Forbidden Bond Read Online Free PDF Page A

privilege to call him at any time of the day, to cry on his shoulder, or pester him for attention.
    She giggled. “I don’t know…what am I going to do with my time while you’re gone?”
    “You’ll think of something.”
    “You never talk about the time you spent with your godparents in Little Crow. Do you still have friends there?”
    Eion’s gut knotted at the thought. He refused to go there with her. Out of respect for her and her family, he gave Tawny more leeway than most women. But no one needed to know any details of his life from back then.
    Sleeping with Tawny had been a drunken mistake that he couldn’t take back, but she didn’t deserve the cold wall he’d created after the fact. She craved a closer relationship and made no attempt to hide the fact. But no matter how hard he tried, Eion couldn’t chisel through the block of ice he’d built around himself. For any female.
    The barricade was a necessity, the only way he knew how to survive. To keep himself sane without the one person whose bond had seared itself deep into his soul. The woman he could never have—no matter how much his wolf howled inside.
    Humans and shifters were forbidden to mate. That was pack law.
    Fear, and long-standing prejudice against shifter-hybrids introducing weaker DNA into the gene pool, fueled the need for such a firm stand. Hybrids running free amongst the human population and heightening the risk of exposing the existence of their kind reinforced generations of segregation.
    “I’m not planning on being here long enough for a reunion,” he replied.
    “Probably best. You’ll be alpha by end of the year, so there’s really no need for you to get too involved with any human friends.”
    “Yes. I know,” he chewed out through his teeth. “I’m crystal clear on that point. I have to go now, Tawny.” He cleared his throat. “We can talk later.”
    “Oh. Okay,” she sputtered. “I’ll miss you…”
    He recognized the deliberate pause for what it was: a blatant attempt to claw some affection from his heart. The “me, too” stuck in his throat. As much as he wanted to say something—anything—that wouldn’t be as chilled as the silence, he couldn’t bring himself to be that phony. A soft click heralded his goodbye, and the music kicked back into play.
    Eion tapped the brake and slowed his Silverado, pulling off onto the shoulder of the road. He popped the truck into park, but left the engine running. Closing his eyes, he breathed deep and rubbed a palm over his face. He would have to sit Tawny down for a long talk when he returned. Hurting her had never been the plan. This was his fault. But allowing her to continue to inch her way deeper into his life would only end in disaster when she didn’t get what she wanted.
    The turn-off leading to the Wilsons’ home sat only a few hundred feet ahead. He’d told Tawny he hadn’t returned for a reunion. Part of that was true when it came to Olivia. But Kris…
    He’d heard about their dad’s death last year. Kris and his father had been close since his mother had passed away from cancer not long after Olivia had been born. It had taken everything Eion had not to come back to town for Kris when his father had died. But what good would that have done? Seeing him and Olivia again during their grief would have worsened their pain, not offered them comfort. Besides, he was pretty sure he’d burned the welcome mat to the Wilsons’ door when he’d cut them both out of his life after high school.
    But this time was different. Now with Kris’s dad gone and his leg out of commission, Eion knew how much Kris was struggling to hold it all together. Kris may have grown up on a ranch, but the man had chosen to be a soldier, not a cattle rancher. Was he really that much of a cold bastard that he could stay here without seeing his best friend? Maybe there was something he could do, if Kris would allow him, to make things a little easier. Then he could get out of town