Crave the Night Read Online Free PDF

any of his
affair.
     “ Well?” he repeated.
    She looked at him through the bars, still
wondering how the hell she was going to persuade him to fall into
line with her plans. She’d be smart to put a few cards on the
table. “I represent the Masterson Group.”
    The name made him recoil. Well, at least
they had that feeling in common.
    Then a look of understanding washed over his
face, as if he were connecting a whole lot of dots. His lip curled,
the human version of a wolf’s snarl. “They’ve been around here
before, doing geological surveys. There’s a notion Wolf Creek is
sitting on an oil field.”
    “ Your families were the original
homesteaders. You still hold the mineral rights.”
    Rafe gave a single nod. “So let’s get this
part out of the way: I know oil companies lease the right to drill
in return for a cut of the profits. We’re not interested.”
    “ If we can’t lease the rights, then we
have to force you to sell.”
    “ Good luck with that.”
    Lila curled her hands around the silver
bars, exasperation making her want to bang her head against them.
She’d had this conversation with every one of the sleepers
upstairs. Even charmed right off their paws, she couldn’t make them
sign their land away. “You could be rich and still keep your
ranches. Be reasonable. Do it for the sake of your people.”
    Rafe glowered, stalking back and forth just
the other side of the bars. She could feel his body heat as he
passed. “Rich in human terms. We’re wolves. We don’t look at things
the same way.”
    She gave the bars a shake. “Then change your
perspective, Mr. Devries.”
    “ Money isn’t everything. You don’t
rent out your home so that some oil guys can wheel up a drilling
rig and suck the life out of it. It’s a violation of everything
that matters to us.”
    Frustration grated along her nerves. She
turned from him, now pacing herself as she waved a dismissive hand.
“Oh, come now, I’ve heard of werewolves who live in downtown
apartments. Their idea of a good hunt is finding a drive-through
window.”
    Rafe kicked the bars, his heavy boot making
them ring like the bell from the Tower of Doom. The sound made her
flinch.
    “ We’re good, old-fashioned,
howl-at-the-moon varmints, and we like our grass green and our
water pure. Each Pack member might own his or her mineral rights,
but it was decided long ago, the first time the oil barons began
sniffing around our land, that we’ll move together. Either the
whole Pack agrees to a deal, or none of us do. And we
won’t.”
    Wolves and their
territory
. It was starting to make a weird kind of
sense. “So you say.” Her bottom lip curved into what she hoped
looked like a knowing smile. “I say you’ll change your
mind.”
    “ And what do you get for all your
efforts?” Now he stepped close to the bars, peering down at her
from beneath a lock of dark, curling hair. “What’s Masterson paying
you to destroy us?”
    She gave him a long, considering look. He
was too raw, too real for games. She could feel his presence like a
gathering storm. “There are a lot of us praying he keeps his
word.”
    His brow knitted, his anger morphing to
something else. “Who is ‘us’? What did he promise you?”
    That look undid her. It was too close to
sympathy. Pain caught in her throat and she looked away, the lights
suddenly too bright.
    Though the touch of the silver-coated bars
must have been painful, he reached between them, grasping her hand
in his. “Lila, are you in trouble, too?”
    Like all the wolves, he ran hot. Her fey
senses swam with imagery carried in his touch—racing through the
woods on all fours, the hot grit of desert sand, the notion that,
despite her magic more than because of it, he thought she was
beautiful.
    She pulled away. The warm shadow of
his grip tingled on her skin, reawakening the image of his naked
body. Her mouth suddenly ran dry with unexpected desire, an
electric need that pulsed through every nerve.
I want