Rosko, Mandy - Mate of the Wolf (Siren Publishing Classic) Read Online Free PDF Page A

returned the papers to their envelopes and threw them back under the bed. She turned to do the same to the things she’d moved or knocked over, but then cringed at the mess around her. Everything was in disarray. Everything.
    What had seemed like the best way to blow off her anger and get a little revenge now looked like the biggest mistake she’d ever made apart from being in that soap opera.
    Should she right the table and chairs? She didn’t have time to do that and put the things she’d taken from the cupboards and drawers back the way she’d found them. Few personal possessions as there were, she still didn’t remember exactly how she’d found them.
    Whatever. She’d stare him in the eyes and not be afraid for what she’d done. It was his fault for leaving her by herself anyway. She had a good mind to pull the letters back out and place them neatly, face up on his bed, letting him know she’d read them.
    Already he was at the door—she could see him through the window beside it, struggling to open it with the brown bags in his arms. She didn’t move to help him.
    He got the door open, stepped inside, and stopped. Wide gray eyes scanned the mess. With one brow raised he looked at her. She stood dead center in Ground Zero.
    “Find what you were looking for?” His eyes were hard and accusing.
    “Since I’m still here, no.” She took a sip from her stolen Pepsi can just to piss him off.
    He nodded, not pissed like she’d wanted. Damn. Maybe she really should have taken the letters back out.
    “All right.”
    He set the bags on the floor and turned the table and chairs to their proper positions. He put the bags on the table before folding his clothes back into his dresser. Shelley blushed and looked away as he did so.
    She thought he’d yell at her. Be all indignant and intimidating. This silence while he cleaned up and she didn’t help was infinitely worse.
    “I’m not going to apologize,” she said as he finished and moved back toward the table. He opened the bags and the scent of sausage, bacon, and eggs floated in the air like beautiful music for the nose.
    Shelley’s stomach rumbled in response. God. How long had it been since she’d eaten? He pulled Styrofoam boxes and more plastic cutlery from one bag, and the delectable smell thickened.
    “Wouldn’t expect you to,” he muttered, reminding her of what they’d been talking about.
    From the other bag, he pulled out bananas, a carton of orange juice, and a bag of Granny Smith apples. “Figured you would enjoy some fruit with your breakfast.”
    “You mean lunch?”
    “Eggs can be eaten at any time of day. Here’s for your ankle.”
    He tossed something at her. She caught it and looked down at the label. A squeeze bottle of lotion. According to the label it promised to both hydrate and soothe sensitive skin.
    How very…sweet.
    Shelley shook her head. No, no, no, that thought did not just pass through her brain.
    Safer topic, safer topic. Like, how was he able to buy her breakfast when it appeared as though he barely had enough money to live on?
    Then he opened one of the boxes, revealing two eggs, sunny-up, sausage, bacon, brown toast with those little jam packets, topped with twin golden pancakes, and more packets with syrup and butter.
    God. She was starving. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had pancakes, let alone buttered toast and eggs with the yellows. They were too fattening.
    He held out a plastic fork for her, and she took it, sat down, and dug in. Her ankle could wait.
    Hunched over her food as she was, she didn’t see what her kidnapper was doing until he set a plastic cup down beside her and poured the orange juice inside. A tiny Styrofoam plate with the apple slices and another container of caramel sauce came next.
    He must have had a real knife hidden somewhere to slice the apple. She’d have to remember that.
    But who cared about that right now? He’d just gotten her a feast for breakfast. Pancakes, eggs,