Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels Read Online Free PDF Page B

her brain had something to do with Cole. Even without engaging the thoughts, Cole still had a “starring role” in her mind.
    The moon peered out from behind a cloud, bright, round and full. Like always, Dana felt the tug of it, its seductive pull on her wolf. That was probably why she’d had so much trouble today dealing with her beast. It had wanted to come out because of the moon. (Never mind the fact that she never used to have the problem of controlling the wolf on full moons, at least not before Cole.) There were three wolf moons a month—the full moon, and the days immediately before and after. Tonight was the true full moon. Last night had been the night before, but Arnold had still shifted. He’d given in, let the moon do what it wanted to him.
    The moon gave Dana a cold, knowing grin. Shift , it whispered in Cole’s voice. Shift for me. You’re very beautiful, Dana. Shift for me.
    Dana’s scar throbbed on her abdomen, pulsing with the beat of her heart. She picked up the pace, pumping her legs. Sometimes, she could run hard enough that she was too tired to think. She could push her body to the point where exertion was her only reality. It was the only time she had relief.
    * * *
    Her hair was pasted to her forehead with sweat, which was running down the back of her neck and over her forehead when she got back to her apartment. She shut the door after herself, and there was movement out of the corner of her eye.
    She shrieked.
    “It’s me.”
    Avery. He was in the living room. All the staff apartments in headquarters were set up the same way. They opened onto a small kitchen, complete with a breakfast bar that jutted out from the wall, bisecting the kitchen area from the living room. Bedrooms were off the left or right of the living room, depending on whether the apartment was one, two, or three bedroom.
    Avery was getting up from her couch, his hands up in surrender.
    She put a hand to her chest. “Brooks. I didn’t... I wasn’t expecting...”
    He made his way over to her. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He looked at the floor. “I guess I shouldn’t have let myself in. It’s just that I always used to walk right in.”
    “It’s fine,” she said. She crossed to her refrigerator and took out a bottle of water. She sucked on it eagerly.
    “You been working out?”
    “No, I’ve been in a sauna.” But her joking tone didn’t come off quite right. She sounded a little too cutting, too sarcastic.
    “You always used to work out in the mornings,” said Avery.
    She guzzled the rest of the bottle of water. They said you weren’t supposed to drink it that fast for some reason or other, but she didn’t care right now. “I still do sometimes.” She wasn’t about to tell Avery that she sometimes went for a run five or six times a day. It depended on how hard it was to stop thinking about Cole. The more she ran, the more stamina she built up. The harder it was to exhaust herself. It was a vicious cycle.
    Chantal said it was becoming a compulsion. She said Dana needed to confront her unwanted thoughts about Cole, not run from them.
    Dana thought that was rich, since she was also not supposed to engage with them. Wasn’t confrontation engagement?
    “Hope you didn’t wear yourself out too much,” he said. “We got a call.”
    Dana wasn’t sure why she hadn’t been expecting that. The full moon was their busiest time. It was very rare for problems to happen at other parts of the month. Wolves couldn’t shift without the full moon. The SF spent most of the month playing catch up from the previous full moon.
    She looked down at her sweaty self. “Right. Do I have time to jump in the shower?”
    “You better,” said Avery, grinning. “You reek.”
    She laughed.
    “So, um, I’ll come back in ten minutes?”
    “Oh, hang out,” she said. “You can tell me all about the case while I’m in the shower.”
    Avery raised his eyebrows. “Um...”
    She laughed again. “Relax,