Lone Wolf Dawn (Alpha Underground Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

reminiscent of Mother Wolf’s but subtly different. Being ushered inside, the door shut behind me to keep Mother Wolf at bay.
    Incalculable time lost to confusion, fear, anger. Then human words slowly changing from sound to meaningful expression.
    “By the time I could speak with my aunt,” my mate murmured, “the choice my mother made for me seemed like the ultimate betrayal. I was a stupid kid, so I ran away. But not back to the wolf who birthed me. Instead, I struck out on my own.”
    “Of course you were angry,” I murmured at last, tongue unruly with grogginess. “Your mother had dumped you into a world that confused and scared you.”
    In an instant, Hunter’s mood shifted to anger so strong I could feel the root-beer aroma pushing up against my skin. “ She’d done the best she could ,” my mate growled.
    My muscles tensed in an instinctive urge to flee the danger. But then the uber-alpha forced his ire back down inside as he physically pushed the aroma away from my nose with a wave of one hand. “She’d done the best she could,” he repeated more quietly and gently this time around. “But when I finally got over myself and went back to find her, she was dead. Our pack of dogs was disbanded. I was too late.”
    I couldn’t see my bed mate, but I could feel him as he unerringly clasped both hands around either side of my head. His touch was firm at first, then it gentled as he stroked calloused fingers across my unruly hair. “ That’s why I’m asking you to give your mother another chance,” he whispered into the darkness. “She won’t be around forever and you never know when her time will run out.”
    I thought he was done and my eyes were drifting shut once more when Hunter’s final words settled around me like a warm blanket. “I love you too much to help you make the same mistakes I’ve regretted for half of a lifetime,” he murmured.
    My mate had invoked the L word, but I was too tired to protest. Instead, I fell asleep to the sensation of his warm lips gently pressing into my forehead, a happy smile imprinted on my face.
     
     

Chapter 4
    I woke to an empty hotel room, mate absent.
    No, not absent— gone . My gut ached with an intensity I hadn’t felt since casting Hunter out of my ramshackle pack a month earlier. And when I reached out tentatively with my mind in search of our mate bond, I found nothing but darkness.
    Somehow, I knew Hunter hadn’t just slipped away to pick up a cup of coffee and the morning paper.
    You’re overreacting , I told myself. But my wolf growled within my skin, her nose picking up on clues my human half hadn’t been able to decipher. And when I tore through the suite to confirm her supposition, the signs were indeed ominous.
    The three bloodling pups were no longer present and their bathroom den looked no worse than if a few humans had taken half a dozen showers apiece there. Hunter’s suitcase was similarly absent and the hotel receipt sitting beside the sink had a checkout time circled in red ink. Even my mate’s scent had dissipated as if he’d never shared this temporary abode with me and the pups.
    Hunter said he loved me, then he left me , I thought, a stress headache starting up behind my right temple. I should have known it was coming. It’s happened before....
    My wolf had reverted to wordlessness several minutes earlier. But now she growled again, more loudly this time. No, my inner beast wasn’t willing to admit that our mate had abandoned us without a note or forwarding address. I could feel her gathering herself together in order to muster two short words: Call him.
    Good idea. Rational idea. Why hadn’t I thought of it first?
    I hit the first button on my speed dial with more force than was really necessary and listened to the resultant ringing as I tossed the few belongings I’d unpacked into my duffel and strode out the door. Hunter’s SUV was gone, but a shiny rental car gleamed in the space he’d opened up. I had a sinking