Haunted Wolves: Green Pines, Book 2 Read Online Free PDF

you’re a smart man?”
    “I’m trying to be, darling. God knows I’m trying.”
    It felt easier than anything had in a while, smiling up at him as he led her around the floor. “Tell me about yourself.”
    His hand drifted from her hip to the small of her back as he tucked her hand against his shoulder. “What have you heard?”
    That he was a fighter. That he was dark. “Does it matter?”
    “I’ve wondered a little if my reputation preceded me in a bad way.”
    She bit her lip. “Is this payback for calling you Batman?”
    “You like to poke at a man’s ego, don’t you?” The song drifted into another one, and he guided her between two other couples without releasing her.
    “I wasn’t poking,” she protested. “But I do find it interesting that you took it that way. Most men wouldn’t mind being called a hero.”
    He snorted softly. “If they took it seriously.”
    “Who says I wasn’t being serious?”
    “I’m not a hero, Lorelei. I’m the farthest thing from it.”
    She’d eased closer somehow, practically pressed against him now. “So tell me why.”
    “Monsters.” He rested his chin atop of her head, slowing their movements to a gentle sway. “You spend too much time chasing them, and they’re all you can see anymore.”
    He needed a break, then. To find himself again in a place where the only monsters were the ones chasing you in your dreams. “Not many people would consider founding a sanctuary to be much of a vacation.”
    “So far it’s too much of one. I need to do something.” This time, his laugh sounded forced. “Got any dragons I can slay for you?”
    Her answer was far from reassuring, but all she could give him. “Only the ones in my head.”
     
     
    Only the ones in my head.
    Colin killed the engine on his bike and watched Lorelei climb out of Eden’s car. Plenty of other vehicles were scattered across the scuffed grass at the end of Green Pines’s twisting drive—Jay’s beat-up old truck, Fletcher’s pristine ’66 Corvette and the junker the other Memphis refugees had arrived in. When Jay rolled up in his police-department SUV and Shane on his bike, the front yard would look like a party. A perpetual, never-ending party.
    Looks could be deceiving.
    Only the ones in my head. The moonlight glinted off Lorelei’s hair and silvered her features. Standing next to Eden, with both of them painted in light and shadow, they looked like the cousins Eden had told the town they were. Like sisters, even, but while Colin could appreciate Eden’s girl-next-door good looks, Lorelei possessed an elegant, glamorous beauty, like a starlet from the golden age of Hollywood. Especially when she smiled.
    He wanted to make her smile all the time.
    Kaley walked up beside him and nudged him with her shoulder. “You look broody. Didn’t you have fun at the festival?”
    “Sure I did.” Colin swung his leg over his bike and managed a smile. “Ate my weight in junk food.”
    “So…you have indigestion?”
    “Brat.” He resisted the urge to tease her about dancing with Fletcher. The last thing anyone needed to do was chase her back to moping over Zack. “Do you and Mae need help putting up supplies?”
    “No, we’ll manage.” Mischief glinted in her eyes. “Besides, you—”
    A terrified scream pierced the night, and Tammy ran from behind the smaller farmhouse toward the cars. “Phillip! It’s Phillip.”
    Instinct had Colin moving before he made the conscious decision to cross the intervening space. The refugees from Memphis who lived in the little farmhouse weren’t members of Zack’s original pack. They had belonged instead to the corrupt wolf who’d caused Zack and his people so much pain. That Christian had abused his own pack every bit as brutally was a truth no one at Green Pines questioned, but awkwardness still lingered between the two groups after a month together on the farm.
    Tammy was the most bruised one of all. Colin was pretty sure the only reason she kept