Stanley, Gale - Hellfire [Southwest Shifters 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Read Online Free PDF

her biological family. She hardly spoke at all. She buried her past. It was too painful. Puberty came and went, yet she never shifted. Her wolf remained confined, just like her human self.
    Then one day she overheard a conversation between her stepparents.
    The woman’s voice sounded shrill, and the man kept shushing her. “I don’t think she’s going to shift. Maybe she can’t.”
    “She can, all right,” he told her. “They all can. Or could. But it doesn’t matter. We don’t have to prove she’s functional. They want her, and they’ll pay for her. That’s all I care about.”
    “Why do they want her?” the woman asked.
    “Who cares? You know I never planned to keep her.” There was no mistaking the hard disgust and dislike in the man’s voice.
    Although she had never revealed her identity, they had known all along she was Lycan. Just as she suspected, the man had been one of those who burned down her village. Now he intended to sell her. Kate had no idea who they were, and she had no intention of sticking around to find out. A day came when the man and woman locked her in her bedroom and went out of the house. Kate packed a small bag that she could carry in her jaws. Then she broke the window in her bedroom.
    She had never shifted before. The change always came with sexual maturity, but there had been no one to guide her through it, just as there was no one to guide her now. She was scared to death, not even sure she knew how to transform her body. But the broken window was her incentive. The man and woman would find the shattered glass, and she would never get another chance.
    Suddenly visions of her childhood had resurfaced, and her eyes brimmed with tears. She could almost hear Casey’s taunts. In typical big-brother fashion, he would never tolerate her crying. “Stop whining,” he’d tell her. “You’re a wolf. Remember, Kweo has placed some of his own heart and spirit inside you. Find it and you will find your inner wolf.”
    Change begins in the mind.
    The body serves the mind.
    We are shaped by the mind.
    She had concentrated and repeated Casey’s mantra over and over, and it had taken her to a place of spiritual transformation that called to her wolf.
    Instinctively her body had dropped to a crouch and bent forward, twisting in painful contortions. God, how it hurt. Her bones pushed and pinched, threatening to pierce her skin. Black fur had raced over her limbs, and her face elongated into a snout. At last the agony ended with the eruption of a tail wagging furiously. The black wolf was glad to be out. It took her bag in its jaws, leaped through the second-floor window, and discovered it had the righting reflexes of a cat. It ran and never looked back.

    * * * *

    “The unseasonably early drought, which could go down as one of the nation’s worst, has spread across twelve states. Severe water restrictions are being enforced as record temperatures are broken. A massive wildfire in Arizona that has already burned hundreds of square miles of forest and forced thousands of people to evacuate is now poised to move into New Mexico . F ire crews are cutting down trees and burning fuels to try to stop its advance.”
    Gage shut off the radio and turned a worried face to Tanner.
    “What? We knew it was coming. The drought left the state ripe for wildfire.” He put his arms around Gage. “I don’t like fire any more than you do. If it gets close, Alex will probably want to evacuate. We can’t do anything about it. If you want to worry about something, focus on this header so I don’t get a concussion every time I walk in the front door.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Gage and Tanner stayed inside and worked on their house all day, thankful they didn’t see Alex. Neither man wanted to lie to their Alpha, but they weren’t ready to come clean yet either. Whether or not they confided in him depended on tonight’s meeting.
    At seven they showered and dressed in black jeans. Tanner wore a white shirt.