Beauty and the Brute [Werescape III] Read Online Free PDF Page B

People ate food. I killed all of them. And he wants my crackers. I
    don't deserve their food. But it's all I have. “Yes.” I didn't look at him.
    Didn't want him to know I felt guilty. Felt greedy. Ridiculously possessive with a few crackers.
    He'd saved my life. Hadn't he? I owed him the damned crackers. I pulled the backpack off and foraged in the main cavity for the tin while fighting the urge to slide my gaze up the green-and-brown-tones of his camouflaged pants covering his thigh.
    The legs that obviously didn't mind squatting after riding for hours on horseback. I'm in so much trouble. So out of my element. The only weapon I had was a Shifter who despised what
    I was. And I had to clutch his chest for how long before I found some place safe enough to eke out an existence without him and his mount?
    My fingers wriggled past my soft extra clothing inside my pack and bumped the hard tin.
    His meal. I suppose as the female here it was my place to produce a meal. How odd since before last night's party I was never expected to step foot in the kitchen. So much for my new place in life.
    My gut flopped.
    It probably could use a cracker. I popped the tin's rectangular lid and offered the golden rounds to the camouflage-covered thigh beside mine.
    He plucked one circle from the pile.
    Nothing. Not one word. No thanks. I stuck the smooth edge of a cracker between my teeth and bit off a dry piece.
    Buttery. A little salty. Cook always made them the way I liked them. Like fattening up the holiday turkey. Fate somehow saved my neck from the falling axe last night. Why? And what did Brutus have to do with my future? I scanned the opposite bank's mixture of tree trunks with the cracker pinched between a finger and thumb. “Where are we going?"
    "The Wild."
    Excuse me. But isn't that where we are? I turned my gaze to find his studying me.
    Still the unreadable poker face. Strangely attractive. By his steady brown gaze, the kind that could see right through a person, I knew he could tell I found his squared jaw and perfectly sculpted mouth appealing. I choked down the somewhat moist bite and turned back to the blinding sunlight reflecting off the water. “Aren't we in the wilderness?"
    "Not even close."
    Well, at least he answered. It was probably easier to think about something other than sex when a female wasn't hanging onto his body behind the saddle. How did my life come to this?
    I'm a murderer. Nothing more than a womb now. Air. I needed air. I placed the tin in the grass and rose.
    His lancing gaze bore through me.
    But pacing helped me shake the queasiness in my gut. I stuffed the cracker between my teeth and tongue and focused on chewing the dry melt-in-your-mouth flatbread.
    "We need to go,” he said.
    Why did my future look like Hell? I turned to the enormous black horse and my savior's broad back.
    The solid back reeking of power that had become my rock, my anchor, in this whirlwind of change.
    He turned that penetrating stare on me.
    Again.
    A chilling wave plowed through me, making every cell in my body shiver.
    Why? Was this another one of my premonitions? At least, now I didn't have to worry about anyone learning about them among the superstitious Normals. Just get on the horse.
    He stood beside the stirrup with the shiny silver tin extended to me. “How much longer can you ride?"
    It's ride or die. I shot back at him the most penetrating mask I could muster. “As long as I
    have to."
    * * * *
    Those six words Beauty uttered could have made my heart stop, but my inner wolf was restless.
    Mine, Wolf said.
    Shut up and play dead. The brainless animal couldn't control himself. Who could with the way the woman stared a man down.
    My heart fluttered.
    For a Normal? Not just any Normal. One ousted by the others. Sentenced to a life far worse than those left to huddle for security behind barbed-wire barricaded cities. She was no longer one of them. Weak. Excommunicated. And if Yale had survived, she was the fox on the