Binding: Book Two of the Moon Wolf Saga Read Online Free PDF Page A

paint-splashed overalls. There was nothing.
    A pair of cats stared down at me from the darkened loft. I didn’t bother looking up. A heavy, crusted blanket hung over the stall door, but that wasn’t going to be any more use than the worn saddle and mended tack.
    To ride out of here on my captor's horse was a pleasing thought, but while there are few down sides to being one of the wolf kind, this was one. We do not ride horses. Bad things happen when we do.
    I went back to the water trough and slipped into it again. I drank and drank, looking up at the few stars that shone through the hazy sky.
    The cage, the manacles, the hooks, the drugged smoke, the spells, were all part of the trap. This valley was another part of it. Just getting out of the cage did not mean I was free.
    If I went into my captor's bedroom and found a way to kill both her and her dog, then I would have time to find clothes, search out car keys, and get out of here. In my present state, attacking both of them was not the best of plans. For all I knew, the woman slept with a gun under her pillow, and would sic Fido on me while she placed her shot. I could kill the dog quickly, but to win, I would have to be lucky. And that was not a good way to plan.
    If I killed her and got away, I would not know who had shot, bespelled and captured me. Whoever it was knew who I was, had known how to find me, divert me, attack and capture me. If I left now, whoever it was still had all that knowledge and power, and I was still their prey.
    I shook myself and went back to the house. In human form, I let myself back in. I found the box of incense, and switched out the drugged blocks for some that were the same size. I rubbed them with the drugged ones, so they would have the right smell, at least to a human nose. Then I distributed the drugged ones in hiding places around the room, deep in the couch cushions that hadn’t been cleaned in years, under the fridge, in the ashes of the stove, behind the pristine set of Reader's Digest condensed books, where some mouse long ago had cached a supply of dog kibble.
    I lit the plain old ordinary incense and set it under the stove. I would not be drugged again.
    I wrapped my wrists again in the gauze and tape. I got back in the cage. The next bit was tricky. I have changed from my wolf form to my human form and back again thousands upon thousands of times, hardly thinking about it. To stick halfway, half human, half wolf, wasn’t something it would ever have occurred to me to do. But I’d been held in that form for several days, so it was possible. I tried changing and changing back at the same time. That didn’t work. I tried changing one part of me at a time, and that didn’t work at all. After what seemed like hours of trying I learned that I could hold part of myself in one form while I took the turn that brought me into my other form… and there it was. One wolf paw, one human hand. One wolf hind foot, one human foot… and then I had to start again because I’d gotten it wrong-way round. I slipped the manacle loosely over my wolf hind foot, and then my human wrist.
    I hadn’t destroyed the silver hooks, or the wire and leather wristbands. I’d hidden them so that even the dog couldn’t suss them out. I needed them. They were evidence.
    I lay back, exhausted, uncomfortable, my wounds aching, and tried to rest. I heal pretty fast. In three days, I should at least be much faster than I was tonight. The cage, the manacles, the drugs and the spells were an illusion now. Sometimes, there is a wolf in a trap. And sometimes, the wolf is the trap. Let them come.
    My next job was to deal with Baz.
    Shepherd woman was called Sarah. I learned this the following day when a delivery man banged on the door to the back porch and called her name. Baz the dog in human form stood at bay in the kitchen with his mouth slightly open, while the delivery guy called to him over and over to come and sign for the damn thing. Baz bolted for the