Desperately Seeking Shapeshifter Read Online Free PDF Page A

a hand on my ruff again, but I flinched away, skittering back a few feet, human fear overriding wolf instinct.
    “We can help her learn how to change,” he said in a calm, low voice meant to soothe. “Send her with us and we can save her. Even wolf babies know how to shift better than she does. Not only is she putting herself at risk, she’s putting others at risk. What if she changes in public?”
    Ramsey stepped forward and looked down at me, into my wolf eyes, and must have seen the fear there. He looked back at the Anderson leader and took two more steps forward, getting in the man’s face. To the wolf leader’s credit, he did not back down.
    “She is my mate,” Ramsey said in a low, dangerous voice. “She stays with me. The laws make it so.”
    “Still singing the same tune, eh?” The Anderson leader looked at me, then back at Ramsey. “If you aren’t gonna let her go with us, then one of us is going to go with you. I’m not gonna let you kill her. She’s one of us.”
    “Actually,” Beau said, stepping forward, “this is an arrangement we’d be interested in. We’ve been thinking that it’s long past the time for the wolf pack to join the Alliance.”

    A half hour later my flesh began to ache and crawl again, and I hurried off to the edge of the woods, my sister trailing behind me with my clothes as I began to change back. Several long, agonizing minutes later I lay in the grass, naked and panting, waiting for the pain and nausea to pass.
    My sister crouched next to me and handed me my clothes. “Oh, Sara,” she said softly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    I shrugged, slipping the shirt over my head and then dragging on my jeans. My bra and panties had been destroyed in the change, and the shirt was in tatters. “I didn’t know it wasn’t supposed to hurt. How could I?”
    The man who had turned me had been abusive and a bully. I’d thought his “gift” of being a werewolf had been just another way to remind me that I was weak. Another way to force me under his thumb.
    “When Beau changes, he’s not in pain. It’s notlike your shifting. The noises you made . . . does it always hurt so much?”
    I squeezed my eyes shut. God. I wanted to die of embarrassment. I’d had an ugly, messy transformation in front of everyone. Everyone assumed that you just knew how to shift. No one talked about the mechanics, any more than you’d describe how it felt the last time you’d taken a leak. “Let’s just go, Bath,” I said irritably. “I want to hear what they’re saying.”
    But when we arrived back at the rendezvous, all the deciding had already been done. Beau was smiling through clenched teeth and the Anderson leader looked mollified, if not overly pleased. Only Ramsey continued to scowl. I approached slowly, holding my tattered shirt together.
    “Levi and I have come to a solution that is satisfying for both parties,” Beau said and beckoned me forward. Reluctantly, I went.
    “Levi wants to help you,” Beau said. “He says they can teach you how to shift better. And they want to make sure your mating to Ramsey is of your own choosing.” He put a brotherly hand on my shoulder. “Since the wolves want to make sure you have a choice in your mate, Connor Anderson is going to come with us. He’s going to stay with you for the next month to teach you how to be a wolf. Among other things.”
    Oh, great. A chaperone, a tutor, and a suitor all in one. Just what I needed.
    Levi nodded, then gestured for one of his wolvesto move forward. Connor turned out to be the young, attractive werewolf that had brought out Savannah, and I wondered what the story was there. Though he stood next to me, his gaze remained locked on Savannah, who stared at the ground.
    “We get a wolf chaperone. What does Levi’s pack get out of this?” my sister asked. “My sister doesn’t want to live with them. She wants to live with her mate.”
    “Don’t want nothing but the well-being of my wolves,” Levi