Once A Wolf Read Online Free PDF Page B

desire to hunt El Lobo in the wolf shape he'd nearly forgotten. He let his keen
    sense of smell guide him. El Lobo was close, very close…
    He jerked up in his seat, the scent still in his nostrils. His spine thrummed with awareness.
    El Lobo. He got up and moved into the aisle, hardly aware of the eastern ladies who whispered
    about him as if they'd never seen a westerner before.
    He knew with absolute certainty that El Lobo was on this very train.
    Tomás had forgotten, over the years, just how beautiful she was.
    Beautiful. He had seen heads turn and eyes follow him enviously when he escorted Lady
    Rowena through Grand Central Station and onto the train. Men had bowed and stammered in
    her presence, as if she were royalty and they'd forgotten all their democratic American
    principles.
    But they didn't know Lady Rowena Forster. She was indeed beautiful—and about as warm and
    womanly as a marble statue. Her hair was richly blond but tightly coiffed in a conservative style,
    and her face never revealed a single untoward emotion. Her traveling suit was simple but a la
    mode, hugging her slender figure but revealing not a single inch of skin from neck to toe tip.
    She belonged in one of those vast overdecorated drawing rooms so beloved of the wealthiest
    New Yorkers who sought to copy the European aristocracy.
    At least that was what she believed.
    Now, as the train approached the Kansas-Colorado border, she occupied herself in gazing out
    the window at the passing scenery as if it fascinated her. Tomás knew from experience that her
    goal was more to avoid him than observe the landscape.
    He settled back in his upholstered seat and studied her out of the corner of his eye. Even near
    the end of a long train journey she managed to keep herself stiffly upright, her back seldom
    touching the seat. For the past several days she'd remained detached, regal, unfailingly polite
    and distant as the moon.
    Once A Wolf – 19th Century Werewolf 02
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    The fact that they shared a berth in the sleeping car had done little to encourage her to speak
    to him, except to inquire further about her brother. Fortunately, he knew just enough to hold
    her at bay. And her long silences gave him every opportunity to recall in detail what she'd been
    like in England.
    Of course he'd known her then under different circumstances, when she'd been forced to
    extremes by her elder brother's expectations. And "know her" was too presumptuous a phrase.
    He'd left England before her escape to America.
    Here, at last, she considered herself safe. Safe to be the proper human lady. Safe from the
    werewolf heritage she refused to accept, because Cole MacLean had convinced her that he
    shared her revulsion for the shapeshifter's way.
    Tomás laughed silently. How well MacLean had deceived her. He'd revealed only that side of
    himself he wanted her to see.
    And what had she revealed to MacLean? That took a bit of imagination. The lady was scarcely
    an exhibitionist, either of form or feeling. If she ever let that gorgeous hair fall about her
    shoulders, Tomás was not privileged to see it. Each night she retreated behind the curtains of
    her lower bunk and, for all he knew, slept fully clothed, corset and all.
    But in the long, idle hours traversing the civilized East, changing trains in Chicago, and setting
    out at last across the open plains, he amused himself with quite a contrasting vision.
    Lady Rowena Forster. How shocked she'd be if she knew what he was thinking.
    In his imagination, she was no statue but a soft and passionate woman. She was neither prim
    nor proper. Instead of the close-fitting basque and corseted skirts, she wore a white
    embroidered blouse, short-sleeved and loose about the shoulders. The faint outline of her
    nipples lay like a shadow beneath the cloth. Her skirt was full and richly colored, falling just to
    her ankles. Her feet—currently shod in dainty boots—were bare.
    She looked at him, her eyes laughing. There was