
    “Yeah. I know the score.” Talia jerked regardless, then settled. “I’m sorry I never came to you for Pap tests before, but it was better I saw a doctor a few towns away. I couldn’t chance Joshua finding out I was taking birth control pills. He was desperate for me to provide him with an heir.”
    Naomi’s stomach did a freefall. “Did he ever find out you were taking them?”
    “No. Caleb knew, but he didn’t let on. Caleb always said it suited him that I was taking them. That way, when I stopped, he’d be the one to make me pregnant.”
    “Bloody alpha males,” Naomi huffed. “All they think about is heirs. They think they own us and our bodies.”
    She knew she was being unfair. It was a male shifter’s duty to procreate as soon as they mated and marked a female as theirs. It was in their DNA to produce, to perpetuate the species. They lived under the constant specter that their kind would die out. It had already happened to some packs that inhabited the vast northern territories.
    Naomi didn’t have it in her power to do anything about that, not that she was about to dwell on it. She’d learned to make it enough that she helped maintain the health, and fertility, of the other women in her pack.
    It had to be enough.
    Which was one reason she preferred sex with humans. Shifter males not only wanted to knock you up at the earliest opportunity, but they had this sense of ownership innate in them. Pretty soon they thought you belonged to them. Then they’d mark you, control you.
    It wasn’t going to happen to her.
    She noticed the intimate marking on Talia’s labia. Her friend had told her that she’d refused to be marked by Joshua, and it had caused all sorts of problems in her relationship with him, but once she had fallen in love with Caleb, refusing was no longer an option. She’d wanted to be marked by Caleb, had wanted to belong to him. And have him belong to her.
    It seemed to work for them, but it wasn’t