Territory - Prequel Read Online Free PDF

brother.  One corner of his mouth lifted.  He’d hounded Mace for years until Briggs came into his own and followed suit with Dell.  After seeing how annoying pesky little brothers could be, Dell had reined it in, but he hadn’t been so lucky with Briggs.  Briggs was the baby after all and was therefore never afforded the opportunity to be harassed incessantly by a younger sibling, so he saw no problem with annoying Dell at every possible opportunity.
    He’d sensed at the meeting that Briggs had taken umbrage with Dell’s directive, but his little brother would do as he was told for it was his job to lead by example when it came to showing respect and submission to the new Alpha’s orders .
    Cindy , on the other hand, had snuck out before the meeting was over; leaving Dell unable to question her about the information she was obviously keeping from him.  When the meeting concluded and he’d explained himself more thorough ly to a few of the more emotional pack members, he’d opted to let Cindy have this one.  He’d get the information she was harboring from her in the morning.  He was Alpha now, and as a member of his pack, Cindy was obligated to conform to his wishes, which included supplying him with any and all information he sought.  He could have just contacted her telepathically, or—as he’d recently discovered—gotten access to her thoughts without her permission, but he wanted to be a fair leader, a just Alpha , and that meant giving her the opportunity to do the right thing .
    He rubbed a hand over his f irm abdomen , grateful that the queasiness had finally subsided.  It was an effort even now, to keep from thinking about Chloe Lott and whatever it was that she had done to him.  He prayed for her sake that it wasn’t some form of medicine, or that it wasn’t intentionally done.  He could literally scent her pain from a mile away and he knew from personal experience that pain that great often led to extremely foolish decisions.
    Chloe.   His gut spasmed at the mere thought of her .  Growling against the pain, he allowed himself to remember.  He had forgotten about her.  Forgotten he’d been interested in her. 
    She’d caught his eye in high school, and it wasn’t her beauty that attracted him.  And God had she been beautiful.  His abdomen squeezed tighter.  She still is.   No, he’d been drawn to her character.  She was new to the school . Where most teenage girls to a new area would have been doing their damnedest to get in with the ‘it crowd’ , Chloe hadn’t . She seemed disinterested in the social sects of the high school and even less concerned with anyone else’s opinion of her.  His lips curled despite the pain in his belly.  He remembered the day she’d arrived .
    He was late for algebra and was racing for his homeroom when he saw her scanning a class assignment card at the end of the hall.  She was eyeing the numbers at the top of each door, clearly lost.  He intended on stopping to point her in the right direction when her shout had his feet skidding to a halt.
    “Hey!  Leave him alone!”
    She was frowning down a hallway and when she disappeared down it, Dell raced to see what was happening.  He was more than a little shocked to find her standing in the hall, hands on slender hips, scowling up at a senior football player that towered at least three feet taller .  At her feet, a wiry under classma n with broken glasses was picking up a pile of books.
    “You’re so tough ?  Why don’t you try picking on someone your own size?”
    The football player snorted and took a challenging step closer to her.  “Would that be you?”
    Watching, Dell expected Chloe to back down but she didn ’t.  Instead , she stepped closer to the boy.  Whatever her retort would have been Dell never found out.
    “No, that’d be me, ” He’d answered as he strode toward the trio. 
    Dell didn’t know the football player, but he apparently knew Dell because he instantly