Hard As Steele (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Timber Valley Pack) Read Online Free PDF Page A

with.  The Council of Elders, the thirteen Elders who made final decisions over the affairs of wolf shifters across the nation, would be fine with any of those.  Granted, he’d never be permitted to start his own pack if he were to marry a woman from a different shifter species, but the Elders wouldn’t have too much of a hissy fit over it.
                  But a human? Forget about it. It was the ultimate taboo for a shifter.
                  For a shifter of any species to reveal their existence to humans was an instant death sentence. He wouldn’t have revealed his secret to her anyway – the safety of his species was far more important than the feelings of one man.  The two of them could never be together. 
    How had this even happened to him? At thirty years old, he’d begun to think that he’d never fall for anybody.  He’d dated plenty, he’d had sex, he’d had one night stands and short lived affairs, but until he’d looked into Roxanne’s beautiful chocolate brown eyes, he’d never felt anything more than mild affection for the women he’d been with.
                  One look at her, and he’d felt as if a thunderbolt had hit him. He couldn’t exactly put his finger on what it was about her – her laugh, her face, her sense of humor, her hot body, her cheerfulness…God only knew, but he was hooked.
                  He had been weak to give in to that one night of passion, but he didn’t regret it. He’d known that it would be a night like he’d never experienced before, and he’d been right. He finally knew what it was like to really make love to a woman, not have sex with her. He knew what it felt like to plunge his body into the softest, sweetest body he’d ever felt before, and mingle his soul with her at the same time.
                  Now, he suspected, he’d spend eternity replaying that night in his head again and again, because even in that brief time, she’d seeped into his heart and left no room for another. 
                  Glumly, he tossed some logs on and stoked the fire, then crouched before it, watching the flames leap.             
                  At least she hadn’t seen him shift.  The full moon wreaked all kinds of havoc with shifters. Wolf shifters, in particular, were very sensitive to it. They tended to lose control and compulsively shift during a full moon, which is why he’d gone outside and dashed off into the woods. It just took an hour of running through the forest in his wolf form and he got it out of his system.
                  That was one of the many reasons that shifters never lived in cities with humans. They frequently travelled through human country, they could visit, they could stay for short periods of time, but they could never stay for more than a few weeks or they risked exposing their secret.
    The problem was that they had to regularly shift, or it would happen spontaneously whether they wanted to shift or not, and the full moon had an especially strong effect on shifter wolves; it caused many involuntary cases of shifting. Shifters could be sitting around at the dinner table, or on the front porch, or hanging out in a bar, and they’d suddenly shift.  Living in remote areas of the country, in tiny towns where no humans lived, they were safe from discovery.
                  Wolf shifters could also only impregnate their mates on a full moon. Fortunately, she was human, so that was one thing he’d never have to worry about. 
                  Roxanne’s light, happy voice floated through the air. “Good morning, werewolf.”
                  Shock rippled through his body. Please, tell me I didn’t hear that right , he thought to himself. She was asleep when I left her!
                  He turned to look at her. “What’s that?”
                  “I saw you turn into a wolf last