Lord of the Wolfyn and Twin Targets Read Online Free PDF

moon lest he claim the Right of Challenge for the pack leadership, which had gone to her brother, Kenar, rather than down through her as was traditional. So, as the Scratch-Eye pack’s “guest”—that was the name given to the few accidental realm travelers who by some quirk of the vortex magic couldn’t return home through the standing stones—Dayn had become Keely’s choice. She had laid it out with the blunt practicality of a wolfyn: sex once a year, nothing more or less. Which worked just fine for him for a number of reasons.
    Their relationship might have begun as a transaction, but over time it had mellowed to friendship. Or what did the humans call it? Friends with benefits. But, friends or not, he didn’t tell her that he was almost certain this had been the last time. He didn’t dare. Instead, he said, “Thanks but no thanks on the staying over. And you wouldn’t have asked if you didn’t know that would be my answer.”
    “You understand me too well. So…same time next year?”
    “Of course,” he said, and then added, as he always did, “unless you’re mated by then.”
    Her eyes flashed. “Kenar is a good alpha.”
    That was debatable, but Dayn wasn’t going to get Keely or any of the other pack members to admit that their alpha was more interested in himself than the pack or its traditions. Or that it had been wrong for him to twist those traditions around in order to run off the male Keely’s father had brought in from an outside pack to be her mate and his successor. Granted, the male— Roloff—shouldn’t have left. But that didn’t make Kenar right.
    Since there was no point in picking the fight, though—“been there, done that” was a particularly apt human saying in this case—he blew her a kiss. “Until next year, then.” Which was a lie, but a necessary one. In the entire wolfyn realm, only the pack’s wisewolfyn, Candida, knew who and what he truly was, and that it was almost time for him to go home.
    “Of course,” Keely agreed. “That is, unless you find a mate between now and then.”
    He had his hand on the door, but looked back, surprised. “Me? No. Not in the cards.”
    “The Stone-Turn pack’s new guest is pretty.”
    “I’m not interested in taking a mate.” Besides, the newcomer wasn’t the woman he was waiting for, the one he’d been dreaming of more clearly every night over the past week, waking each morning with the image of a heart-shaped face, dimpled chin and go-to-hell attitude topped with curly, red-streaked hair. Hurry, he wanted to tell her. Please, hurry.
    Keely looked at him quizzically. “If that’s not it, then what’s bothering you?” To the wolfyn, problems always boiled down to politics or family. Since he wasn’t involved in pack politics, that left family—or, in his case, his lack of one.
    “I’m fine. I promise.” Sketching a half salute in her direction, he said softly, “Have a good run.” Already, he could see the amber fire at the back of her eyes. And, as he let himself out of her place, he could feel the hum of change magic on the air. It crinkled along his skin, stirring the restlessness that had been riding him harder and harder as the days passed and there was no sign of his guide. Frustration gnawed at him, making him feel itchy, twitchy. He wanted to race through the darkness, pick a fight, howl at the moon….
    Instead, he headed for the small log cabin he’d built near the standing stones, zipping his jacket and shoving his hands in his pockets as he hiked along the two-mile path. The blood moon lit the night with the eerie blue-white light that was almost as bright as day, though monochromatic. By the time his cabin came into view, the air already carried a chorus of excited yips and deeper, spine-shivering howls.
    His cabin, little more than a single long room with a central chimney and big hearth, was laughably rustic as far as the pack members were concerned. He had used human-style insulated windows,