Desert Blood (The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

say?
    I promise it won’t hurt, baby.
    Right. Like that would work, even if it were true. Mated wolves—male and female—all flashed sultry grins when they talked about the mating bite. Like it was the highest of all highs. But even if it were true, she’d think he was nuts.
    And really, what did he have to offer her?
    Undying love?
his wolf, suddenly a poet, filled in.
    Like that would be enough. Bringing any human around to the idea of mating a shapeshifter would be hard enough. Bringing a frightened one—no matter how tough she pretended to be—would be even harder. He’d have to bide his time, give her space.
    Except time was the enemy. Heather’s teaching contract only lasted for a few more weeks. He had only that long to convince her to stay. To be his.
    Only that long to convince the pack to accept a human. But Christ, that would take an eternity.
    Why wait?
his wolf murmured, low and angry.
We just take her now! They can’t stop us after the mating bite.
    Cody pushed the beast back into its cage. That wasn’t the right way to go about winning his mate. For now, he had to wait. In the meantime, he needed to support Kyle with the murder case, even with Heather’s wild strawberry scent lingering in his nose.
    He’d woken the morning after the kiss—Saturday—to the news that there’d been another highway murder, this time in Arizona. The killer was moving closer to pack territory. Cody drove three hours east in grim silence to where he’d meet Kyle. He tried listening to his usual radio station on the way but quickly flipped to a new channel. That lovestruck cowboy stuff was not what he needed to hear right now.
    There, a classic road song. That was better.
    He lasted all of thirty seconds, though, before flipping back to the crooning cowboy.
Waiting hearts and sharpened darts…
Junk, but somehow, it struck a chord in him.
    Except he needed to keep his mind on the job and not the woman, so he turned it off again. But even that didn’t keep her out of his mind—all the way across the state and into the parking lot of the Graham County morgue where his packmate was waiting.
    He followed Kyle’s heavy boots to the lower level of the building. Kyle flashed his badge, hammered down a corridor, and pushed through a pair of heavy metal doors.
    “Officer Williams,” the coroner greeted Kyle. Behind him, a body lay stretched on the examination table.
    Cody shook his head, glancing at it.
Jesus.
He couldn’t see her face, but she looked young. Too young to die such a violent death.
    Kyle nodded. “Doctor Nguyen.” He motioned toward Cody. “This is Officer Hawthorne of the Nevada Highway Patrol.”
    That was Cody’s cover story, one backed up by a genuine-looking badge. Kyle’s, on the other hand, was the real thing. He was one of the few pack members who worked a job in the human world—a job with fringe benefits as far as the pack was concerned. It never hurt to get a heads-up on crimes and investigations in the area, whether those involved shifters or not.
    The coroner nodded without shaking hands and led them to the examination table.
    She was the third murder victim in a series that had just extended from New Mexico into Arizona. Like the others, she’d been lured to the side of the highway then repeatedly slashed and left to die. So far, police had nothing. No prints, no witnesses, no leads.
    Cody stepped up slowly, wishing he could somehow give this woman back her dignity. He could see her from the chest down, lying naked on cold steel, gashed in a dozen places. A shell without a soul.
    “We have an ID on the victim,” the coroner started. “Age twenty-six, no criminal record. No sign of drugs or alcohol. Roommates reported nothing suspicious when she left home.”
    Cody clenched a fist to keep his claws sheathed. God, he’d like to give the killer a taste of his own medicine.
    The coroner went through his report in a monotone, detailing one gash after another. “Rough-edged blade, here,