Bridenapped The Alpha's Choice Read Online Free PDF

five winters. John remembered the day he’d arrived, Mr. Tompkins carrying him in a basket, wrapped in a towel, with plastic bottles and cans of milk. He hadn’t bothered with instructions; John and the others knew how to take care of a new cub-baby. They came a few times a year. Most of the time they lived. Sometimes they didn’t, and then they had to bury the baby in the big field. Bruce cried when it happened, and he took flowers and put them on top of where they’d buried the cub.
    Mr. Tompkins and his sons Clem and Brax were human. They lived in a house on the property, and went into the human town once a week to bring back supplies for them, to supplement the food they hunted.
    Even though he said he wanted them to stay safe, John thought that secretly Mr. Tompkins didn’t like wolf people. His voice was always angry when he talked to them, and he never looked them in the eye. He couldn’t turn into a wolf like they could. Maybe he was jealous.
    Sometimes John worried that Bruce might ask too many questions. Mr. Tompkins didn’t like questions, and he and his sons always carried guns with silver bullets. Silver killed wolf-people. Bruce knew that because one time Fergus, the oldest one there, tried to run away, and Mr. Tompkins shot him and he died.
    It was for their own good, Mr. Tompkins had explained. If Fergus had escaped, the humans would have found out about them, and they would have sent soldiers to kill them all. John tried not to be sad when he thought about Fergus, but he couldn’t help it. It made a big, empty ache in his chest.
    “How come we don’t have mothers like they have in books?” Bruce asked. “I’d like to have a mother.” His tone was wistful.
    There were old books in the house they all lived in. They smelled funny and their pages were yellow. Clem had taught the older wolves to read a long time ago, and he’d taught them to count to a hundred, until Mr. Tompkins had told him to stop teaching and taken away most of the books.
    But they’d hidden some of the books, and they took them out when Mr. Tompkins wasn’t there. The books told strange stories about another time and another place. A place when humans hadn’t hunted all the wolf-people until they were almost gone. John and the others were the last wolf-people in the world, and if anyone else ever found them, they’d all be killed.
    “You’ve got me, right? And the others.”
    Maybe they shouldn’t even have those books. It just made them sad. It told them about a world that wasn’t theirs. It made them miss something they’d never have. Families and jobs and houses of their own. They all lived in one big house with rows of bunk beds.
    “All the other animals have mothers,” Bruce continued stubbornly, his lower lip sticking out. “The rabbits have mothers. Birds have mothers. I want a mother.” Tears welled up in his eyes.
    “Shhh,” John said frantically. “He’s coming. Don’t cry. He hates crying. He’ll hurt you. Let’s go inside now and I’ll tell you a story.” He scooped Bruce up in his arms and rushed to the big house.
    * * * * *
    “I’ve seen molasses that moves faster than you,” Craig taunted Jarrod as they slowly circled each other in the grassy field behind the pack’s rec center.
    “Slow, am I?” Jarrod lashed out suddenly with his left leg and, in one swift motion, swept Craig’s legs out from underneath him and knocked him on his rear end. Craig landed with a grunt and a thud. One second later, Jarrod was on top of Craig, partially shifted, hands pinning Craig’s arms by his sides, fangs snapping at Craig’s neck.
    “Hey, I like you too, but I don’t swing that way.” Craig thrashed and struggled to dislodge Jarrod, but Jarrod just growled, keeping Craig pinned down in the dirt.
    “All right, I give, I give!” Craig gasped.
    Jarrod rolled off him and leaped to his feet, shifting back. “Call me slow,” he snorted, bending down and brushing dirt off his knees.
    Craig scrambled