Chained To The Alpha: A Paranormal Shifter Romance Standalone Read Online Free PDF Page B

plan was going to be.
    I smelt him first, the intruder, the wolf that had made its way to the edge of the little town. I pointed and we ducked behind something, trying to stay out of sight. We had to find him.
    “That way,” I pointed.
    We both turned to look, staring into the edge of the forest. We had to do something, to find the only other person that we had encountered during this entire adventure. Maybe we could finally get the answers that we were looking for. But that would only happen if we managed to capture the shifter that had come close enough for me to smell his natural odor.
    I remembered what it had been like to be free, to run through the forest searching for something that I would never find, to chase a rabbit through the woods, or a deer, or any other creature that I felt it necessary to hunt. I missed that, more than I could say, and it was on my mind a lot during the ordeal. I missed my freedom, not being chained to another human being. I needed out of the cuffs, but I didn’t know how that was going to happen.
    We started to chase the shifter, but we just weren’t fast enough as humans and we couldn’t get our movements lined up together. We stumbled through the underbrush, trying to find our way through the shadows, trying to be quiet and hurry. It didn’t take us long to figure out that we couldn’t do both, not like this.
    So we decided on quiet, slipping through the brush like we had with the deer. This time it was different. There was a sense of freedom involved in this. This could save us. I didn’t know how. I didn’t think that this shifter would be carrying the keys to our chains, but still it was important for us to know, for us to find out what had happened.
    He saw the shifter first, a grey sinewy wolf, a little skinnier than most. He looked older, a sacred elder, but I couldn’t say for sure. There was no way to know until we got closer. We had to catch the wolf. It felt strange, like it was waiting for us to get closer, bright eyes staring in our direction, but not quite at us. The eyes were yellow, intense and vivid. They were the kind of eyes that I would remember for the rest of my life. Those eyes held secrets, calm and collected, with wisdom behind them.
    I couldn’t understand why I had never felt that kind of awe before. This must be what humans feel when they come face to face with one of us. I stared at the eyes, a strange feeling causing a lump to form in the back of my throat. I gulped, trying to clear the imaginary item from my breathing passage and the beast’s eyes darted in our direction. He was staring directly at me now, our eyes having met and locked together. I didn’t know who it was, but it was clear that this person wasn’t here to kill us. Still I was certain that his presence meant something, but what it meant I didn’t know. I just didn’t have the ability to figure it all out. There was something in his mouth, a bag.
    “See?” I whispered and pointed and my companion nodded in agreement.
    We wanted whatever was in that bag. We had to have it, but I didn’t know what was in it. I didn’t need to know. The bag itself would be useful enough. I was starting to salivate about the idea that we might have a better way to carry food with us. It would be nice when stalking through the forest, searching for some way to get out of this place, some way back to society. I didn’t know how far the closest evidence of human civilization was, and it didn’t really matter. I just needed to get to it. We looked at each other and nodded.
    It was time to start moving. We had to do it. We burst into motion, but our target seemed to sense our plan. He ran, bursting through the woods and trying to escape from us, but he dropped something. The bag. It was the bag. There was no way to catch the other shifter, no way to ask the questions that had been rattling around in our heads, but we had the bag and it felt heavy too. We had a small celebration, chattering and happy