Return of the Alpha Read Online Free PDF Page B

worry.
    That's when I heard it. Something was running through the undergrowth, and it was headed towards me. It burst through the bushes to my left-hand side. A large, female wolf. There wasn't enough time for me to shift. It would have been on me while I was still transforming. I held my breath and waited for the impact.
    “Coral!” Craven shouted.
    The wolf planted its front paws in the ground as it tried to stop. The momentum caused it to slide closer and closer until it came to a halt no more than six feet from me. I glanced at Craven as I tried desperately to figure out what was happening. When I looked back, the wolf had shifted into a beautiful woman.
    “Craven?” she said.
    I glanced back and forth between them. My fated mate and this beautiful female.
    “I thought you were dead,” Craven said.
    For several moments, it felt like I was invisible. “Aren't you going to introduce me?” I glared at Craven.
    Before he could speak, the female said, “I'm Coral.” The aggression which her wolf had displayed had been replaced by a warm smile. “I'm sorry if I scared you.”
    “This is Louise,” Craven said before I had the chance to introduce myself.
    “I often wondered if you'd found her.” Coral turned to me. “I've never met anyone so determined as your mate. You're very lucky.”
    Right then, I was feeling far more confused than lucky. I had a thousand questions.
    “Coral saved my life,” Craven said. His arm now around my shoulder. “I'd become careless, and had taken a terrible beating from a pack of border guards. She dragged my sorry arse out of this stream, and nursed me back to health.”
    “He's exaggerating. All I did was clean his wounds, and give him food and water.”
    All the time she was speaking to me, Coral was staring at Craven. I should have been grateful to her for saving my mate's life, but what I felt wasn't gratitude—it was jealousy.
     “Why don't we all go inside?” she said. “You both look as though you could do with something to eat.”
    “We should get going,” I said—trying to force a smile.
    “We can stay a while,” Craven said—his arm tightening around my shoulder. “It's been some time since we ate.”
    Coral beamed. I fought back an irrational desire to tear out her throat.
     
    It was much cooler in the cave, so Coral handed us a blanket each. I felt a little easier seeing her and Craven together now they were no longer naked.
    “How did you escape from Lawler?” Coral asked Craven.
    “I was lucky,” he said. “A male shifter broke me out of there.”
    “Who?”
    “I don't know—I'd never seen him before. He told me that Louise was still alive. I didn't get the chance to find out any more about him because we were forced to split up when we made our escape. He didn't make it.”
    “Is that how you found Louise?”
    “No. He didn't get the chance to tell me where she was—just that she was alive. That was enough to give me back the hope I needed to continue my search.”
    “You'd have done that anyway.” Coral turned to me. “I've never met anyone as determined as Craven. Most shifters would have given up long before. Particularly an alpha who could have his choice of mate. I tried to persuade him to stay with me, but he wouldn't hear of it. He had only one thought in his mind. Finding you.”
    I couldn't bear to listen to any more. “I'm going to take a walk.”
    “I'll come with you.” Craven made to follow me.
    “No!” I said more sharply than I'd intended. “You stay and talk to Coral. You obviously have a lot of catching up to do.”
    I walked along the edge of the stream which was swollen from the recent downpour. Why hadn't he told me about Coral before? Surely if there had been nothing between them he would have. I'd been a fool to believe Craven, an alpha, would go four decades without any kind of female companionship. No male could have suppressed his natural urges for all of that time.
    “Louise.”
    I'd been so deep in