Island of the Alphas (Steamy Werebear Shifter BBW Menage Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page B

delightful cookbook-slash-memoir from an actress whom I’d always taken a liking to. It was part of a birthday gift I’d received about a year ago. As I briefly thought of that night, I felt a pang of anger.
     
    Jim.
     
    The asshole that I was supposed to spend my entire life with. The entire two years we had dated, I thought I had finally found a man who appreciated my curves, even with somewhat unfulfilling sex. Instinctively, I reached for the ring on my finger, feeling its absence as a harsh reminder of his deceit — and his filthy, soul-crushing lies.
     
    Caught in bed with my best friend. The betrayal had crushed me. It hadn’t helped that she was seriously skinnier than I was, and it had the extra layer of pulling up every last insecurity in the book.
     
    Was that why I was here? My gaze lifted from the books in my hands to stare across my house. I had been so upset that I barely fought being sent back to backwoods, rural Utah. After all those years dreaming my way out, two traitors caught in my bed had sent me spiraling right back into its welcome arms.
     
    I set the books in my hands in their spots of the shelf, next to the others. Rising from the floor, I poured myself a glass of iced tea and sauntered towards the back patio again. Gazing over the edge of my glass as I sipped, I decided to myself that I was finally home. I wouldn’t let the past guide me anymore. All those miserable years here…the heartbreak after I had planned my entire life…all that wasted time. None of it mattered anymore. What was important was how I felt about where I was — this beautiful house being a major part of that.
     
    No, all that matters is the present. And for that, well…this is my home now. I took another long sip from the iced tea, my eyes gazing out towards the trees.
     
    For the slightest hint of a second, I thought I saw those faces again, grinning from the woods.
     
    *              *              *              *
     
    A week later, I strolled into the house, ready to make myself something to eat. I was feeling a bit peckish, and had been meaning to try out this new recipe one of the women at the grocery store had told me.
     
    That’s what I love about these small towns, I told myself. Everyone’s so friendly.
     
    But the sound of something falling a few rooms over made me freeze, my head deep in the refrigerator. What the hell was that?
     
    I poked my head out, gazing towards a hallway, and heard nothing else. Eager to figure out what was going on, I closed the refrigerator and wandered towards the source of the noise. This house IS pretty old, I told myself. Maybe something fell off the wall. Surely THAT’S it.
     
    It sounded like it had been my bedroom-turned-office. Flicking on the light, I froze with a gasp.
     
    The room had been torn apart. The drawers were pulled free from my cabinet; their contents were scuffled around the bed. The spare closet door was standing open, and the place was ransacked for whatever was available. The packed boxes on the floor had been ripped open, half-emptied and strewn about on the floor.
     
    Someone’s robbed me! I shouted in my head. What other rooms have they hit?
     
    “Get on the floor,” I heard from a gravelly, older voice. Instinctively I whirled around, coming face to face with the gun that was emerging from behind the door. Attached to it was a grizzly older male, a ski mask pulled down over his face. Tufts of shoulder-length, graying hair poked out from beneath the rim of his mask, but my attention was pulled immediately to his demanding eyes.
     
    “Lady, I said get down on the fucking floor ,” he repeated. My eyes immediately flew towards anything, anything within grasp, but I knew it was fruitless. By the time I had my hands around a candlestick holder or the handle of a knife, even if any of that stuff was in here, I would already be dropping to the ground with a few fresh bullets inside me.
     
    I felt